Ashes.
Only ashes were left. He used to know a house here. He used to know a family here. A mother and her two boys, hard times but fun…worth it. He used to know sunsets here, and a few sunrises. He used to know hope in a fenced backyard that only had charred fence posts and sad remains of a make-shift swing-set left in it. He used to know happiness in a kitchen which now was just burnt outlines of electronics; electronics which were falsely recorded as the source of the fire.
Hannibal knew the truth of his mother's death, and it had nothing to do with an electronic burner shorting and causing a spark that had magically burned down his trailer. It had been Danica. Not her really, it had been her cronies; people sent by her to do this. She had done it to punish him…but she had punished his mother as well. He had been punished for running away from Danica and not remaining her faithful dog. His mother had been punished for giving birth to him.
He remembered the day that Danica had…'set him free.' Part of him knew it was a trick even then. A woman who had bitten him, beaten him, raped him wouldn't let him go, not really. Never really. Never real. But he had been starved and fucked up on drugs that she had given him the night before to make the pain he felt more real, and he had run. He had run straight back to the outskirts of a small town, almost what would be called 'the sticks.' He had been running straight back to his mother's arms, knowing the torment she must have felt when he didn't come back from his trip to the city.
He had hitched most of the way, getting out at gas stops when he thought they were getting too suspicious about him; when they began to realize that they weren't in the car with a human; when they began understanding that Hannibal was a vampire, a demon of their nightmares. He had to sleep one day away in an abandoned tornado shelter, and then he was back on the road, getting closer to his mom.
He was about a mile away from his old house when he felt that old familiar chill go down his back. The animal instincts inside him that told him Danica was there. Trying to hide it, he had gone on. He hoped again. He hoped to be part of a family that loved him, not one that owned him. He had run that last mile home, despite his abused body's protests. He hadn't run, hadn't really moved in months, years even. His legs hurt after a few hundred feet, and his breathing, for what little he did, was ragged. He was tired and starved, but he pushed himself, vowing that if he could be with his mother for one second he would even sink to her level, and drink from the first person he saw after her.
The old trailer complete with fenced in back yard and make-shift swing-set was in view and for just one, pure moment…he thought he could go home. He thought he could feel her arms around him, holding him to her heart like she had done back when he was just a scared little boy in the night. He thought he could see her smiling face, her glittering eyes, and feel her loving hands against his face. He thought he could be someone's little boy again.
Pushing himself harder, needing to get to her even faster, he was almost there. A hair's breadth away from the porch, rickety even as a child, and…
Pain.
He sometimes felt the burn of the fire as the force of it pushed him back to his street. He felt his ribs breaking, his skin rubbing off as he skidded across the asphalt. He could taste the ashes as they fell on him and smell her perfume as Danica kneeled beside his pained, screaming, crying form. And he would always remember his mother's screams as she burned alive inside her house.
The taste of saline tears mixing with ashes on his tongue and the feel of Danica's teeth digging into his skin…
The words she whispered into his ear…
'Now there's nothing worth leaving me for…'
The flames dancing before his eyes as one of her henchmen grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him onto his back, further breaking already mending bones…
His mother's screams echoed inside of his head as they raped him in front of her burning house. It dulled the pain of Danica's nails sinking into his chest, of her brother's member choking him, of the broken glass in his skin and the broken heart in his ribcage. They had killed more than his mother that night. They had killed part of him.
His hope was dead now, burned down to ashes and sealed with his own blood.
Nothing they did to him hurt quite the same way after that night. Some of it hurt more, but it was never the same pain, and it didn't stay as painful in his chest. He had nightmares of her face as it burned, melting her skin and muscles off her bones. She screamed for him in each and every one and each day he had them he woke up in a cold sweat and tears he couldn't contain. He woke up begging for her.
Begging for his life to just be a nightmare…one that he could wake up from…
Because one day, he would end up like that house, like his mother…
Ashes.
A/N: I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated this story. There are multiple factors which go into such a delay, but none of them are good enough. I hope you like this chapter. I know it is horribly short and probably lackluster.
InnocentGuilt
