Chapter 1: Prologue (Burden in My Hand) (Revised Chapter)
Warnings: This story contains: Severe Violence, Language, & Content That May Not Be Suitable For A Younger Audience
Disclaimer-- I own naught that is copyrighted, ect, ect. in this story.
(Revised) Author's Note: This is not a story for the light of heart.
If you think that you're a fan of horror, then by all means, pull your chair up, grab a cup of something, usher your younger siblings or better half who may be of the faint of heart out of the room, and go on this journey with me. They await you.
--Mad Red Queen
Follow me into the desert,
as thirsty you are
Crack a smile
and cut your mouth
and drown in alcohol
'cause down below the truth is lying
Beneath the riverbed
so quench yourself and drink the water
that flows below her head.-- first lines of "Burden in My Hand" by Soundgarden
I know why you're here. You want to know about me- my past. You, no doubt, want to know if I'm ready for this. All of this. But, despite what you may have heard about me, The only thing really different from me and someone on the outside is, well... my physical problem. Other than that, this could've very well been anybody else who'd be here, right now.
But, I will tell you my story. It's want you want, and I won't let you down- on this day, at least, I'm feeling alot kinder than normal. I already know where I'll start.--
I think it really hit me that the life as I knew it previously had ended when the storm near the edge of the New Mexico desert broke. Desert storms are freak occurrences, and it only added to strange existence that had been getting weirder and more frightening as time wore on for me.
At the end of the journey I was jet set on was a house. A big one- the kind that kind of looks like a cabin, with a steeple roof, rock on the lower level, and wood on the upper levels. The house in question was owned by my only living relative- Winnifred. I wasn't worried about whether or not Winnie would take me in- I knew that Winnie would never turn me away- she's sweet like that. A kind, beautiful, and forgiving soul- pretty much everything I can never be. Heck, she was even the person who had warned me beforehand about Dave- the person I was running from.
My husband.
My darling younger half-sister had always hated and mistrusted him. As I sped towards either my salvation from him, or my prison if I did not flee quickly enough, I realized that every worry Winnie had ever had since I married him was true. Absolutely fucking true.
Now that I think of Winnie, I can remember the years in which Winnie and I grew up together, although it feels as though it was long, long ago.
As kids, we grew up as if were no different in blood because of the fact that both of mothers had abandoned us- her had died, and mine had abandoned me- to live with our only blood connection. Our father. We were so un-alike that no one would ever believe that we were related: she was a blond, blue-eyed, tall as hell, and a person who could just walk into a room and have people who automatically would want to be her friend approach her.
I, on the other hand, have always been a polar opposite, as you can obviously see. I'm short, dark, foul-mouthed, rageful, dysfunctional, and a neurotic mess right from the get-go.
My biological mother seemed to be very close to pure Indian (American Indian), which would explain my dark skin, my hair, and my eye shape. Her heritage and her resemblance to her ancestors seems to be one of the two only things she passed onto me. The other thing I'm certain she passed onto me like a nasty, horrible fucking curse is how my right hand is malformed. My pointer and thumb are fine, but my middle, ring, and pinkie are fused together, making them impossible to move. I've always considered it hilarious how fate can plan everything out for you to considerably fuck your life right out of chances you would have been happy with.
Doesn't matter much now.
As I remember the fateful night of that storm, I can remember that the only thing I felt really bad about for going to Winnie's- besides the obvious marital guilts- was the fact that I hadn't bothered to call Winnie before driving out of Utah. However, I knew that I had done what had been needed to be done in that respect since I was worried about Dave being able to trace any calls I might have made prior to escaping almost a week before the storm at the edge of the desert.
My husband, you see, was a man who had grown up with practically all of his male family members in the marines or the army, and he was no exception. He was practically married to his job as a recruiter for the Marines while he was not going into any "action" anytime before I had left him, since he had still been in trouble for having beaten another man bloody for tripping him jokingly one day in the cafeteria while still in training. Oh boy, but he was so angry about not being able to even go to Iraq.
Based on the beatings I had been getting via him in the last few months that I had lived with him, I was frightened of what he was capable of if ever worked into a real rage if I ever fought back. I rarely ever did fight back verbally, but I never fought back against him.
He made a mistake with me, though- he forgot that he had married a foul-mouthed, rageful, and bitchy woman. So, when he left one day to go do the recruit-thing at a local high school, I put a plan that I had thought out for weeks into action.
As soon as he drove out in his gas-burning SUV, I ran around the house, collecting articles of clothing, notebooks that I had kept back from when I was young, and anything else that I wouldn't be happy about him burning if he got mad enough to torch or throw all of my stuff out. My CD collection was the thing I was the most concerned about, as ridiculous as that sounds. But, hey, my CD case is a monster- it's about as tall as my arm, and I didn't want him to burn it as he had once done to a few things I had when he was angry with me. I packed all of it into the backseat of my car and in the trunk, everything that I could fit, and that I couldn't bear to think of as completely destroyed.
As I was about to leave, I debated putting make-up on before I left while I was drying off from my quick shower. It would take more time, but it was better than having people staring at the bruises on my face or the black eye I had as left-overs from the night before's particularly fun fight involving left over lasagna and something about the toilet being broken. I quickly put make-up on before getting dressed, but I was still worried about the bruises on my arms and legs. He was a careless bastard, I'd give him that, and if I had the time, money, and support I could've easily sued him for what he did to me.
But I knew I couldn't while I was still near him and too far away from Winnie to be safe- and I didn't want money. Money's a petty thing to ask to make-up for two years of hell and covering yourself up so that people just stare at your right hand instad of the black marks on your face, arms, or legs. It's not enough to cover up the emotional and mental injuries sustained when he comes home, sees you, and drags you to the bathroom to try to drown you in the bathtub while barking that you are ugly,that he should have chained you to a doghouse outside rather than let you live inside with him. Any amount of money anybody could've thrown at me would've made me feel pretty damn offended.
For some reason that I'll never understand, though, I was always lucky in that he never killed me. Somehow, he always came out of his black-out rage in time to see what he was doing to me in time to pull my head out of the either freezing cold or boiling hot water. I woke up about three times on the bathroom's hard floor after having passed out from near drowning during those two years. The funny thing was that every time I walked out of the bathroom after that, I always found him splayed out in his armchair (Always his armchair when he referred to it, not the armchair, the territorial prick), eating a case of Oreos with a huge glass of milk. The sight reminded me, eerily, of a child watching the television.
It was always a disturbingly childlike moment after the horror of realizing that he almost killed me- and had left me in the bathroom to either regain consciousness or die. I always wondered, during those strange times, what he would have done if I had never woken up one time.
Things like that will invariably haunt me until I die and my body is burned to ashes.
I don't believe that I ever put on clothes and shoes faster than I did when I left. I raced out to my car, jumped in, and never hesitated before I drove off, leaving the dirt-brown one-story back on Cherry street with only one person living in it. As I drove off, I could only wonder what would get him to realize I was gone- and when he would realize it. The thought frankly terrified me.