Human hideout

Hello, my name is Karen. Surely, you have found this letter inside a book on the shelf you have on the left. I don't know who you are or why you got this letter but I'm going to tell you my story.

I lived with my family, with my mother and my father. I was an only child. My father has always had a very strong addiction to alcohol, he would come home at three in the morning, completely drunk. He was almost never at home, he didn't work and he spent all my mother's salary at the bar. My mother tried to make him see the reasons to stop drinking but it didn't work. Instead, he started hitting her and hurting her physically. One day, in a moment of anger, he took a knife and stabbed my mother in front of me. The next person to be killed would be me, so I ran through the house to my room. I locked the door and started to write this letter so that someone would find it and the truth would be revealed. My father started to force the lock and he succeeded in getting in.

Thus, these are going to be my last words. I don't know how many years will be going on, maybe forty or maybe two, or maybe it will be a few months before someone finds this letter and knows this horrible story. When I finish this letter, I will hide it somewhere in this room, maybe I will be found or maybe not, I have thought of many places to hide.

Some time ago, I discovered that my armchair was hollow inside, that is, it had a cavity. I thought about that and started to dismantle the back to hide myself inside. That armchair is the one you are using right now, where you are sitting, maybe my lifeless body lies inside it, you would be sitting on top of me and I would be hugging you. So, why don't you look inside the armchair and find it out?


Eva Zhu
Institut Dertosa, Tortosa


*Conte premiat en la categoria de batxillerat i cicles formatius en el XI Concurs de microrelats de terror 2020, organitzat per la biblioteca de l'Institut Cristòfol Despuig.