The Innocents

Prologue

Warning!
The following chapter contains a visual description of abuse.
Reader discretion is advised!

Iris

Whack!

The deafening slap echoed in my room, making me feel dizzy for a millisecond and I found myself losing balance.

While striving to gain my composure, another landed on my right cheek and I felt it burn as it probably left a red mark on my light skin. It wasn't the first time mom hit me; it always happened whenever she visited, because she had to vent.

Because I was the cause of it.

I didn't want to make her mad, so I lay on the bed, dizzied from the attacks without crying out. There was no point anyway since no one but the two of us was home. Mom grabbed me by the collar of my pj's, before dragging me out of my room hurriedly and we soon stood right atop the stairs, waiting for her next course of action.

" Why should I be stuck with you when my happily ever after died too?" Her red eyes darted around the passageway as if she was looking for something. " If I get rid of you,  I will be fresh again. Then maybe he'll come back and we can start over. Together".

I couldn't understand a thing about what she was trying to say, but one thing stood out in her words. I was the cause of this dilemma she was in. The dilemma that made her stay away from home. The dilemma that caused the Kunai family to fall apart and crumble to pieces. The dilemma that made my mother into the sad excuse of a human being she was now, and the dilemma that made her hate me to the core.

I have no idea how it happened, but the next moment after her words, I was falling down the stairs. I had no time to think or react as my body propelled down, receiving a cut on my wrist from a plank mom had whacked open during her last quarrel with my grandparents on the staircase.

I landed head-first on the floor with a loud thud that made me open my mouth in a silent gasp and I felt a sharp pain on my left wrist and nose. I was bleeding.

Loud and fast steps came from the stairs case and the next moment my mother passed by me hurriedly, not even batting an eyelash to look at my nearly lifeless body that lay on the floor.

I watched in utter silence her hazy figure leaving the room, and a few minutes later I heard a car start outside, announcing her departure.

Throughout the entire bitter ordeal, no tears escaped from my eyes, no screams and no remarks, but only a few groans escaped from me, like any normal child would do when in agony. I was used to this by now, and I knew that whining would only get me into more trouble with mom.

The hazy images soon turned black and my body felt heavy–I couldn't move a muscle. I fell into a painful slumber, and couldn't remember what happened after the 'incident' with my mother.

The next moment I opened my eyes, I had a numb broken arm and I was in a hospital, with needles stuck in my arm and a headache threatening to split my head in half.

My body hurt. My mind was blank. I was a mess.

"She's awake!" Grandmother cried out loudly, her blurry figure disturbing my senses and making my headache seem like it was increasing.

"Call the doctor Christoph!" She said sharply and I heard a loud rasp of a chair being pushed.

"On it," Grandpa Christoph replied. "Doctor!" I heard him call out as he hurried outside.

The sounds that came after were hurried and fast as if the doctors were sprinting into the room to check on a dying patient. I felt hands touch my little palm and I winced, but no one seemed to notice, not even the doctor.

"She will be fine. We just need to keep her well-fed and hydrated until she can move on her own," a voice I assumed belonged to the doctor said.

A loud sigh came from someone in the room, but I couldn't make out who it was as I felt myself drift into oblivion for a second time.

***

"She's awake!"

This time, it was my grandfather who said it. The grip Grandma had on my hands softened and she into focus.

Good, my vision is back.

I winced from the light that pierced into my eyes, and Grandma seemed to notice. She covered my eyes with her hands and called out, "Can someone dim the lights?"

Just like that, the lights were switched off.

My grandfather rounded the bed till he was on my left side, a pained expression on his face.

"What happened?" He asked, his body upright and stiff. I could feel the intensity of his grief weighing down my small body.

If I tell him mom pushed me down the stairs, he might kill her.

So I averted his piercing gaze to avoid assessment. "I-I fell," I lied.

An eerie silence fell in the ward. The smell of medicine kept filling my nose, not to mention the white clinical walls that reflected the light all too well. Everything was irritating. The beeps from the machine beside me, the drips, the colors. Nothing was to my liking.

I felt useless, and it made me want to complain; but nothing good comes out of complaining. It only makes the people you're complaining to feel burdened, and I hate burdening the only people who support me more than anyone. So I endured the pain.

"You'll be okay," my grandmother said.

Yes, I thought to myself. I will be okay. I will be fine. As long as I have my grandparents, I am going to be fine.

But deep down I felt the cosmic empty dark void. There was no galaxy in it, no meteorites to bring about the sparks I needed. The only thing I wished for I could not get.

The heavy weight of sleep overtook my small body again and I slowly closed my eyes whilst looking at the bandage that wrapped my entire arm.

I was going to have a scar for life.

She was ten when it happened
Ó⁠╭⁠╮⁠Ò