What A Long Hard Life: Bless' Story
Chapter 3: The Unwanted Visitor
Hey guys. Thanks for these reviews, they're great. There's was just one problem… the mystery reviewer! I was going to ask them to come forward for their review in this chapter, but they already reviewed again. So, thanks Cora Roz, I am no longer so confused.
The two of them returned home, Bless crying her eyes out, and Shade was feeling rather ashamed of himself. "I am going to be in so much trouble…" he groaned, taking Bless upstairs to their apartment.
"No you're not… you did it to protect me… I was in there for over six hours… and he was going to keep me behind another two hours. Thank you so much." she said and hugged him tightly.
"Hey… there's no need to say thanks… you're my sister… I needed to do something about it… but I am going to be in a lot of trouble…" he said and sighed.
"Mum will understand." Bless assured him.
"But the authorities won't. We're Shadow's kids Bless… this'll defiantly be looked into… and now he knows we're siblings… I'm done for…" he said, hanging his head in shame.
They started their next flight of stairs. "Wait a minute… where's your stuff?" Shade asked Bless.
"I left them in classroom this morning, before I got sent to see the Head." she sulked. "I don't wanna go back for them now… we have to get home soon, I really have to go." she said, wiggling on the spot.
"I don't blame you… let's go…. just three flights to go." Shade said and helped her up.
They got to the door, Shade knocked on it nervously. Maria was inside, she opened the door, wondering why the two of them were a little later than usual. She unlocked the door to find Bless bawling her eyes out and Shade looking guilty. "What's going on? Are you being bullied again Bless?"
"No worse… the Head Teacher… he… locked her in a closet all day… without food or water…" Shade explained seriously, this made Maria gasp, she also went pale. "And he was going to keep her after school for two hours… he was handling her pretty roughly."
"Oh… no…" Maria cried out, she pulled Bless close to her and hugged her tight. "So you took her home?"
"Yes… but I… had to… attack… the head… to…." Shade went silent, Maria went even paler. "I'm sorry… I was just so angry… Bless was so scared… and he called me a rodent…"
"Ok… let's get you two inside and sort this out…" Maria said, trying to calm down. Bless pulled away from Maria and ran into the toilet, slamming the door as she did so. "Oh… dear." Maria said breathlessly, she didn't know what to do. "Neither of you are going to school tomorrow… I think I'll speak to the head-"
"He's human." Shade said simply.
"I'll think we'll discuss this with the others." Maria changed her mind. "Wait… why did they do this to Bless… what did she do?"
That's when Bless came out looking more at ease. Maria looked at her worriedly. "What… there's nothing wrong… I just really needed to-"
"What did you do… to get that punishment." Maria asked with concern.
"I said a bad word… then I said 'screw the record.' then I was sent to the Head's office…" Bless explained, Maria had raised her eyebrows at this. "But I didn't mean to say 'screw the record'… it just came out… I'm really sorry."
"No need to be sorry… it's the school that needs to be sorry." Maria said. "I'm going to Sonic… he should know what to do-"
There was a thunderous knock on the door. Maria went to answer it, feeling nervous, it certainly wasn't a friendly knock. She opened the door by a jar, the kids ran into the bedroom. "Hello?" Maria said timidly, the door was pushed open fully by their unexpected visitor. She was pushed back but not hard enough to lose her balance.
It was a GUN soldier. Maria gasped, "W-what… do you want? Is there a problem?" she said to him, trying to look unaffected by the push.
"This is the home of Shade Doom… right?" the soldier said, peering into the apartment.
"Yes… but… he's not home yet…" She lied. "Why?"
"Today he assaulted a member of staff at the school." the soldier told her.
"Oh… was it serious? Is that why he isn't home yet?" she said, acting shocked.
"It wasn't serious… it was enough to give the member of staff a minor bruise, but it was assault from Mobian to human, which is a serious offence… when will he be home?"
"What…. So you can arrest him? Shade is a good boy… he was obviously aggravated to have to do something like that. Did you even think about the other side of the story?"
"Where is your son." the soldier said in a threatening voice, pushing inside the apartment. Maria gave out a scream, she certainly didn't want this soldier pushing into her home, she hoped to get the attention of Sonic, or Knuckles, one of the boys. They could take care of this. But instead, she caught the attention of someone else.
Shade came running out of the bedroom, charging at the soldier. Maria saw The Soldier reach for his gun. "NO!" she screamed. She turned to Shade to try and stop him, but the trigger was pulled, a dart was released and it hit Shade in the torso.
"Oww!" he yelped, but it was too late, the liquid seeped itself into him, and he started to feel dizzy. Maria ran to catch him as he fell back and lost consciousness. It wasn't what she feared, she thought there would be bullets in that gun.
"Why would you do this… he's a child…" Maria started to cry. Bless now also came running out of the bedroom.
"You! You're Bless Doom! Stay where you are… you're all under arrest… why didn't I realise this before! You're all wanted by GUN!" the soldier said and backed them up against the wall, picking Shade up off the floor but his arm.
"Why? For being relatives of Shadow?" Maria said angrily. "We will not go down without a fight!" The dart gun was pointed at her, she still stood confidently. He then pointed it at Bless, "No…. please don't hurt her-"
"OWW!" the soldier cried, and dropped Shade. Shade had woken up already, he had bitten the soldier on the arm, so he was now free. He ran to Maria and Bless.
