1. AURORA ROOSEVELT
'I should have died.' The teardrop felt strikingly cold, rolling down my bruised inflamed cheek, leaving a burning sensation in its wake.
It barely takes one day, no, not even one day but one second for your world to fall apart. One moment you are laughing and giggling with your loved ones, and the next they are all lying lifeless, in pools of blood in their worst possible states, cruelty of human life evident at its peak.
It was supposed to be a happy and bright day, as bright and warm as the weather looked outside. Birthdays are supposed to be like that, aren't they?
Dad had been hurrying all of us for our surprise trip and I had been dilly-dallying all this time. But he couldn't make it in himself to scold his precious little daughter (an eighteen year old little daughter to be more precise), definitely not on her big day for being that forever lazy ass.
I should have understood the fear in his panic stricken eyes, or the changes in the pitch of his voice, or his cluttered actions - they hadn't been anywhere near to his regular hurried ones - if anything, they were terror stricken. And yet I had failed to analyze all of them - resulting in two brutal deaths and another one in a gruesome state.
Where had it all gone wrong?
Dad had always been so upright, always smiling and proud of me. What forced him into such a dangerous circle of people? Or most importantly, where had our love fallen short that he never thought of disclosing this to mom or simply be honest to me about all of it.
Were we so hard on him? No. No matter how many times I try to recall our family, it was always a smiling man, standing beside a woman who only had eyes for him and her two children - one a cute little eleven year old boy whose smile was enough to bloom flowers and then a stupid young girl with big and expensive dreams that costed her lives of her parents and near death state of her younger brother.
All I see now is the red, the same one which painted our walls today, that metallic scent clawing at my throat even after crying my guts out and the copper tang lingering on my tongue that I wish could simply kill me.
I try to move, but the searing pain radiating through my arm forces a scream from my throat, the slightest movement crushing me as though my bones have shattered to dust.
I thought I had gone numb, but every blow, every violation lingers in my body. From all those hits, all hands and legs and d!cks being forced from all over that I had lost count of the number of times I begged - but guess what? I could still feel that torture, as if it had happened minutes ago, when half a day has already passed.
I had been slipping in and out of consciousness and it truly felt enough to kill me, but it didn't.
*cough cough-* "Arrgghhh!" I couldn't even manage to cough, forget speaking.
My head throbs from torn hair, throat swollen up from strangulation that nearly choked the life out of me, my limbs burn from every failed attempt to fight back, my bleeding hole down there now inflamed and my heart - it had gone cold.
The silent room still managed to echoe my cries from hours ago, my pleas that only seemed to excite those monsters who stripped me bare.
'I can not bear this pain. God *sobs* if you are.. you are there.. please.. please kill me.. me. I.. just want.. to.. to die-'
"Thud."
"Thud."
"Thud."
The sound of heavy boots against the wooden floor echoed like a countdown to my doom, each step louder, heavier, suffocating. My chest tightened, and I couldn't hold back the whimper that slipped from my lips.
'God plea.. please don't.. don't send him⊠I can't.. I can't.. please-'
The door creaked open, releasing a curl of thick, acrid smoke into the room and the loud thud of boots against the wooden floor finally came to a stop as I barely managed to remain conscious. My stomach churned at the bitter smell, a vile mix of tobacco and blood.
And then I saw him.
Even the room felt suddenly colder than Antarctica, the icebergs compared nothing to the living icerock standing in front of my eyes.
I would never be able to forget this face even if you were to send me to the depths of hell. The bone chilling terror it sent to every single living cell in my body that I only wanted one thing - death.
That six feet demon was the peak of cruelty - the cigarette dangling lazily from his lips, the glowing ember casting fleeting shadows across his scarred body.
He took a slow drag, his eyes never leaving me, and exhaled with a smirk that sent ice through my veins. The smoke twisted and lingered, curling around him like a halo of malice.
My father's eyes had carried that fright at his first sight, sending enough warnings that he was not to be messed with and my father's guilt screamed that he had crossed that line.
Those shredded tattooed arms were the same that were stained with my family's blood, those cold eyes that hadn't blinked even at my loudest screams and that sardonic smile that had taken over the moment he broke me completely.
"Little lamb." And I knew I was already crying by how difficult I found to even breathe even when separated by an entire room, his voice stabbing every inch of my skin.