Bliss - Vanya Hargreeves FF *previously Sour Candy*

CHAPTER ONE

A small curly haired girl with big sapphire eyes and a forelorn expression laid out on the floor of her gloomy bedroom, chin resting on her arms as she stared at the same spot of torn wallpaper.

This would have been a normal sight, perhaps, if the girl wasn't stretching out a large set of leathery, black wings across her floorboards from where they joined at her shoulderblades.

Her legs kicked up and down behind her and the girl seemed the perfect image of boredom. The walls around her were a pale yellow and dust swirled through the air in the only sliver of light allowed through the four walls she resided in. The window above the bed had been boarded up since she was two, covered in newspaper and duct tape. A small corner shone through and the young girl watched the dust particles dance in the air in front of her nose.

The room was practically empty, the walls covered in old stickers of fairies and Teddy bears from when she was little - from a time before she grew demonic, bat like wings.

Her days were always the same. Eat breakfast in her room. Eat dinner in her room. Always alone, always aching to be let out of the cage she was raised in, to stretch her wings and fly away.
The bathroom connected to her room even had a boarded up window.

The little girl hummed a sad tune to herself, eyes glued to the stream of sunlight.

"Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me..." she whispered faintly, tilting her head. Her cheek pressed against her folded arm and she sighed, humming the rest of the song to herself.
She drew invisible tally marks on the floorboards. Crossed it at the five mark, then went again and crossed it at the tenth.

"Florence!" She darted to a stand, staring wide eyed at the door as the metal of the lock wiggled in place.
The door swung open a crack and a tall brunette with frown lines and red rimmed eyes stood in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob and the other smoothing her fingers over her cross necklace at her sternum.

Immediately the little girl snapped her wings into her back, folding them tightly against herself.

Her mother looked at her with a faint smile, though didnt seem keen on opening the door any wider.

"Come on," she indicated her to follow, pointedly avoiding looking at the wings poking over her shoulders. "Come have breakfast with me."

The little girls eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Really?" She asked quietly, wondering if she was being serious. She was never allowed out of her room.

Perhaps because it was her tenth birthday her mother had a change of heart.

The woman nodded and left the room, door remaining ajar.

The girls heart leapt for joy and she ran after her mother, hand running over the wall and down the stair rail as she followed her into the kitchen. It was odd to love something as small and meaningless as the feel of wallpaper and polished wood beneath her fingertips, but she did.

She scanned the room, noted how her mother hadn't changed the layout over the years, how the photographs of her and her grandparents and aunt Elise sat above the old fireplace. She didnt dwell that there was no pictures of herself because she knew why and had been reminded many a time.

Her eyes shot to the island in the middle of the kitchen and her expression slowly dropped when she noted there was no plates or bowls on there.

She fiddled with her fingers and craned her head round the side to look at her mum, who had her back to her, hands on the kitchen side.

Florence got a funny feeling in her stomach. "Mum?" She asked quietly.
The woman raised her head and fought to control the shaking of her shoulders.

"Come here, baby," she called sweetly, smile in her voice. Florence approached slowly, unnerved by her mothers strange change in behaviour.

"Mum?"

The woman turned and wrapped her arms around her child, the young girl stiffening at first at the foreign touch.
A warmth spread across her chest and she didnt even think to respond to the touch, arms limp by her side. The womans chin rested on her shoulder and she felt her wings twitch slightly, not used to the touch. Just as she let out a breath and went to gently raise her arms to mirror the embrace, her breath caught.

A sharp cry left her throat as a stabbing pain shot through her shoulder and she pulled away quickly, falling back with a cry. Her hands clutched her shoudler, reached for the spot on her back where it hurt. Tears blurred her vision as her hands came back stained red.

"Mum!" She screamed, shaking from shock. "Mum, it hurts."

Sobs wracked her chest as she scrambled away from her own mother, metal glinting in the light. Through her tears she caught sight of a kitchen knife clutched in her hand.

Her wing, she sobbed at the pain, fingers tembling over the wound that went through the middle, into her lower shoulder. Warm liquid ran down her back.

Her mother looked on in horror as her child screamed, watching her in fear.

"Mum, why would you do that?" She sobbed, pain wracking her body.

The knife clattered to the ground and she covered her mouth in shock, stumbling to her child as the realisation hit her, the gravity of what she'd just done.

"Mum," she sobbed, and the woman cried with her, wrapping her arms around her again. Pain flared up her back and she fought to get away, tear out of that wretched womans arms.

Her mothers sobs sounded in her ear and she gasped out her panicked breaths, eyes falling to the trail of blood that covers the kitchen tiles.

"Im sorry, im so sorry-" her mother cried hysterically.

Florence couldnt stop staring at all the blood.