"Freak! Freak!" They chanted around Marlene. A girl rushed forward and grabbed a handful of Marlene's hair in her clenched fist and began to drag her towards the side of the corridor.
"Do you ever get tired of being a freak, FREAK!" She screamed in Marlene's ear, making her instinctively flinch. Her breaths were ragged and uneven. Marlene struggled to keep up and almost tripped on her nightgown, which was too long for her. They had given it to her when she arrived at the orphanage. They continued to pull and dragged Marlene right out of bed, she was crying so hard her vision blurred.
She struggled and thrashed, pushing herself away from the girl with the iron grip, but another girl grabbed her hand, pulling it away and they continued to pull Marlene along the dark corridor no matter how hard she fought.
"GET OFF! GET OFF ME!" She pleaded, unable to see through her tears.
Each girl, there were 4 of them in total, held her by a limb or a part of her body and carried her unwillingly into a cupboard on the side of the wall, at the very end of the hall. They dropped Marlene, suddenly letting go of her arms and legs, on her back and she scrambled to her feet but was too slow. The door shut and locked and she was left in the dark, pitch black.
"LET ME OUT!" Marlene banged on the door and slammed into it with all her might but it remained solid, "NO, NO!" She cried and heard their laughter echoing from the other side of the wood. Taunting her, mocking her.
"I wonder... how long will it take the freak to get out if we just leave it here?" They laughed and Marlene let out a mangled cry, she screamed, her tears felt seething hot and felt as if they burned her face.
She stopped, She stopped crying, stopped trying to get out and there was a beat of silence. A moment... of peace. Something clicked in her head, like a lock being pushed open and the burning feeling in her chest subsided, it extinguished and she felt- she felt- nothing.
The door burst open, the hinge creaking and the solid wood slammed into the wall.
But where her tears had been, her eyes were now bloodshot but her face dry. The girl's eyes widened in horror, some of their mouths falling agape and Marlene knew they were screaming, she could see it in their faces, in their eyes. She just couldn't quite hear them, the world had suddenly gone quiet and all she could hear was her pulse.
Marlene treaded out of the dark cupboard into the light of the corridor and the 4 girls that had been standing around the door and laughing, crashed to their knees. They began to cradle their feet, some didn't even dare touch them. Marlene couldn't help it. She should have been scared, She knew she should have helped them.
Marlene should've done a lot of things, but didn't do any of them. Because at that moment, for those few minutes, Marlene refused to think of what she had done because she thought they had deserved it. Maybe she was right.
Marlene wordlessly stepped over the collapsed girl, their hands still cradling their legs, and ran to her bedside. She pulled out her rucksack from under the bed and began to cram in all her belongings, which wasn't very much.
She began to regain her hearing and winced at the shrill scream of the four girls she had left by the cupboard. Marlene slung the pack on her back and opened the window at the head of the dorm, which led onto a smaller roof beneath it.
She took one final look back, a member of staff had arrived, no doubt beckoned by the screams of agony. And she saw the marks, the thin dark lines on their skin as if the blood vessels had been fried as if they had begun to burn within their skin. She caught a glimpse of the large searing burns on their legs and choked a sob.
The member of staff heard her and turned briefly, her eyes wide with shock only to catch a glimpse of Marlene slipping out the window and jumping from the roof to the grass below and she ran.
Marlene ran until her legs burned and she felt as if her lungs were going to give way. She ran until she wasn't alone.
There was something else in these woods with her.
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I hope you all like the first chapter, please vote and comment. I really hope you enjoy the rest of the story!
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S P A R K Y • riven
FanfictionBOOK ONE Running away was never the plan, but Marlene couldn't stay after what had happened. After what she had done. A year later, she is going into her second year at Alfea where she is just trying to get by as a normal teenager but she's not norm...
