The pressure used to be disturbing, it reminded me when my parents used to fight at the break of dawn till the moonlight was crystal clear.
No matter how many times my father broke my mother's heart, he had a couple rules and unfortunately my mother respected him for them. I can still remember her soft voice when I would come from school and question her, why she put up with the ass known as my father. She would hush me mid-sentence and jingle " Never laid a hand on me, never cheated, never lied, only complained" I'd scoff and mumble under my breath" Never laid a hand on you".
When I was three, my father locked me in a dark cupboard, that was so minuscule that I couldn't even lift my head; forget about stretching my legs, I was stuck in a crouch. It was as though he had prepared for that moment, with sound-proof walls. I must have been in there for hours, well enough for me to develop a trauma. My mother had found me sobbing. I still remember the trembling and roughness in my voice from screaming for her, the quivering and aching of my fingers, it took my mother hours to get the blood off my fingernails. I was in the hospital for a whole day, the doctors were nice, they gave me lollipops and hugs. Something I was used to from my mother, it felt nice for someone else to praise me. After being brought home, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't even shower without being forced back to that memory. Thus, my mother would stay next to me till I fell asleep, and then she'd leave the lights on, and go back to her room.
I remember thinking at the age of 10 " That must have been the cruelest thing my father has ever done". I wish I could rewind and warn myself of the future, but that is unfortunately not possible.
After I reached two-digit birthdays, my father had deemed me a man, and forced the trauma out of my head, he would lock me in my room and tell me to "man up". I recall hearing my mother begging him to let me out after all, I was just a child. He would ignore her screams and go out hunting. He was never physical with her, but is not emotional trauma just as bad as the physical. Eventually, I did "man up" and faced my fear and that is the only thing I can thank him for, because if not then I could never have been a marine, and in these dark and ominous waters I felt like I was at home. It felt as if instead of screaming and cowering from the dark I should have welcomed it all along.
The sudden shift in movement in the submarine gave me a heads up that something was wrong and broke my train of thought. I sprung out of my bed and charged towards the door. Swinging it open I saw some of my soldiers in panic run towards the escape pod and as the red lights started screeching my intuition came true, we've been hit and badly. Although we're supposed to be trained soldiers, we're all human, and we don't want to die.
Dodging the soldiers, I ran towards the emergency escape pods of the sub before they over crowded the room and no-one makes it out. I was the captains second in command so it was my duty to ensure everyone's safety including the captains. But nothing could have prepared me for the sight I was about to see from the circular glass, what I saw in the abyss was not from this world, or at least an animal; that thing was humongous and we were indefinitely about to die.
Well, Lorin it was a wild ride while it lasted, I thought to myself.