*
I stood outside the small apartment in the bustling city, Deling City, and stared at the door. It had been repainted a dark burgundy since I was there last. The carpet had been replaced and the peeling wallpaper from my memory had been removed, the walls painted with a simple pale yellow instead. I pulled a key from my pocket and stared down at it. My brain was so quiet that it actually scared me.
I slipped the key into the lock and opened the door.
The apartment was just as I remembered, but it seemed even smaller. Stifling with memories of terror, rage, and violence. I closed the front door, setting my pack on the floor by it while my mind registered and relived each and every beating and violation.
I bent to pick up a beer bottle from the coffee table, feeling again the blunt force of the thing against my back. My fingers tightened around it briefly before setting it back down. A blood speckle on the carpet from a broken nose. A tear in the wallpaper from a thrown beer bottle that barely missed my head.
I made my way down the short hallway, pausing outside my room. Mostly everything was the same. There were extra boxes, but that was all. I stepped forward, passing the boxes as screams and cries assaulted my ears and numbed brain. I halted in front of the desk, a hand reaching out to touch the stained corner and then my patch-covered eye.
I balled my fist and turned, seeing again the shadow of Seifer's frame filling the doorway. Hearing the crash of my father being thrown across the room. Feeling the relief--I pushed it aside as I looked around the room, gauging the things and the memories and the nightmares that I had actually lived. Lived and survived.
Survived.
My lips twisted in a sneer and my foot kicked something when I stepped forward. I looked down. Then I stooped to retrieve... a paper doll--
...a child's laughter... "ring around the rosie; a pocket full of posies"... drawings and tea‑parties, doll houses and dress up... ...a small apartment in a bustling city... Deling City... Traffic sounds invade the small living room as a child with curls of brunette hair laughs and plays with a doll house made of shoe boxes, tissue paper, and marker‑drawn windows with curtains and blue skies. Her eyes are bright with innocence and laughter; her face is beautiful with the grace of youth--
I balled the paper doll into my fist and looked up, releasing it back to the floor as I stepped forward to exit the bedroom. My father had done much the same to my childhood. Mashing it between his fingers when he should have done something much different. I shouldn't have had to survive my childhood. I should have--
I pressed my lips together and moved to stand in the middle of the room as I stared at the front door. I looked at my watch. I moved to sit on the couch, arms crossed as I glared at the coffee table.
There was a fumbling of keys at the lock. I looked up and over as I adjusted my crossed arms. A familiar drowning wave of terror bubbled up, but I fought it back with my rage and hatred. The door was shoved open and my father entered, balancing keys along with two bags of groceries. He looked different than I remembered. Older. More haggard. Anger still burned in his face and eyes, but there was something--
He dropped his keys onto the catch-all dresser to the right of the door and faced forward, taking one step toward the kitchenette before halting. He paled and lost hold of one of the bags. It dropped to the floor, contents miraculously staying within.
I slowly stood. His gaze followed the motion, and his pallor became green. "A-Ahndra?"
The expression in my eye couldn't have been colder or harder than granite. "DADDY." And I used the word as insult in both voice and meaning.
He looked suddenly very sick.
I stepped forward. He took a step back and to the side when I continued toward my pack. I knelt and unzipped it, rifling within the contents to find what I searched for. I pulled it out, staring at it a moment before straightening and facing him again. I glared. "BASTARD."
But that wasn't enough. Sixteen years of hell on earth wouldn't let that word be enough.
I clenched my jaw, ignoring the throbbing within my eye. I reached up to pull the patch from my head. He cringed. I pointed at the scarred silver and then at him. "YOU. BASTARD." I fisted the eye-patch and reached over to jerk up my left sleeve. I pointed at the scars. "THIS." I bent to pull up my right pantleg. More scars. "THESE."
I straightened and stepped forward. He backed off yet again. I stretched out my hand that held the previously retrieved item. It was a broken angel figurine. My throat tightened. "YOU BROKE." I brought it up to my chest. To my heart. My soul. Who I was. Who I would have been. "THIS." I pounded my chest. "THIS! BASTARD!" My voice choked, and I flung the pieces at him.
He flinched away, deflecting them from his face with raised hands.
I stood silent and still until he faced me again. I gathered all the words I had ever wished to say. ". . .you, nothing," I hissed as I made a sharp gesture with my arm.
And then I strode up to him and spat in his face, daring him to retaliate. Daring him to strike out at me so I would have an excuse to kill him. He didn't move. He didn't even wipe the spittle from his face. He just stood there; one arm limp at his side while the other clutched his groceries.
I sneered and grabbed up the pieces of the angel before I turned, snatching up my pack as I left the apartment and strode down the hallway, leaving the past behind. Leaving the terror. The fear. The hell. Little by little it flowed from me like blood, oozing from the wounds and leaving me weaker. And what would I be without hatred to drive me? I reached the bottom of the stairs and slumped against the wall, my left hand releasing its vise-like grip on my pack. It thudded to the ground. Then I heard the footsteps. The same steady beat I'd heard . . . .
