Tainted Creations: Hurt

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

          Blood spilled across the back porch of a home centered in a remote forest. It wasn’t the first time. It wouldn’t be the last. The man that lived there believed that she deserved to be punished. That, it deserved to be punished.
          To him she was no more a little girl than the tarnished wood that her blood slowly seeped into. She was a monster, a demon, unclean and inhuman. It made his heart swell with malice just knowing her blood was the same shade of scarlet as his own.
          Her small hands were clenched tightly, her fingers digging into her palms. She dare not say a word, he’d lace her again. Her face was red from the blow, she could still faintly feel his fist against her cheek, but not a tear was shed, those had run out long ago. Pain was all she had left, and more often than not, even that left her feeling numb.
          Her legs trembled violently, though the girl was on her hands and knees, her legs had trouble supporting her meager weight. Her body screamed for release, to be laid against the porch beneath her, but she knew he wasn’t finished, and knew she would be punished if she were to lie dawn without permission.
          A leather strap was being held tightly in his right hand. Small inklings of the girl’s blood painstakingly dripped from the end of the strap. His cold eyes glanced quickly to the gash on her forearms, then dawn to the piece of leather in his hand. She has put her arms up just in time, or that bloody mess would be on her face.
She could smell his sweat, he was nerves. She wondered why. He had struck her once with his fist and then several times with the strap, and then stopped… he hardly ever stopped so quickly.
          She licked the blood from her upper lip hesitantly, knowing if he caught the action he would hit her again. It was grotesque to clean one’s face in such a manner to her adopter.
          The man walked up to the girl and knelt dawn next to her. The leather strap was dropped, and a large hand meshed to the child’s skull and picked her up in one swift motion.
          Her feet lifted from the ground in the blink of an eye as a small yelp escaped the young girl’s throat.
He held her in mid air, and walked to the edge of the porch. There was a good fifteen foot drop from the back porch’s edge to the ground below leading into the woods. He dropped her without hesitation.
Not a sound was made by the helpless girl until the sickening thud of her body’s impact to the earth’s soil.
          “Now, go clean yourself up and get your ass back up here.” His tone was threatening and bitter.
The man walked back to the rear door leading into his home, leaving the girl with her own company.
          Shaking limbs pushed her small, frail looking body to her feet, only to have her legs give out beneath her. Stumbling back, she grabbed hold of the branch of a fallen tree to stable herself.
          A wide, yet shallow stream, not quite three feet deep, ran a quarter of a mile from where the child stabled herself. She would need to get to the stream, clean her wounds, and retune to the house before night fall. She had about two hours. If she didn’t make it back to the house by dusk, she would be beaten severally, and put in the box early without food or the opportunity of washing the fresh wounds.
          Dark brown eyes looked up from the ground to see the lush pine trees and wild grasses all around her. Breathing in deep she took her first few steps on trembling feet, but her sore, weary muscles helped her make her way dawn to the stream. The ground was at a slight decline; witch made it easer to walk, yet caused her to stumble a little. Blood flowed silently from the multiple articulations on her arms, face and legs. She knew that the gash on her arms needed the most attention. It not only heart the most and was the biggest, it was also producing the most blood loss. To make matters wears, the fall from the deck filled her cuts and abrasions with unwonted dirt, the soil was all over her.
          After struggling to the stream, she removed all her cloths, walked into the water, squatted dawn and began washing herself as best she could. The water was cold, and stung every little cut on her flesh, but the child knew that it was better to suffer though a little pain to get them clean, then to let them sit unattended to. She watched the stream’s pure, clear water stain red for the moment as the weak current swept her blood dawn stream.
          After soaking her body for several minuets, the girl dipped her head under the water, and rubbed her scalp to untangle and wash her solder-length, black hair.
          She stood up and walked back to the shore. The sun beamed dawn through the trees, giving heat to her cold skin.
She was exhausted by the time she had dried herself off with her shirt, and put her damp cloths on, but she made it back to house with less trouble than she had expected. Many of the wounds had stopped bleeding; even the large gash on her forearms had stopped for the most part. She could dress them properly if it was permitted once she was inside.
          She weighted on the back porch for nearly a half hour before her adopter opened the door and let her inside. Her eyes faced the gray carpet as she entered the side room that led dawn to the basement. She knew what she had to do.
The man had already left her, she turned to a dresser in the corner, there she would find dry, clean cloths. Discarding the dirty apparel in a box next to the dresser, she pulled on a white t-shirt and black sweat pants.
“Get in here.” Her adopter called.
          The girl scurried into an adjoining room and came to a halt at the feet of her adopter.
          “You do what you’re told next time, or they’ll be more than a few cuts on you, you hear me.” His tone was not angry, but it commanded attention.
The child nodded, eyes still to the floor, she knew what he would do if she were to look up.
          “here,” the man held out a sandwich. “Take it and get dawn stairs.”
Her hands reached out slowly and took the food, than tuned and did what was commanded to.

          It was dark, so dark. She stood for a few minuets within this darkness, weighting for what was to come, weighting to be locked up for the night, like every night.
          The glow of a forty-watt light bulb illuminated the stare well softly, breaking the darkness. Foot steps fallowed the light being tuned on. No matter how many times it happened, it still made her heart race.
          She kneeled dawn on her hands and knees, submitting to her adopter as he approached her.
          “I have a present for you.” His words were soft, but a mocking laugh fallowed.
          The child felt the man’s fingers touch her neck, then by cold steel, she heard the snapping of a clip, fallowed by the click of two halves fastening together. A thick mettle band rested heavily around the girl’s neck.
          Her hands reached up to touch it, but before her fingertips could reach the band, pain engulfed her body like never before. She screamed hysterically, her body arched back, muscles shaking uncontrollably, her eyes rolled back as bile built up in the back of her throat. Her hands slammed to the floor as waves of electricity pulsed without mercy though her entire body. She had never felt so desperate for release until this very moment.
          And then the pain vanished. Her body collapsed to the floor as if she had been smashed into it by another force.
          “It’s called a submission collar.” The sound of her adopters’ voice was so faint in her ears, so far away. “If you try to take it off, you’ll get shocked, like just now, but that’s not all, if you try anything I don’t like… I can zap you with this.” He held a small silver devise no bigger than his palm out for her to see. “You got it? So be good, you little bitch, and get in your box.”
          She was still recovering, her skin shaking against her muscles, her vision somewhat distorted and shaky, but she crawled to a wooden crate a few paces from reach and dragged herself inside of it.
          As soon as she was inside, her adopter kicked the crate and the swing-latch door shut tight behind her.
          After the heavy footsteps left the basement stares, a small sigh of relief swept over the young girls lips. What would tomorrow bring? She didn’t really want to think about it, she knew it would only bring her more nightmares.

          She could see the night sky from a window in the basement though her cage. It was so beautiful, so peaceful. She wished she could be in it. She wished that she could be one of those billions of stars shining like diamonds on an onyx slate. She wished she didn’t have to sleep in a crate, or attempt to carry out orders that she would never accomplish, for a man that loathed her every breath. She wanted to know why she was there. Why she had no family, Why her adopter treated her like a vicious animal…and why she was so different from other children, what made her so different? Her questions went unanchored… only more added to the cluster of confusion within the small child. Would she always live this way? Would she always fear… humans? Would they always hate her for being something unexplainable to them?

          Her fragile form curled into a ball on the floor of her crate. Tonight she would sleep with fresh sensations of pain, still so new to her. The band around her neck was proof enough to her, that dreams could never be wears than reality. With this in mind, the child let sleep take her tired body to another world, a place out of reach from her adopter, but still so dark.