One shots?

Another day. Another beating.

Young Shelby was a problem child.

No she didn't suffer from any mental or physical disabilities. No. She was just the one who was always in the wrong place. Always at the wrong time.

Broken ribs at 7? She had been under the filled bookshelf at the wrong time. Fractured wrist at 8? She tried to separate two boys fighting over her.

She was the prime definition of a black cat. Ever since she was born she was nothing but an omen of bad and horrendous luck. And it was only her who suffered.

At least until her mother died. And she blamed herself for the accident. The accident that her father had specifically told her was her fault. The incident that her father had blamed her for. As a slow learning 13 year old it was. Difficult.

She suffered. Both her and her mom. She was the black cat. And her mother was the Black Death. Seeing as how her father came back to her. Telling her it was her fault to watch his wife, her mom, bleed from the inside out u til her lungs filled with nothing but an iron scent.

One that Shelby would learn to memorize. The scent of blood. She would learn to memorize it until she hardly noticed it. Not even her extended family wanted her. Her cousin Ross was convinced she was demon spawn. Her classmates throughout school stayed far away from her.

The black cat. The stray. The rouge. The problem child. The last nickname was the one most used. Specifically by her father. He was still a good man but whenever Shelby did anything relating to her mother. His fragile sanity crumbled. And even though it wasn't harsh. It affected her negatively.

She grew up with no friends. No access to the internet until her near 20's. No pets. Just her and her father. She existed. But was rarely wanted.

She spent most of her school years in the background. The other kids split when they saw her. Her grey sweater and black tights concealing the occasional bruise and the messy and unkempt hair.

She would get into fights. Not even her own. Her heart was still big on the inside but without engagement it slowly shrunk.

It was around 18 when her father left her to find another woman. She had never felt more physically, mentally and emotionally alone than that time. She could barely find the strength some days to wake up. Much less exist.

Gradually the bags under her eyes grew. The sweater ragged. Her hair kept growing on to the point where it reached her lower back in a tangled mess. She had never wanted to cut herself.

But it was all about influence. First it started with the cheerleaders. Then the football team. Until gradually everyone wanted her gone before her senior year of high school was over. They threw capped razor blades at her. They would throw notes at her to simply do it already. And to make matters worse she would get beaten by her classmates for each day she existed.

Then one day she gave in and began with her left wrist. A week later she was down to her right ankle. Her once mocha brown eyes now a dulled Carmel. The panic attacks crept inwards on her sanity. Or what was left.

The teachers tried helping. They attempted to stop the influence. But they failed. They tried helping her but she merely shrugged it off. She didn't want help at this point. She wanted nothing more than the relinquish her very existence.

She wanted to be free of her own curse.

-

Life continued on. And still, she continued down her self destructive path. For the rest of the school year. A solid five months. And once they were over she was a wreck. She was free from school. With mental scars from her classmates, physical scars from both herself and her classmates, and emotional scars from... anything she used to feel.

Having her long unkept hair pulled on a daily basis by the bullies only gave way to pain in her scalp. Getting kicked and pushed around didn't help either. But yet she still couldn't bring herself to end her life.

It wasn't until her final day of high school where she was cornered by a bunch of boys. She hadn't even noticed them until they started pulling punches at her, her dull eyes too focused on the ground below her.

They punched her in every spot imaginable and seeable to their eyes. They punched her black and blue until the teachers eventually came and broke it up.

Her lip was split. Her jaw was on fire. Her breasts throbbed in pain and her head swam. She was splayed out, face-up on the concrete. Too beaten to even try to crawl into a fetal position. She didn't want to get back up. She didn't want to live anymore.