07-13-2018, 01:14 PM
[align=center][div style="borderwidth=0px; width: 55%; line-height:115%; text-align: justify;font-family: calibri;"]Soft, weary paws carried the child forward, half dead from exhaustion and delirious from the sweltering heat. The short fur of his body did very little to hide the cascade of wounds and marks that marked his skin, the matted fur plastered together with both dirt and blood and mostly hiding whatever colors he truly had beneath it all.
It had all happened like a dream, startling him awake into reality. From a young age the child had been conditioned; conditioned to love unconditionally, to look his abusers in the eyes and view them as nothing short of gods when they were anything but. He had gotten used to it, numb to the pain that he had been put through, numb to the reality because he didn't have anything else. He didn't have a family, didn't have friends. He had been alone with the two things that called themselves his parents but were anything but.
The first time he had questioned it was when he had seen a real family. They had been happy, children meandering around and playing with each other, and none of their mistakes were yelled at or frown upon... none of them were beaten for the smallest misstep. Most of the time it wasn't even noticed, not by the adults nor his own "parents"... they were allowed to be children.
It was a spiral downwards after that. He tried to rebel, to fight against what he was slowly realizing wasn't normal, but he was nothing but a child. There had been nothing he could do... except run.
And run he did.
He had been running for days now, going through lands he couldn't name if he tried. It didn't matter where he went, only that he was going as far away from his abusers as possible. He didn't stop running, even after the trees turned into a beach and the beach turned into a weird strip of land under his feet that led farther and farther into the water. It didn't matter if he didn't know what would await him by the end, if he would end up in a dead end or not.
If he did, he'd simply drown himself. That was his reality.
He had stopped running the moment the island and gate became more prominently visible, when he realized it wasn't just his disillusioned state tricking him into seeing land. He had stopped walking when his paws gave out, falling right before the gate with nothing more than a tiny 'umph.'
Bells softly chimed around him, and he wondered if heaven had finally come to get him.
It had all happened like a dream, startling him awake into reality. From a young age the child had been conditioned; conditioned to love unconditionally, to look his abusers in the eyes and view them as nothing short of gods when they were anything but. He had gotten used to it, numb to the pain that he had been put through, numb to the reality because he didn't have anything else. He didn't have a family, didn't have friends. He had been alone with the two things that called themselves his parents but were anything but.
The first time he had questioned it was when he had seen a real family. They had been happy, children meandering around and playing with each other, and none of their mistakes were yelled at or frown upon... none of them were beaten for the smallest misstep. Most of the time it wasn't even noticed, not by the adults nor his own "parents"... they were allowed to be children.
It was a spiral downwards after that. He tried to rebel, to fight against what he was slowly realizing wasn't normal, but he was nothing but a child. There had been nothing he could do... except run.
And run he did.
He had been running for days now, going through lands he couldn't name if he tried. It didn't matter where he went, only that he was going as far away from his abusers as possible. He didn't stop running, even after the trees turned into a beach and the beach turned into a weird strip of land under his feet that led farther and farther into the water. It didn't matter if he didn't know what would await him by the end, if he would end up in a dead end or not.
If he did, he'd simply drown himself. That was his reality.
He had stopped running the moment the island and gate became more prominently visible, when he realized it wasn't just his disillusioned state tricking him into seeing land. He had stopped walking when his paws gave out, falling right before the gate with nothing more than a tiny 'umph.'
Bells softly chimed around him, and he wondered if heaven had finally come to get him.
♔ — I want brimstone in my garden