The dream was hazy, but it quickly grew more and more vivid until she could hardly tell that it was a dream at all as it was happening.
Delarn settled on the very edge of the sizable living room chair, covered in soft and welcoming cloth and leather. Normally, her stepfather sat there to read his paper, but during the day he was off somewhere. The easiest thing to say was that he was working, though it was safe to say that none of them knew where he went off to. The fact that they kept a roof over their heads wasn't his doing alone. She just knew that typically he wouldn't be back until much later and that it was safe to sit there while she worked on sewing her clothes and working on other things. Her small hands complained, but her heart swelled pridefully at what she was doing for herself.
Only today was different. Every day was different in a chaotic household, and she should have known better than to relax. The first thing that happened was that her stepbrother, Solene, came in. His eyes were big and terrified as his hissed, "What do you think you're doing?" He grabbed her wrist and dragged her off the chair, whispering, "Dad is home. We have to get out of here. He's going to be so mad when he sees you were in his chair."
He pushed her toward the door and started dragging her sewing things to the ground, hoping that it was more believable than if he left them where they were. He turned, angry for a moment as he barked, "What the fuck are you doing, Delarn? Get out of here before he gets here."
"We shouldn't be saying words like—"
"Are you fucking stupid?" Solene replied, hardly believing her. "It's my dad. Not yours."
Delarn appeared a bit confused as if she didn't know how to take what he had just said, but he knew neither of them had the time. He wrapped his arms around her and pushed her out of the room, toward the back door. A few seconds later they heard the front door slam open and then close from the other side of the house.
The sense of danger was starting to seep into her finally, and her legs were beginning to move. She was finally registering what her stepbrother was saying and realizing just what was coming after them.
She turned and burst through the back door in terror, her brother right behind her. The door clicked shut behind them, and it sounded like a bunch of bricks crashing to their ears. She started to run down the street, just wanting to get away, but her brother held her firmly by the back of her shirt.
"He'll see us," he hissed. "I don't know what he'll do if he sees us." His voice was so low that she wasn't sure if he was speaking aloud or if he was communicating this directly into her mind. She stared at him with wide eyes, suddenly frozen with fear, unsure if she should still run, but not knowing what else to do. She definitely didn't think they should be caught just standing there like idiots by the time the man chasing them ripped open the door.
He tugged her back toward the house, and her heart dropped, seeing the door open again and again in her mind, though not even able to guess what would come next. She didn't have much time to think on it, however, as Solene pulled her under the porch in front of the door. The crevice he pulled her into felt like an impossibly tight squeeze.
There was hardly any room between them, and she tried desperately not to whimper or make a sound. She was sure that he would see them down there, and she knew they wouldn't be able to get away if he did.
"Stay still and stay quiet," Solene whispered in her ear. "We're just far enough in that he won't be able to tell we're here as long as we don't move. Don't move."
In the next moment—it had felt like time had stopped until that moment—she could hear the boots of the man they called father clomping on the hardwood floor, and the door slammed against the house like a crash of thunder. It sounded like it was going to fall clean off of its hinges and Delarn squeezed her eyes shut in fear and horror, her stomach rolling.
She could feel her brother wrapping his arms around her from behind and pulling her as tight against him as possible, his voice softly hushing her despite how he had told her to be quiet, but she knew, and he knew, that their father wouldn't hear him. There were tears in her eyes by now as she moved ever so carefully back against him, almost unable to breathe through the panic, while also trying not to breathe too deeply. Each breath sounded extremely loud to her, and only her heart was louder.
It was silent for a long moment, and that silence grew more and more disorienting. It felt as if she was there for such a long time that it almost felt natural to be there. It almost felt as if this crevice was made just for them. The longer the silence pervaded, and the sound of her heart and breaths were the only sound she could make out, the more she began to wonder if he was there at all, or if that they had imagined him from the start. Even the startling bang that the door made didn't seem too relevant anymore, and she almost wanted to crawl out if not for the way that her brother was holding her in place.
And just when she started to feel comfortable, the explosive anger that exuded from him shook her to her core. It began as a low hiss of breath from his lips that she almost didn't register as a person, and then slowly grew to a guttural, enraged scream that seemed almost too human. It was as if he was trying to sound like a wild animal, but his human voice was too dominant to be overcome. Finally, the screams became more coherent, but this only made them worse.
"You little bitch. You fucking little bitch, what were you doing on my chair?" He snarled, beating his fist against the side of the house again and again, and she could smell his blood if only faintly. "Where the fuck are you? I know you're nearby." She tried not to cry out as she felt his stomping feet vibrating through the wooden ceiling above her, and tried not to even make a sound as her brother stroked her hair to keep her calm.
