God love and rest my soul
With this sun down, never ending
The feel is gone, yet you ain't gonna see me fail
I am the decadence of your world,
I am an eider covered in oil
Happy hunting, you double-faced carnivore.

A small girl ran over the fields, her blonde hair in two braids and her small arms grasping the air trying to catch the butterfly that flew just beyond reach. She giggled and turned to her parents, her mother sitting in a folding chair beside her father. Mother was asleep. She stood up on her toes and just as she reached the butterfly her sight went black. A scream and a gunshot echoed in her head.

Ashe woke up from the nightmare and stared at the wall in front of her. She felt her heart pounding in her chest and sweat covering her body. She leaned her head against her knees and concentrated on her breathing. She leaned back and closed her eyes. The only memory she had from before her father's mind went berserk. Before he started killing people and animals. Ashe shuddered and pulled her blanket tighter around her. She felt a draft and wrapped it even tighter. When her mother lived she got to occasionally sleep with her. In a warm bed and with a crackling fire. She got up from her bed and put the blanket that covered the window tighter up. She crept back into her bed. She lay under her covers until she saw the first rays of sun peeking in thru the window. The she ripped it down and sat down in the windowsill, she looked at the bushes and trees. It would not hurt that much falling down. If she threw her blanket first… the door was opened and a maid walked in with a yellow dress on her shoulder.

"It aint no idea. I tried."

Ashe took a step back from the windowsill and stared at the maid.

"Working here may seem posh. But it is hell. I pity you. Just hope you live long enough to get out of here."

Ashe looked at her own deformed feet and sighed.

"Master wants you bathed and dressed before five."

Ashe nodded and sat back down on her bed. She stared at her bloody fingers. Killing herself was to no avail. And a fall from three meters was unlikely to kill her; her father's experiments were more likely to do that.

Ashe felt the lump in her throat rising, she knew she would throw up. Then she stared at herself in the mirror. What she saw was a walking skeleton, her cheeks were sunken in, she had big bags under her eyes and the eyes were bloodshot. She sighed and took up her hairbrush. A meeting again, she didn't feel like meeting some stuck up murderer again, she did not want to see some poor girl her age get raped, tortured and killed again. The look in that girl's strangely colored eyes was not something Ashe could witness again, she still had nightmares about the fact that she could do nothing but watch, it did not help that she had to bury the girl, not as much dig a hole and dump her. Ashe had taken the body from its first resting place and in the dark of the night she dug a grave in a graveyard, she deserved as much as being buried in holy ground and not in the woods with wolves and other animals digging her up. The girls name had been Kira; she had been three months older than Ashe and had been kidnapped on her way from school. A case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. A shiver went down her spine; she turned and refastened the curtain she had fastened in front of the window. There had never been a glass window in this part of the mansion. Ashe had a constant cold and sometimes she even went out and slept in the stables, it was warmer there than inside, especially in winter, she would go into the stables and lay down beside her mare Shiva, she was a beautiful shade of brown with black legs and white stockings, on her head she had a perfect star in white, her mother had been killed and most possibly eaten by her father and his partners in crime when Shiva was a foal, Ashe had gotten her, the only thing she ever got, not because she deserved her, but because her father knew she would die and Ashe deserved what would not last. But Ashe was stubborn; she would not let that perfect mare die. And even her father had to admit that as the foal lived she deserved to keep her, and not to be taken away and killed. Unlike Griever. Griever. Only the name made Ashes eyes tear, she missed that pug terribly, the little wild pug had been Ashes only friend. He would keep her warm in her room those winters that she had otherwise frozen to death. She had him with her for five years. Until her father decided enough was enough, and had him killed in front of her. The anger made Ashe see red. She clenched the hairbrush as she brushed her hair and then she threw it with full force into her mirror. She stared at her cracked reflection. She would not give in. she would not become the puppet her father needed. If she so died trying. She could be tortured and burned, hell come on all rapists and pedophiles, she would take all she had to as long as she did not give in. She looked at her fingers, they were full with scars and her nails did not exist, her father had tried to put small pieces of wood under her fingernails to see how much she could take, she would never cry.

She stared out the open window and ripped down her dress. It was the ugliest shade of yellow found on planet earth. But she did not care. Lyndsy took the zipper and zipped the dress.

"I hope that you find what you seek. You need to leave, find someone who will save you, because if not, Master will have you killed before the end of the week. Leave and don't look back."
"What?"

"I overheard Master and another man. Go to the Lieutenant, he will keep you safe from danger."
Lyndsy bowed and hurried out the room. Ashe put on her gloves and walked out. She closed the door behind her, walked down the long stairs and reached the front door. She looked back at the house she grew up in. She took a deep breath and turned around.

"Leave. And don't look back." she whispered to herself.

When the car pulled up to the place of festivities she felt her heart pounding.

The man in white uniform looked after the young woman. He put his glass down and opened the door and walked after her. His ice blue eyes followed her every step. He made up his mind, their time had come.

Everything in your future is not determined by your past.

For various reasons I had to postpone this chapter. My former mentor passed away suddenly. I will try to update monthly, last Sunday (GMT +2) every month.