Salvation
a fanfiction by Andrivette
Chapter 1: Scars
Underneath one of the long sleeves of my blouse, down below where no one can see, there are scars on my wrist. Not the kind of scars you get from battle, from nobly defending what you believe. They aren't scars from a blade. They aren't scars from an accident. They aren't scars that were fought for, or desired, or chosen.
They are scars that rubbed into my skin, scars of servitude. Marks of shame. The scars tell about the times I was kept perfectly still, bound to a wall, or a floor, or myself. They are scars that someone else gave to me just because I was too damned weak to do anything about it.
Further up, I have scars of beatings, scars that only quaintly tell the story of how I was broken. Scars that are a record, my only proof, my lifelong keepsake, reminding me that life isn't just something that happens in your head. I'm not just crazy. That was where my pain had happened, even though the feeling itself is gone. Places on a map, history, carved like tally marks into my skin. "I was here. This was me."
Scars were all I brought with me into the world after seven years.
I vaguely remember times when I was a baby. I remember the operation. I remember being lonely and abused. I remember being taken from the arms of the one woman I had ever known to hold me, a woman who I now suppose resembles the unmarred half of me, a woman that I never knew and would never have a chance to know. All I was left with was an idea of this person who might have loved me, but I could never ask, and I could never learn.
I grew and I learned about others like me—others trapped and alone and weary. I tried to reach out to them, but I was turned away, or stopped.
Or forced to suffer.
I was sometimes brought with others. And once more, I tried to reach out to someone else. She was older than me. She had a look in her eyes that told me that her soul was not emptied out.
We found each other, briefly. She told me about an outside world—yes, a world outside the place, a wonderful world where we would have to serve no one—and I felt a burning desire growing inside of me.
Then he found us, like he always did.
After watching him with her, my reaching arms were broken, just like he wanted.
But the burn never left.
-.-.-
"Beautiful face. . . ," he once said, stroking my cheek. Every fiber of my being trembled in disgust.
Then it came to me, slowly flooding my brain—a horrible, beautiful plan. One that could rid me of him forever.
There were rooms for torture, for punishment. I had been there before. We all had. We all had somehow asked for it, with whatever light was left burning in us.
And I was going to send myself there.
-.-.-
Once he tossed me in, I didn't care anymore. I was inflamed with the brilliance of my plan. His threats and promises bounced off of me.
Now I was going to destroy the one thing he had ever cared for about me, his very reason to notice my existence, and my utter defiance was so gratifying, nothing could harm me.
The acid I remember being a threat to the insides of one's throat was now my own personal weapon, and I welcomed it, the pain my price for freedom. The sweet scalding agony, my own cruel genius.
When he got rid of me, not even my injuries could compare to the elation I felt.
Oh, I was such a clever girl. I had finally won. I had triumphed over him once and for all. It would be easy from then on. It was all over.
I couldn't be more wrong.