She could then hear the gut-wrenching tearing of fabric above her, the enraged bellowing shaking the air around them like a physical manifestation, though she knew it wasn't, and she prayed it wasn't though her god was a mad and angry god and would likely spite her if he could hear her begging like a worm.
She could see her pants that she was sewing land in front of her as he hurled them viciously. It grew quiet again, and she struggled to breathe again. She had the urge to go and retrieve it as if she might be able to save it, but Solene held her tightly so she couldn't answer the urge, and after what felt like forever her stepfather practically leaped from the porch onto it, stomping on it and screaming in frustration. He stopped screaming after another few moments—agonizing, terrifying moments—and looked around serenely. She couldn't see his face, but there was definitely something serene about it, and it scared her worse. She was sure that at any moment he would see her and her stepbrother and murder them.
"Nice game," he said with a sigh before walking inside. It was so strangely pleasant that she could have almost believed it was just a game if the twisting pain in her gut didn't tell her otherwise. They had an unspoken agreement, her and Solene, and they didn't come out until it was dark out and they could sneak away. They were out for much of the night and didn't come back until the morning after they were sure he had gone off again. It wasn't the first time this happened, and he always acted like nothing happened by the time they returned. She almost didn't mind as the night outings were almost as fun as her close encounters with him were scary. Almost.
Delarn couldn't remember the exact age it was, but she knew there was a definite morning in which she no longer felt comfortable being a child. She hadn't felt like a child since her father died, but there was a distinct difference between what she had been the night before and what she had become that morning. It was an urge she couldn't shake.
"I want to come with you," she said to her stepmother as she saw her preparing to meet the other Zamorakians.
"You're not going to sneak after me this time?" She asked, and it was true. There were plenty of times when Decari would follow her and watch her training or listen to the other Zamorakians, but this time felt different.
"No, I want to go," she answered, unbothered. "Take me with you."
"If you're sure," the woman replied, her smile sharp and wicked in a way that she usually wasn't when she was pretending to be a model mother. She handed her a mask, one of the smaller ones that didn't fit her, but fit Delarn loosely. She had to hold it in place almost, or it would start to slide down with each step, and she was sure that her stepmother knew that.
The smell of the sewer still was incredibly painful on her nose, but she was used to it as she followed the woman, slogging through the muck and trying to ignore the slick, disgusting feeling.
A tall man wearing heavy black armor stared down at her. For the most part, the armor covered him, but there was a noticeable tear in the metal that slid from his right eye to the left side of his lip to reveal a nasty scar. His blue eyes glared at her as he asked her stepmother, "What? Your rat isn't going to hide this time?"
"She wanted to come this time," she purred.
"I want to be a full Zamorakian," she said. "I want to be a true member. I don't want to be on the outskirts anymore."
"And if you die?" The man growled, his voice like he was gargling iron.
"Zamorak saved her before. Maybe he'll do it again," her stepmother laughed.
"That's a good point," the man growled, glaring down at Delarn with nothing but malice.
He whistled, his fingers wedging into the crack as if to assist in the sound and a few young Zamorakians appeared. They were nothing like children. They were definitely much older than her, and at least adults. He merely pointed at her, expecting her to run away, though he doubted she would have much of a chance even then.
There were three of them, and they came after her immediately. One of them had a maul that smashed into the ground near her. She scrambled out of the way, and another slid his sword toward her. She gripped onto his armored hand, just barely getting around that blade and pulled herself over his arm and just barely avoiding the crossbow bolt from the third, dragging the mask from her face and holding it like a shield before dropping it altogether.
Her heart beat wildly as they attacked her, but before long she started to see a pattern in the way they attacked her. The one with the sword almost always waited for the one with the maul to strike before trying to catch her off guard, and so she started to act predictably as well. She followed their pattern until they began to think they knew hers as well.
The moment they were comfortable with it, she scrambled up the swordman's chest, his armor having ridges that were easy to navigate. The maul crashed into him as she didn't dodge the same way she usually did, and his armor smashed to pieces under the blow. She grabbed a sharp bit and immediately darted toward the one with the crossbow. He hadn't expected it as Delarn had tried to avoid him until now, and his crossbow went off too far to the left. He didn't even notice how his crossbow bolt sunk into the maul holder's neck. He was too surprised by the fact that Delarn was jabbing the piece of armor into his eye.
Delarn was shaken as she dropped off and backed away from him before he too collapsed, scrambling at bloodied face, and she didn't look at the man with the scar in his armor as she said, not wanting him to know how scared she had been and still was, "And you call these followers of chaos?"