She is seven, and her thoughts are all she has. Her thoughts are all she has, so she tries to make them brave.
She is silent as the Matron introduces her to her new room, aphonic as her seven new roommates introduce themselves to her, and mute as the children around her joke and talk in the dining hall. At home she has her own room, with her own bedcovers and her walls painted her favourite purple shade. At home, dinner is a quiet affair, not a time for joking and talking. That is reserved for the evening, as they all bundle up in front of the TV. They don't have a TV here.
She is not silent as she cries that evening, but at least she can shush it in her new pillow.
As she slips into a fitful sleep, dark forms move behind her eyelids and red fills her vision.
The nightmares never stop.
_+_+_T_+_+_
The adults are wondering if she has seen what happened to her parents.
She shudders. Red liquid spatters and dark forms laugh.
They're wondering if she has to go to a shrink, but they're low on budget and resolve to watch her closely. She is glad. She doesn't want to talk to adults, adults are untrustworthy.
_+_+_T_+_+_
The next day, she finds a solution. This is a very bad dream. Mummy and Daddy just dropped her off at a very bad day-care, but she'll complain to them tonight and then it won't happen again.
It is not perfect, but it prevents her mask from cracking, prevents her tears from escaping and adults from noticing.
_+_+_T_+_+_
The lies stack themselves up.
She is at a slumber party of a poor friend, who can't afford a better bed. Mummy and Dad are picking her up tomorrow.
She was sick, couldn't eat a bite without vomiting, that's why her stomach is now complaining in guttural sounds.
She accepted a dare from Mummy to go a week in second-hand uniforms.
Daddy is being stubborn again, won't turn up the heat.
Everything is okay, she is feeling just fine.
_+_+_T_+_+_
The memory of a good night's sleep is still embedded in her mind, the refreshed feeling of an afternoon nap is not something she will soon forget, but the sleeping part of the equation is becoming harder and harder.
There is a window in the room not her room, never her room, it's not her home, right above her bed, and at night, she is entranced by it. The field of glowing stars seems to cling to the ceiling, and she draws lines to try and link their beauty and make her own constellations.
At night she feels like an explorer of the universe, with her hard bed as a throne.
Then, one cold evening, she grabs her only sweater, and pads silently past the snoring night guard, out into the night. She finds a place to sit under a lonely tree, and buries her fingers in the earth.
The night is beautiful, shadows falling every which way, and little pinpricks of lights that resemble cars or windows glint in the darkness.
She feels more philosophical than ever before, and in a fit of digression, she wonders if she can hear the world sigh under secrets it can't keep, and wonders about the problems people try to melt inside its core, and wonders if the world's so close to bursting it can't hold many more. She sighs and lets the earth slip out of her parted fingers.
Then she shakes her head and tries to get her thoughts in a less poetic, more realistic mood.
But then she looks up, and decides reality can lie low for a few more seconds.
Because, as a sea of glinting starlight dances on the world's darkened ceiling, her tiny heart starts reeling, and impetuously, she faces the truth. And, for once, tears don't follow, so she bravely takes the next step.
In front of Wool's Orphanage, under the tree, she vows to the memory of her family.
She will try her best.
_+_+_T_+_+_
She quickly discovers the books.
They are precious and amazing. Instead of thinking up lies for the bad food or the freezing cold or the harsh beds, she's thinking up different ways for Hansel and Gretel to find the way back to their house, or imagining how the story of Rumpelstiltskin would have ended if the Queen hadn't been told his name.
_+_+_T_+_+_
Days pass this way, and they blur together in weeks that form months, and then suddenly a year has passed and she's eight.
She's eight and an orphan and it still hurts to think those words so she rather doesn't think about them at all.
So she's moved on from fairy tales and just reads everything now.
She secretly smuggles books to the Orphanage in her schoolbag. They're not allowed to take books from the school library, but she's careful and no one ever sees her.
Because for all that the halls of her educational facility are full of people, adults and children alike, no one ever sees her. They see her test scores, her genius level abilities, her skin dyed alabaster by the lack of sun, her sea eyes and slim figure and yet they overlook the shoves of the bullies, the sharp weary look that no child should possess, and the way she clings to her books like they contain her last breath.
