The screams came from inside the bedroom. They always did. And every night she would turn to face the opposite direction. She'd hold onto her pillow, close her eyes, and wish for something as sweet as death would come. She knew she'd be next. She knew as soon as the screaming and crying reduced to whimpering, the door to that dark place where her mother fell asleep unwillingly would open and he'd come for her next. She knew she was stupid, and weak, and useless for not being able to do anything about it.
She was tiny, her arms frail, and her legs short. Just a child. An inept, cowering child. Oh, but she was so beautiful. Beneath her bruises and scars was the daughter of Aphrodite. Cornflower blue eyes and hair as golden and bright as the sun. So much potential in this child who was born a month too early and found courage a minute too late. The sounds of screaming were cut off by a terrible gurgling noise. Like someone being choked.
Like her mother being choked.
The terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach moved her from the tattered couch and to her feet. To the door and into the room. She was ordered to leave. She was threatened the same punishment as the lifeless woman on the bed. But she moved forward, her tiny feet carrying her towards the woman who held her when her tiny body tore through her birth mother, leaving her dead. A child no older than 6 watched with eyes as dead as the woman who she wished she had done so much more for. She placed a small hand on the woman's cheek, closing her eyes for her. She was pulled back by the hair, thrown to the floor like a hated animal.
She did not cry.
She did not scream.
The love she felt for this woman moved in her body. Thundering in her chest like Hephaestus wielding bolts of lightning for Zeus with his hammer. It slid across her shoulders and down her arms. A sweet feeling that made her smile, if only a little, for the first time since her mother whispered I love you before this man forced his way their lives one year ago. It escaped her outstretched fingertips, and danced through the air. Straight through the crooked man's chest, piercing through his rotten bones and his infested heart. His body fell to the floor and convulsed.
She did not help him.
She did not move.
Not until the man remained still forever. She stepped slowly towards her mother. A red ribbon lay on the nightstand. The ribbon she had tied to the box she gave to the woman on mother's day. She wrapped the ribbon around her fist, kissed the cold face of the corpse that lay on the bed, left the house, left the past. She would fight. For the weak. For the defenseless. For the vulnerable.
She would fight.
And she would not forget.