"Oh my god--Ahndra!" Steps approach a withered form at the bottom of the stairs.
The young woman barely has the strength to groan in pain as the young man moves her bruised and battered body, clothes ripped and tattered still clutched in place by gnarled fingers. The young man gathers her into his arms, ignoring her whispers of protest and her vain and weak attempts to push away. Terror and self-preservation drive her actions.
The young man turns and exits the three-story apartment to hurry toward the nearest hospital. "Hold on, Ahndra." He presses his lips together. "Damn it. Hold on."
I looked up. Honest intensity stared back at me. Calmness itself. A rock. As usual, I pushed myself up from the wall and grabbed my pack. I strode forward, Seifer falling into step beside me. Not taking anything. Not saying anything. Just being there. Seifer had always been there. Through the better times and the worse times. Through the beatings, the rapes, the broken bones, and the trips to the hospital. Seifer had seen it all. He was the only one who knew me.
The only person I trusted, if I even knew how to trust anyone.
My mind choked and stalled, so I simply headed forward. Past buildings, alleys, businesses, bus stops, and other blurred buildings. Terror still lurked; an unexplainable horror at a future I couldn't see to control. It was as if my father still controlled what I thought and felt. Though I had walked away from him twice, his angry eyes still made me do what I hated: give in--I halted, slamming my fist into the wall of the nearby building. Pain and blood erupted, spattering my face and clothes as it sprayed the wall and sidewalk. I struck out again, but a firm hold on my arm kept my fist back. I pulled against it, a terrifying coldness throttling any word I might have voiced.
"Fujin."
I pulled against the restraining hold again, blinking away a slight mist. My eye began to throb; the piercing pain was all I felt.
"Ahndra. Stop."
My fight with the hold ceased, and my arm went limp as I stared at the bloodied spot on the wall. Mind silent. Insides cold. I should have felt something. Anger. Rage. Fury. Relief. Anything. But as I stared at the bloody wall with the memory of my father's shocked face burning in my mind. . .nothing.
I pulled my arm from the hold's firmness; it released. I lowered my gaze to the speckled white of my shirt and raised
a hand to touch the spots of blood. Then the broken and bloodied knuckles on my hand caught my focus. Blood. Violence. Fury. That was all I ever remembered. All I ever saw. My only reaction to anything.
A hand reached within my field of vision to take hold of my bloodied one, but I jerked back and looked up and to my right.
Seifer presented a piece of cloth. "Here," he said simply.
I focused on the cloth for a moment before turning my head away and offering forward my hand. My skin crawled, muscles continuing to twitch as Seifer applied the makeshift bandage. I clenched my jaw, fighting back the nearly burning need to pull from the slight touch.
"You got your meds?"
I slightly nodded, teeth still clenched. "Pack."
The makeshift bandage was tied around my bloodied knuckles, and then Seifer crouched to rifle through my pack in search of the pills.
I grabbed the pack from him. "STOP."
Seifer straightened. "Damn it, Ahndra--" He broke off, clenching his jaw as he balled his hands into fists. Then Seifer grabbed my pack from my hands.
"STOP!"
"Stop what? What the hell am I doing?" He shook the bag at me. "Getting your damn pills! And what the hell is wrong with that? Nothing, god damn it! Now back off!"
'God damn it, Ahndra, I know what I'm doing! Get your hands out of the way!' I flinched and backed off before I could stop myself.
Seifer actually went green. He released a deep breath. "Ahndra," he said, calmer, "damn it, I'm not sayin' you can't do it yourself." He handed me the bag again. "I'm trying to help."
I reached out with a slow action, not meeting his gaze as I took the bag from him and searched within. "DON'T."
"Don't help?" Seifer asked after a pause. "Don't give a damn?"
His voice became softer with each question, an overwhelming intensity hiding beneath. I fisted my hands around the found bottle of pills as well as the strap of the pack as I stared down at the bottle label.
"Don't blame myself? Don't hate the bastard who did this? Don't want to blast his brains out? Don't what, Ahndra?"
My head snapped up. "DON'T!"
"That's not good enough," he said. His voice was still calmly controlled, even though I could hear the nearly explosive intensity in it. "You finally stood up to the asshole, and I'm damned proud of you. But you're not done. You can't be half-assed about this." He pointed sharply at me. "And you damn well know it."
I moved my glare back to the bottle of pills. I shook my head. "STOP."
Seifer crossed his arms. "Hell no I'm not going to stop, Ahndra. You've let the bastard control your life long enough. You're my friend, damn it, and I've finally pulled my head out of my ass far enough to see what I've got to do."
One side of my lips twitched upward in a surprising smile as I lifted my gaze to meet his. "SHOCK."
Seifer smirked. "Very funny." Then his serious expression returned. "But don't think I'm gonna let off, Ahndra. I'm gonna push, and I'm gonna push hard."
I turned away. "FINE." I'd been pushed around before.