"Let's get out of here!" he yelled.
"Don't you dare move…" he said, pointing a different gun at them. "Or I will use bullets… now come quietly, or else-"
"What on Mobius is going on here?" came Rouges voice from the door. The soldier turned around to see her dressing gown looking irritated.
"Major Rouge (Don't really know if that's the best rank for Rouge…) I've found them… the… oh chaos…" he said, backing down, Rouge was literally on fire.
"Those are MY friends, how dare you do this to them! Mobian or not… now get out of here or I will demote you! GO!" she said, pointing to the exit. The soldier ran and left. She ran to the three of them, they were all shaking in fear. "It's okay now… he's gone… did he hurt any of you?"
"Shade got hit with a dart… are you ok Shade?" Maria said, turning to him.
"Feel a bit dizzy still… but I'm ok." he said, wobbling a bit. Maria took him into the bedroom so he could lie down, Bless and Rouge followed. The front door was still opened, they heard Sonic's voice.
"Guys! Are you alright… I heard a scream!" Sonic then came running into the bedroom. Rouge was standing there staring at him with an annoyed expression on her face while Maria was putting Shade to bed. "What?"
"Yes… there was a problem, but I already sorted it out… I thought you were meant to be fast." Rouge complained. She strolled to the door. "Call for me if you need anything else!" she yelled to Maria, and left.
"So… uh… what happened here?" Sonic asked nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.
"A GUN soldier tired to take us away… we're now wanted because we're related to Shadow." Maria said. Sonic didn't look surprised.
"Sounds like something they'd do… well… if you ever need to hide… come to us… we're always there for you." Sonic said and he left to, closing the front door gently behind him.
"Mum… are we going to be taken away?" Bless asked sounding afraid.
"No Bless… we will not… I'll do everything to make sure that we don't. Now… I'll make dinner." she said and walked off into the kitchen.
"Shade… are you okay…" Bless asked in a quite timid voice.
"Yes… I just still feel a bit tired… probably because I woke up too quick… I should be fine by tea time." Shade reassured her. Bless kneeled down by the bed and snuggled her head into his chest.
"I'm sorry Shade… this is all my fault…" she began to cry again.
"But it's not your fault… you answered back to the teacher… so what… I did that when I was younger… it was the Head's fault. I hate him… I hated him from the start… it was like he had his eye on you all along." he said, deep in thought.
"Yeah… I've never seen him be so bad to anyone else… I hate Mr Towers too…" Bless said. "He should be fired from his job for hurting me…"
"You know what Bless… I think so too… but the world is so corrupt these days… I don't think that it will happen… I think we're going to be on the run… like in those stories dad told us…"
Bless pulled away immediately. "What's wrong?" Shade said, looking at her.
"Why did you have to mention him!" Bless yelled angrily. "Don't ever mention that prick again!" Bless screamed.
"Are you still angry at him!" Shade yelled sitting up. "Why are you angry at him… it's probably not his fault he can't come… I bet he's thinking about us all of the time!" Shade growled.
They heard a pan drop and Maria came zooming in. "What's going on now?" she said sounding panicked.
"She still hates dad! I only mention him once and she snapped!" Shade complained.
"Bless… please keep your anger under control… I know you don't like your Dad at the moment because he's not here for you… but he does care." Maria said softly. "I promise you… he does…" there was a long pause. Now Bless was looking ashamed for herself. "You two should wash your hands, Dinner's nearly ready." she sighed and left to go and serve the food.
The two of them got up in silence and went to the bathroom to wash their hands. It would be a very quiet meal that evening.
When it was nearly ten o'clock at night, very late for the two of them. But after the shocking events of that day, Maria let them stay up as none of them could ease themselves enough to go to sleep.
They sat and watched TV, it was an extremely small TV but it was better than nothing. They all cuddled up on the sofa while doing so, under a blanket where they were all really warm. They started to remember the times they would do that before, but with Shadow too. They all really missed Shadow, even Bless, despite hating the most, she missed him the most.
When it was reaching one in the morning, they all started to drop off to sleep on the sofa together. Bless delving deep into one of her dreams again.
"I bet my chest fur… that you get caught by them… you'll never be able to run away from them like I did… you're too pathetic." came Shadow's cruel voice.
"We will not… mum said so…" Bless said with determination.
"But you're asleep… they could creep inside any minute… you always have to be on guard." Shadow teased.
"Well… how do I wake up?" Bless panicked.
"You work it out… I can't teach you everything! Do something yourself you lazy girl!"
"I got treated so badly today… and you don't care… do you?" Bless started to cry again, would she go at least one dream where she wouldn't cry? The father her imagination had created was cruel!
"Not really no… and I'm not surprised… what was the name of the Head again… Tower? Sounds familiar… doesn't it?"
"No… wait, of course… where did I hear that name before…." Bless thought to herself, but Shadow was starting to fade away. "Wait… don't go… who is it!"
"Work it out yourself you lazy little…"
She awoke. Realising where she had heard that name before she met that teacher, "Cruelty must run in the family…" she hissed to herself, looked at Maria and Shade, noticed they both still asleep, and did the same. She shifted a little and went back to sleep.
Does any one realise where the name comes from?
Lucy Labrador