ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴄʀʏ, ʙʀᴀᴛ | ʟᴇᴠɪ ᴀᴄᴋᴇʀᴍᴀɴ

_.zero

Prologue

»»————-　　————-««

Genesis

"Mommy - my legs hurt." the little girl's words were nothing but faint breaths as she tried to keep the pace her mother imposed on her. The blisters on the back of her feet started to bleed again at the contact of her holed shoes. She whimpered from the pain.

"Mommy, can we stop running ?" the little girl pleaded. She couldn't quite see where her mother was dragging her, running into the endless obscurity of the Underground. Her eyes gleamed with tears under the lighting pole they just passed.
"Stop talking !" her mother snapped at her, her head shifting to her daughter.
The little one shrieked at the sight of her mother's eyes transfixed with horror. She now too, started to feel afraid for a reason still out of her grasp.

"Celia ~" a voice purred, lingering into the shadows.

The mother snatched her child into her arms in a hasted motion and rushed into an alley, hiding, with her back against the wall's cold bricks. The child opened her mouth to mutter some words of complaint but was met with her mother's hand covering her mouth.

"Come on out, you know that if - you - run, it makes me enjoy it more ~" the disembodied voice made the little girl's inside churn. She could tell by his tone he wasn't a friend of her mommy.

Plick, Plick.
His footstep on the wetted paved road made Celia's blood run cold. A trail of sweat formed on the nap of her neck, holding her breath as much as she possibly could. She looked at her beautiful child holding on tight to her, her h/c hair sticking to her face as rain was pouring on them. She brushed some strands off her child's little plumped mouth while thinking the rain and the darkness would cover their presence and allow them to live another day to tell the tale. Little did she know that if darkness was indeed a veil, it was also the preferred hunting ground for those who lost all light.

Plick, Plick.
A growing anxiety and an urge took over Celia — an urge to hide her daughter for a sinister thought creeped inside her mind, deeper, and deeper. She quickly scanned the dark narrow alley until her eyes stopped on a big green bin. Well aware that the sound of her steps could give her position away, she hurried to the large bin and opened it. The smell of putrid garbage made her take a step back. She looked at her daughter who was clearly disgusted by the smell too, and hushed her to stay silent with a finger on her lips. She gave her a last smile, a smile that bore all the love, and sadness she felt when she knew she had to part with her child, not knowing if she was going to see her again.

Plick. Plick.
She lifted her daughter up and put her in the bin, on what she recognized as a pile of paper.  "You have to stay here." Celia whispered to her child. "You have to promise me you won't get out or make a sound, whatever you hear."

"But.." started the child, to which the mother responded by sticking out her pinky finger in front of her.
Reluctantly, the little girl clutched at her mother's pinky with her own, and slowly shook it up and down.

"That's a promise, Y/n." whispered softly the worn out mother, placing a last kiss on Y/n forehead, not knowing that she spoke her last words.

When the bin closed on her, depraving her from all light sources, Y/n couldn't make out anything with her eyes. Everything was dark and smelled awful. She was struggling to not puke at the stench. Behind the thundering sound the curtain of rain made by pouring on the bin, she could distinct speckles of words from outside her dark box.

"...I don't want to...anymore...from me !!"

Y/n slammed her hand on her mouth to suppress her voice.
A long screech covered the sound of the rain and pierced the night, Y/n's heart along with it. She grabbed her knees closer to herself and started rocking back and forth slowly, trying to make the pain in her chest fade away. Her eyes were devoid of anything that could be called an emotion as she muttered to herself.

It's not mommy's voice. It's not mommy's voice.

All of her being was shaking as she chanted the same sentence, other and other again in a whisper. She could still hear the same voice begging for help, the voice of her mother. The little girl tried the hardest to deny the truth, to deny her reality. She squeezed her face between her hands, covering her ears as tight as she could. Warm tears fell down her cheeks, washing away her innocence bit by bit.
The screams gradually turned into moans, so faint Y/n couldn't hear anything anymore. She was torn between the compulsion of getting out and finding her mom, and staying in the bin to fade away, well hidden from the world. As exhaustion caught up to her, she drifted away to an even more darker place, filled with her mother's screams on replay. She will never sleep soundly again, nor would she ever find solace if she continued to live on.
Her torment was resolved by her will to stay in the filthy bin, too washed away to find any impulse to get out and face the cruel world, too young to handle the mental strain.

Days passed, and Y/n didn't budge from her spot. Her lips were chapped and flaky. Her skin lost its elasticity, which made any motion hurt in an odd way. She went hungry fast, and tried to eat paper in despair, to no avail. It only made her thirst worst with her body painfully spasming while she vomited the paper she ingested.
The rain had stopped and the silence made her feel even more anxious, uneasy. She tried to lie down a little to rest her sore body but something pointy stabbed her back.

"Ouch!" she exclaimed in surprise, straightening up so fast she hit her head on the top of the bin.

Approaching footstep resonated in the dead silence of the alley, and her whole body froze. The footsteps were much like the ones of her mother's assailer. She was able to tell the similarities because, forever, the bad man's footsteps were anchored in her soul.
Light, assertive steps.
She was alert, not inching, not breathing, not swallowing. She stopped herself in time as the footsteps stopped in front of the bin.
The light was too excruciating for her doe eyes immersed in darkness for too long as the bin was being opened. She covered her eyes in an effort to escape from the light.

"I shouldn't have opened this bin." the teenager boy grumbled at the sight of the stunted child, putting his hand up against his forehead. The boy was pissed off at himself, being too curious about the noises that came from that bin. Now, he felt responsible for the girl.
The little girl parted two fingers to catch a glimpse of whom was speaking above her. She laid eyes on a black haired boy, his hair was falling on his eyes.
Y/n reached for the bin's lid to shut it off on her but the teenager's hand stopped her in motion.

"What do you think you are doing ?" the boy contested with disdain, lifting an eyebrow.

"I..." Y/n started to mouth, but failed miserably at speaking and coughed uncontrollably, her throat being too dry for her to utter a word.

The black heard teenager sighed sharply and lifted the girl up. Y/n gasped in surprise as he was holding her up, his hands under her pits like you would hold a cat. His gaze studied her while he pondered about what to do with her. When he saw the little girl's gaze shifting from him to the gruesome scenery splattered on the ground, he pulled her into his arms and covered her eyes.

"Don't look."

But it was too late, for she already caught glimpses of the stiffened corpse laying on the ground. Y/n's mind was filled with images of shredded clothes, stained red, the lips of her mothers usually so pink drained of their color, her wide eyes fixated on the bin.
She clenched at the teenager's clothes, holding back her tears made her little body twitch in sobs against the boy's chest while he walked away from her own living hell.
The teenager knew all too well the pain the child was in, but as he never experienced any tenderness or heard any kind words directed at him, he didn't know how to comfort someone.
The only words that slipped out of his mouth was...

"Be strong and don't cry, brat."

»»————-　　————-««