It was the morning after Julie returned home from the hospital and she woke up feeling fantastic. She smiled broadly at the Rolling Stones poster on her wall and sat up straight in her bed.

"I feel more alive than ever!" She shouted excitedly to her crush, Keith Richards. She jumped up off the bed and swirled around as if she were a child once more. She did not even care that she was still wearing the same t-shirt and jeans from the previous night.

Julie paused as if there was something that needed remembering and once more she looked towards Keith, this time for inspiration. She sat back down the bed and thought for a moment.

Her smiled faded as flashbacks of a nightmare she had that night flooded her mind. She placed a hand to her mouth as thoughts of being raped by that horrid man twisted to the front of her thoughts.

Julie tried to shrug the thoughts away from her mind. It was a dream, yet it felt so real.

She stood up and shook herself down, "It was a dream, Julie. A nasty one but still a dream." Julie walked the short distance to the open door and stepped out onto the landing. She froze.

There were voices coming from the front room. Muffled but prominent male voices.

"Hello, who's there?" Julie called to no response. The muffled voices continued, not acknowledging the young homeowner on the stairs.

Julie descended cautiously. Did they not hear her? That seemed unlikely. Julie reached the bottom step and was suddenly met by a male figure in a white forensic suit.

She felt her heart stop as their eyes locked for a brief moment then the man proceeded to ascend the stairs as if she was not there.

"Hey!" She called after him. "What are you doing?"

The man ignored her and continued up the stairs and disappeared into her bedroom.

"What the fuck?" Julie said aloud. She was immediately met by a second man in a similar suit, and he was followed by a police officer. They both walked straight passed Julie and went up the stairs into her bedroom.

"Seriously! What is going on here? Will somebody answer me?" Julie had only just realised her front door was open and was about to close it until her attention was brought to the front room.

There were more police officers and forensic investigators inspecting every inch of the room. Their speech was unclear but she took no notice, her mind was already elsewhere.

Julie fell to her knees as an overwhelming urge to scream and vomit at once hit her like a ton of bricks.

No one paid her any attention, they could not. All the focus in the room was paid to the body lying in the middle of the floor, her body.

Julie sobbed at the physical image. She was lying on her back with hand prints pressed around her neck. She wore the same t-shirt, her jeans and underwear were pulled down and wrapped around one ankle. Bruising covered her legs from the recent beating she took from Don.

The thought of the man on top of her, assaulting her shrouded her mind. Julie stood up and ran out of the room, she reached the front door and tried to run out but was immediately stopped on the porch step just passed the threshold.

An invisible barrier prevented her from moving any further. She tried to push against it, tried to wrestle her way through but found she could not move any further than the step.

"No!" She screamed. Realisation struck, she was confined to that house, there was no way out. Julie was a Christian, she believed in heaven and hell, no one ever told her that hell was going to be her own home.

Eternity was too much to comprehend right now. Julie ran back inside, to where she had no idea. She leapt up the stairs and back into her bedroom.

The two forensic men and the police officer were going through her things. Julie shouted at them to stop but to no avail.

They ignored her, they could not hear her. No one knew or would even believe that she was still there watching them.

After sometime, Julie did not know how long, time seemed irrelevant now, she conceded trying to communicate with the living men and sat on the sofa staring into the lifeless eyes of her own body still untouched on the floor.

She was educated enough to know they could not touch or move the body until certain inspections were complete but she wished wholeheartedly that they could at least cover up her modesty; a bit of dignity in death would have been appreciated.

The men were obviously talking to each other but to Julie it felt like they were from another realm; the voices were still muffled and the words undistinguishable. It was like there was a veil between herself and them, a curtain between the living and the dead.

Feeling helpless, Julie could only watch as the eventual body bag came in and her lifeless corpse was removed. Some men remained to carry out further inspections, but they too also left after some time.

One lone police man stood on her driveway by nightfall. Tape was stretched across her front door and Julie was left skulking inside, oblivious to everyone outside her walls and the invisible void that kept her there.

Julie stood on the porch across the threshold as far as she could and just watched as the world carried on as normal without her in it.

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Word count- 30893

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