So she buries herself in yet more books. Learns to learn for the sake of knowledge, and learns that you never know what you need to know in the future. She learns things no child should try to. She learns anatomy because one day the bullies will go too far and she needs to know where to strike, what will kill and what she can live through, what parts of herself she needs to protect because no one else will, and how to sew because she cannot always bandage the wound to make it stop bleeding, burning them shut is too risky and the orphanage will never spend money on modern medical supplies. She learns because maybe someday she will need to defend herself like her parents had to, only better, because she isn't afraid of death, but she doesn't want to be there when it happens.
_+_+_T_+_+_
Her ninth birthday marks the beginning of the headaches. They build behind her eyelids and pulsate through her head. They're fleeting and consistent, and very annoyingly painful.
Briefly, she considers reporting this to a caretaker, but they wouldn't know what to do with her, and she doesn't trust adults, they're too unpredictable and too strong for her.
Instead, she googles 're-occurring headaches', and the results are useless. There are a thousand different possibilities, and even more solutions.
She hogs one of the computers for as long as she can every day, scouring Google page after Google page, but there are simply too many possibilities. And she's not a doctor yet, she's just nine.
She's just nine, and it's been two years since her parents were buried and she doesn't even know where, is starting to forget their proud smiles and their gleaming eyes and the sounds of their laughter.
But she's nine, she's big enough to take care of herself.
_+_+_T_+_+_
She's still nine, still big enough to take care of herself, but something is going horribly painfully wrong. She's starting to have blackouts, periods of fleeting blindness.
It is horribly confusing and scares her, and she doesn't know what to do.
_+_+_T_+_+_
It's called Basilar Artery Migraine.
Apparently it's caused by either stress or sleep deprivation, and temporary blindness is one of its varying symptoms.
She's told to be extra careful and that a fit can last from five minutes to an hour.
Then they shoo her out of the office, because apparently, there is no existing cure.
She tries to sleep more, but it is in vain.
Red liquid splatters, a high voice screams, green eyes widen in horror.
_+_+_T_+_+_
She is ten, and flinches as the first boot finds her ribs, when the fist plows into her exposed stomach and she feels the bile rise up in her throat. The boy because it's just a boy, not an adult, not yet is probably intoxicated, and all she can do is wrap herself in a ball as the blows rain down, punishment for a deed she never knew she committed. She curls up into herself both physically and mentally, sending the pain away, to someplace that isn't even her mind, more like an extension of it that stretches so far away that the pain no longer registers.
It feels like it goes on forever, as if time has no meaning at all and the boys boys, multiple because there were others that had joined, that liked hitting and kicking and punching her.
It takes Rose awhile, takes her hours actually, but she manages to crawl and claw her way back to the orphanage, manages to get the door shut before her strength gives out completely, manages to bury herself under dirty blankets before dinner finishes, and manages to fall asleep before any of the pain catches up with her.
She hasn't aged any when she comes to on her bed again, her hair matted down with blood and sweat, the sounds of laughter and voices in the background, to the sight of her roommates giving her distasteful glances and barely disguised sneers. She claws her way to her feet and stumbles to the bathroom, taking in the sight of her very first black eye and split lip. The water from the sink stings and burns but the blood comes off and swirls down the sink in such a beautiful pattern that she is transfixed.
Later, after she looks up head wounds on the computer and sets the alarm for every two hours because she isn't stupid and she knows the blood in the hair is a bad sign and she doesn't want to die, not yet, not ever, she lays in her bed and cannot ignore the throbbing in her face or the voice that whispers in the back of her mind that tells her this is only the beginning.
_+_+_T_+_+_
They don't stop, and every time they go a little bit further and grow a little more violent. She wants to fight back but she knows she isn't strong enough to beat them so thoroughly that they'll be beaten. She can only win one battle if she fights back now, and then they'll bring friends and ruthlessness for the next time.
At least she gets to use her carefully assembled knowledge.
_+_+_T_+_+_
Then she is eleven, and Mrs Green interrupts her reading to inform her that she has visitors.
_+_+_T_+_+_
So. I wrote it again...again.
Yes.
Sorry, I've been rather distracted lately, and I wrote this chapter, and just liked it more than the Original Version. It's harsher, but it explains her character much, much better.
Thanks for reading!
Sofie (AKA United States of The Netherlands)
P.S. anyone recognize any quotes?
Pointer; Jason Mraz