Gone by Ghosts (Natasha Romanoff x OC)

~It's just a bad dream ~- Prologue II

TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains violence and sickness

"It's just getting worse"

Karlsruhe, Germany 01/27/2003:

We are sitting at our dining table. Silence is filling the room like it does most days lately. My mother's stirring around in her cereal, barely eating any of it.

"Komm schon Mama, du musst was essen. Wenn du so weiter machst schadest du dir mehr, als dass du dir hilfst. Wir hatten das doch schon." ("Come on mum, you gotta eat. If you keep doing this, you'll hurt yourself more than you'll help yourself."). I keep looking at her until she nods and starts eating.

It immediately backfires. She stands up and hurries to the bathroom. The door closes, but I can still hear her throwing up. So I get up, fill a glass at the sink, soak the kitchen towel with cool water, take out some of her nausea pills and put it all on the living room table.

I enter the bathroom after she's stopped. Looking at her, having almost reached her height, I see a bit of blood on the corner of her mouth. Taking a piece of toilet paper to softly wipe it off her face, I say: "Tut mir leid Mama, ich hätte dich nicht so unter Druck setzen sollen. Ich will nur, dass es dir wieder besser geht." ("I'm sorry mum. I shouldn't have pressured you so much. I just want you to get better.").

"Ja, ja. Wie auch immer. Ich leg mich jetzt hin. Oder passt dir das nicht?" ("Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I'm gonna lay down now. Or is that not okay with you?"), she answers clearly annoyed that I'm being so emotional. I try helping her to the couch but she pushes me off her. Getting to the couch she takes the pills, puts the towel on her forehead and closes her eyes. In the meantime, I clean up the bathroom and the kitchen. And after I'm done, I tell my mother that I'm off to school. I leave the house and make my way to the center of the city instead of the closes train station that would take me to school.

________________________________________________________

I arrive at the back entrance of a bar on one of the smaller side streets. The owner, a middle-aged Italian man with a slim but tall body and a whole bunch of tattoos, who goes by the name of Marco, is taking out some trash. He greets me with a short, tight hug.

"Kathi! Wie geht's dir? Wie geht's deiner Mutter?" ("Kathi! How are you? How's your mother?").

"So wie immer. Was steht heute an?" ("As always. What's planned for today?"). I avoid his question, knowing that opening up would give them opportunities to exploit me. It's bad enough that they know about my mother.

"Ich weiß nicht. Musst du den Boss fragen. Er und die Jungs sind drinnen. Frühstücken." ("I don't know. Gotta ask the boss. He's inside with the boys. Eating breakfast.").

"Alles klar." ("Alright."). I pat his shoulder and step inside.

The boss, a man who could be considered "big" in every way, is sitting at one of the tables with a bunch of younger men. Some of them under 18. He sends some of them away when I get closer.

"Katharina, so gut dich zu sehen. Siehst gut aus. Setz dich doch bis die Jungs fertig sind. Dann könnt ihr los. Ihr macht heute mal was anderes. Es wird Zeit, dass du ein bisschen mehr Verantwortung übernimmst." ("Katharina, so good to see you. You look good today. Why don't you sit down till the boys are done? Then you can go. You'll do something a little different today. It's time you take on more responsibility."), he says with a relatively thick Italian accent.

"Und wie stellst du dir das vor? Ich verkaufe schon eure Drogen. Zugegeben ihr bezahlt mich gut, aber du weißt, dass ich nicht zu eurem kleinen Verein gehören will. Ich arbeite für euch, nicht mit euch." ("And what do you imagine that to look like? I'm already selling your drugs. To be fair you do pay good money, but you know I don't want to join your little club. I work for you, not with you."), I say with a mixture of seriousness and irony.