The wolf without a name

Chapter One: A child of rape

"Get up you son of a bitch!" I heard someone shout.

I opened my eyes and saw the small square door above me opening, and heard the creaking noise it always made.

"Come, Girl," she called me.

That was what Phyllis, my grandma, called me—my grandma—the person who had placed me in a cell as punishment.

I didn't remember ever going outside. I could only recollect seeing the light peeking through the cracked walls of the cell.

I held on to each side of my discolored, white frilly dress

and slowly walked up to the small door.

"Come, take this food from me," she said to me angrily, while she pushed the plate of food through the door above me.

Ever since I could remember that was the drill.

Tipping on my toes, I reached for it and quickly took it from her, not wanting to cause any trouble. I went to sit on the floor and rested by body against the cold concrete wall on the farthest side of the room, away from her. I placed the plate on my lap.

She watched me from above, noting every move I made.

Terror accompanied me as I slowly ate the bread and stewed chicken without looking up at her.

"It pains me every day to feed you, handicap, knowing you are the product of rape," she said, scornfully. "Why is it you have to be the one to live and my beautiful daughter dead?"

I placed the bread I held in my hands on the white plastic plate beside me, not wanting to eat anymore. Her harsh words had caused me to lose my appetite.

"You better not waste that fucking food I worked hard for," she warned me.

I quickly took up a piece of the chicken and again started to eat, terrified.

I glanced at her. She was still staring at me with great disgust.

"You're born in this world to rob people of their happiness, just like your evil father did to my daughter," she said. She slammed the cell door shut, leaving me to listen to her stomping on the floor as she walked away.

I lowered my head to my chest and started to cry. I deserved to be locked away in a cell. She told me the reason over and over. I was a child born of rape. I was also a murderer. I'd killed my mom while she gave birth to me, and for that I was punished every day.

The next morning while I was lying in bed feeling sorry for myself, I felt cold water pouring down on me. I jumped up from the bare concrete floor and wiped the water from my face. Looking above me, I saw Phyllis—my grandmother—leaning over the opened cell door, a bucket in her hand.

Different day, same problem!

My grandma! I wasn't allowed to call her grandma. I was only allowed to call her by her name—Phyllis.

"Do you think I threw you down there so you can sleep all day and eat my food?" she shouted at me.

I stared up at her, not saying a word.

Phyllis was in her fifties. She didn't look her age, though. She looked like someone in their thirties, and she was very fit. She had short gray hair and was short and fat.

I huddled against the wall, scared, as she questioned me, while my long, thick, curly, red hair and my washed-out blue dress dripped with water.

"Answer me when I'm speaking to you!" she shouted down at me.

"No," I answered her, while I shivered.

"Take this!" she shouted at me.

I quickly went toward her and took the plastic plate with fried egg and bread.