Fragile (Slow Updates)

Chapter 4: Old Memories

As Sous-lieutenant. Vogel walked; he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. As right in front of him was a burned down house he was all too familiar with as it was his old home while stationed here with his family.

He wandered around his old home remembering what it used to look like and the good memories he had before his life turned into a nightmare. Feeling a headache coming on he walked out the back door and laid under a massive oak tree in the backyard. With his eyes slowly closing as darkness consumed him.

June 12, 2017
2045 (8:45 PM)
Azur Lane HQ

Pain that's all the Sous-lieutenant could feel. It enveloped him emotionally, physically, and mentally. Though he only felt it because his mother divorced his father leaving him to be abused by a pissed off shit dad who took out all of his pain on him.

"Arg." Grunted the fifteen-year-old version of the Sous-lieutenant, lying on the beach, bloodied and bruised from being beaten by a beer bottle, with green glass bits cutting into his flesh, leaving him with a black purple eye. Burn marks covered his arms, legs, back, chest, and hands, inflicted by a stove top or a blowtorch, and he felt cold to the touch, experiencing excruciating pain throughout his body. As he lay there waves crashed gently against him as he stared up at the night sky, finding solace in studying the stars. The only thing that brought a smile to his face. However, his peaceful moment was interrupted when one of his older sisters stumbled across him.

"John!" Shouted a shocked Caucasian female with long black hair, tawny brown eyes, fox ears and wearing a white female naval dress uniform composed mainly of white with gold trim. Who was taken back by his beaten appearance as she rushed to help.

"Hey...Atago." The young boy replied, taking a struggled breath in between words. Upon seeing Atago crouching beside him with a worried look on her face.

"Come on let's get you cleaned up." She replied by helping the injured boy off the sand with him putting up no resistance towards her help and wrapped her white officer's jacket around him before walking back towards her dorm with him in tow.

"Big sis your back and you brought company!" Shouted a white haired, light brown eyed, Caucasian female wearing a black sailors uniform with a white scarf around her neck and a katana holstered on her right hip. Upon seeing her sister and John walk through the front door.

"Hey Maya." Replied Atago with the two sisters hugging each other.

"Hey." He gave her a weak hello and smile mixed with pain that quickly disappeared.

"John, how about you go take a shower." She instructed.

Without uttering a word, he entered the bathroom, swiftly locking the door behind him. He carefully removed his blood-soaked clothing, taking extra care to extract any shards of glass embedded in his right and left arm. Each extraction brought a surge of pain as the shards were deeply lodged, causing crimson red blood to ooze out and stain his body. Despite the agony, he pressed on, determined to cleanse himself. He stepped into the shower, turned the hot water knob, and felt the soothing warmth enveloping his skin. It was a rare moment of relief, as he couldn't recall the last time he had enjoyed a relaxing shower without fearing retribution from his abusive father. Back then, any infraction during a shower could be a reason for a severe beating, regardless of how trivial it might have been. The consequences were entirely at his father's whim, leaving him to suffer the torment of his unpredictable wrath.

After turning off the water, he carefully tended to his wounds, cleaning them up and wrapping them in fresh, white bandages. Once that was done, he put on the spare clothing left by the door—a clean white t-shirt, a dark blue button-up shirt with white stripes, a pair of jeans, black Vans sneakers, and black ankle socks. He fastened a black wristwatch on his left wrist. Now fully dressed and with his wounds tended to, he took a deep breath, attempting to find some sense of calm amidst the constant pain.