Warrior

Flooding Memories

Maddie! Get out here!" His voice booms throughout the whole room.

I quickly run to him with as many rations as I could collect in my hands.

"That's all!?" He screams slamming his fists down onto the table.

"S-Sorry dad there wasn't-" I try to explain but he doesn't listen. He just swipes his hand across the only table in the room, shoving the beer bottle to the ground causing it to shatter into little pieces.

"Your just like your mother..a sad excuse and a waste of skin." He tells me as he undos his belt.

"Dad please, No!" I scream trying to run away but I end up just turning face to face with a corner, frantically trying to get out. He grabs me by the collar of my shirt and strikes my back with the belt.

"P-please j-ust stop!" I beg which just seems to make him angrier. He drags me backwards and then we just stop in the middle of the room. I'm about to turn around when I feel a sharp piece of glass dig into my back.

"AHHHH!" I scream the loudest I have ever screamed before as he continues to drag the piece of glass downwards,  parallel with my spine.  I turn around and elbow him in the nose, releasing me from his grip.

"Your such a little bitch!" He screams wiping the blood away as I smell the alchohol in his breath until he slams me into the nearest wall.

No. No. No. No!

"Maddie, hey wake up!" Someone shakes me and I gasp for breath as I look around quickly in panic.

"B-Bellamy" I reassure myself as I take a deep breath. "Im-s-sorry"

"Does it happen often?" He asks me with a worried look. I just reply by sitting there. If only he knew. "What are you afraid of?" He asks but continues when he sees me sigh and look away. "You know what, it doesn't matter, what matters is what you do about it." He tells me as I look at him in confusion.

"But I'm asleep"

"Fears are fears, slay your demons when your awake..they won't be there to get you when you sleep" He replies.

"Yeah but how?" I ask not understanding what he meant.

"You can't afford to be weak, down here weakness is death..fear is death."

Then we just stare at each other for a while as I'm trying to wrap my head around this concept, which I can't seem to do. "Let me see that knife I gave you"

I hand him the knife and he takes it from me, gripping it in his hands.

"Now when you feel afraid, hold tight to that knife and say 'screw you, I'm not afraid' " He explains to me as he demonstrates first. He gives the knife back to me as in to tell me to do it next.

I grip the knife in my hands and stare at it, recalling my horrid abuse from my father.

"Screw you, I'm not afraid" I say which came out in a low whisper. I look up at Bellamy who has a 'you can do it better' face on with his lips scrunched to the side.

"Screw you I'm not afraid" I say again this time with more confidence and boldness in my voice.

"Slay your demons kid, then you'll be able to sleep" He says as he turns around and pats my leg.

I try going back to sleep but the pain all over my body is still fierce and too uncomfortable to bear. I keep slowly and cautiously turning over from side to side until after about thirty minutes I can't stand it anymore. I let out a huge sigh and throw my blanket over my head. Wait I don't have a blanket. I take it off and see that Bellamy gave me his jacket. How nice. I place it back over my lap and stare at Bellamy sleeping away while I was sitting here bored as can be.

"Bellamy wake up!" I shout at him causing him to jump and shoot his eyes towards me.

"What - what's going on, you okay?" He asks trying to scan me quickly to see if I'm good.

"No..I'm bored" I tell him, mentally laughing.

"You wake me up just because your bored?" He asks me, clearly confused at my thought process. 

"Yes it's not exactly comforting knowing we are in a dark cave, and I can't sleep while you are. It makes me feel kinda lonely." I tell him and shrug not knowing how to really explain it.

"Fine" Bell says squinting at me from one eye to another as he tries to understand.  "Let's talk, I wanted to ask you something anyway." He says sitting up and leaning his hands back on his jacket like before.

"Shoot" I say, happy that he wasn't just going back to sleep and ignoring me.

"So when I lifted up your shirt, you had a long scar running from the top of your back, down." He starts as I feel my face drop, I was so focused on the pain that that totally skipped my mind. I cut him off knowing the obvious question that would come next.

"Yeah it must have been from a time on the Ark, I- was running and..." I pause not knowing what else to say. There wasn't exactly enough time to put together a new lie about this long scar on my back. I look into his chocolate colored eyes filled with an attentive glare that made me want to spill everything out to him.

"Maddie?" He asks wondering where I was going with this story and why I had paused as I just sat there and stared.

"Right yeah-" I begin again, but this time I was going to tell him the truth, I can trust him. "When I was a little girl my mother would steal food rations to please my alcoholic father who worked in the guard." I tell him as I feel the tears building up and my throat start to close. "He would make her do this or else he said he would kill her. She kept on doing it in fear of him until one day she never came back. We were told she had been caught and was going to be floated the next day." I take a deep breath and quickly wipe away the water in my eyes. I feel Bellamy put his hand on my shoulder. I give him a weak smile and continue.

"After my mother was gone, my father drank more and more. He made me take my mother's place and steal the food rations. I couldn't gather that much and so my father would beat me constantly. One of those beatings resulted with that scar across my back. T-the glass...he dug glass from his shattered beer down my back..I-I co-couldnt e-scape" I choke out until I'm sobbing into my hands, not finding the strength to stop. I feel myself being gently brought towards Bellamy as I throw my arms around his neck.

"I-im sorry" I whisper as his hand caresses the back of my head.

"Shhh your alright now. Your safe." His reassuring words went through my ear but right out the other. This was only true if my father wasn't coming down to earth, but there was a chance he was.

I continued to hug him as if it would make all my pain go away - as if this was the closure I needed all those years when I didn't have anyone but my abusive father. Then I feel my eyes becoming heavy and all I can see now is total darkness, and the last feeling I feel is a guy I had just met about a week ago, acting more like a father figure than my dad ever did in six long years.