Greetings my friends and welcome to the first chapter of Finding the Light. I hope you find it most enjoyable and please feel free to comment at the end of each chapter. I don't mind criticism as long as it helps make my writing better. I do mind, however, the occasional stupid person who decides to tell me that I suck at writing. If I do suck the least you could do is tell me a legitimate reason why. Now without any more meaningless prattle, let us begin the story.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us."
--Marianne Williamson, Return to Love, 1992
Home is where the heart is. But what if to those around you, you don't have a heart? And what if you've convinced yourself that you don't have one either?
Nessa Nólatári sat quietly in a park, silently observing the humans as they played and frolicked in the disgusting, warm, bright sun. She sat beneath the shadows of her favorite oak tree. The sun would be setting soon and she would once again be forced to return home. She had never felt welcomed there. No matter how many times her foster mother attempted to draw her into conversations, they always ended up in an awkward silence.
She stood as the sky got darker. She would be in trouble again. Anger flared up inside her as she gazed at the moon. She hated this life of hers. There was something she always felt she was missing. She'd never had a proper family, she didn't really need it. There was an empty feeling in the pit of her heart. Then there were the feelings she got whenever a person would pass too close by. Sometimes this feeling was so intense it would take her breath away. She would have to pause and catch her breath. Most of the time it was so faint she could hardly feel it. She began to walk down the quickly deserting street, back to the apartment where she lived with her foster parents. Light shown through the windows of the homes she passed. Happy families were sitting down to dinner, parents were tucking their youngest children into bed; it sickened her. As she walked up the stairs to the apartment, she could hear the screaming of her foster father. The moment she stepped through the door and closed it behind her she was slammed against it by a fist. She slid to the ground as she reached up and gently cradled her already swelling face.
"You ungrateful little WENCH," her faster father yelled at her, aiming another kick at her side which sent her sprawling across the floor. Nessa managed a look at him. His eyes were bloodshot, his face red. He had been drinking. His favorite sport when he was drunk to beat her, calling her names and insulting the family she didn't have. After 12 years of abuse she had grown used to not talking. Even when he was sober, if she spoke the wrong thing or at the wrong time she would feel a hand on the back of her head; and that was if she was lucky. It was best not to talk at all. After enduring the daily beatings her skin had stopped bruising too bad. Her foster mother was no help. During these drunken ravings she would quietly leave the apartment, going across the hall to talk with her friend until her foster father had passed out on the couch. But till then…
"You dare stay out this late and then expect me to just allow you to come waltzing in?" He yelled, his words slurred as he kicked her a few more times until she was up against a wall. He grabbed her collar and drew her up until she was almost even with his face. She could smell the alcohol emanating from his mouth. "You won't sleep here tonight bitch, you won't want to step foot in this house ever again when I'm through with you." He growled. She glared at him defiantly, suddenly more angry than she ever had been before. She felt an odd sensation welling up inside of her. She kept her eyes wide open as her foster father drew his fist back to punch her into the wall. Suddenly a green light pulsed from her and he fell back screaming, letting her drop to the floor. Then as quickly as it came, it left and her foster father was silent. She looked closer, holding her throat. Her face paled and her eyes went wide as she got up and ran for the door. She wasn't watching where she was going, running blindly through the dark streets, she felt herself trip and she fell, expecting to come in contact with the cold concrete. Instead it was a much longer fall and she fell on dirt. She looked up and here before her was a small village she had never seen before. She saw a group of people coming towards her and she panicked and her vision went black in a dead faint.