Samchu
9th November 2003, 03:40 PM
This is only a short story so I appologise to anybody expecting a really long fic.
I'm not going to tell you what this about because I think you'd be better off reading the real thing than some silly summary that I can make up.
All I will say, is that the purpose of this story is for it to touch you on an emotional level so please let me know if this fic does/doesn't fulfill this goal.
Well, here goes...
It was a dark autumn evenning in the lakeside town of Lenshall. There was a bright glow in the dining room windows of each home but in one window however, the light was much dimmer.
A young girl sat miserably upon her bed's edge, staring blankly into the abyss, her face void of emotion as she tried to work through the tangled web of feelings she felt inside of her.
A candle was the only source of light in this dark room and it was in threat of being blown out by the short gusts of wind blowing in through the open window on the other side of the room.
She hadn't noticed how dark it had become and it did not concern her either, everyday was the same. Ever since that dark night to weeks ago. The night her mother was killed...
Jade lay on her bed, her eyes wide open. She couldn't sleep, not with her parents arguing as loud as they were. She sighed sadly, why couldn't they just get on? Why was it always them that had to fight?
She rolled onto her belly and thrust her pillow over her ears to try and drown out the sound. To her surprise, it worked.
Slowly, she pulled her head out from beneath her pillow. Silence. Had they stopped? No, they couldn't have. She would have some sort of thump. Her dad would always end the arguement by hitting her mum and she would always be able to hear it, pillow or no pillow. Something must else have happened but what?
Carefully, Jade crept downstairs. A cold draught greeted her as she set foot in the living room and she was forced to push down her purple nightie to try and keep her legs warm. She walked into the kitchen where she saw that the dackdoor was open. Had they gone into the woods?
Jade headed outside. It was a cold evenning but she didn't care, something sinister was afoot and she had to find out just what it was.
The forest was dark and silent and the moon was barely visible behind the ever-darkening clouds. Rain began to fall swiftly from the skies.
Jade stepped quickly but carefully, trying to prevent drawing any attention to herself.
An ear piercing scream rang out; Jade's ears pricked up and she burst into a run. Twigs snapped beneath her slippers and mud splashed up as she passed through it. Her dress was almost completely soaked through, but she didn't care.
She stopped at a clearing. Blood was splattered up the sides of the trunks and across the ground. She spotted her mother's body lying motionless on the ground. Her eyes were wide open in shock, blood seeping down her face.
Jade turned behind a tree to stop herself from watching any longer. Tears ran rapidly down her face and she brought her hands up to her mouth to muffle the sound of her cries.
The sound of loud breathing forced her to look again. This time, she saw her father. He was leaning against a sledgehammer, breathing heavily. Blood was splattered all over his clothes. Jade watched him for a moment, and it was a moment she regretted for the rest of her life. He picked up the sledgehammer once more and drove it into her mother's. Again and again, at least five more times. Blood splashed up with each terrifying blow.
Jade couldn't hold it anymore, she let out a small scream then ducked back behind the tree just as her father turned. But how could she be sure he hadn't seen her? She didn't; so she ran.
She ran back to the house, back up to her room. She realised she was leaving behind muddy footprints but there was nothing she could do about that now. She rushed into her bedroom and dived into her bed, pulling the covers up over her entire body and doing her best to stop the tears from flowing. Maybe he hadn't seen her. Maybe he wouldn't kill her too.
She could hear heavy footsteps comming up the stairs. She covered her mouth to silence the breathing and closed her eyes tight. The bedroom door creaked as it was pushed open. All that could be heard was deep, heavy breathing, followed, by one of the most terrifying sounds Jade had ever heard in her entre life. Thud, CLUNK, thud, CLUNK. It got closer and closer. She felt his hand grip her cover tightly and then-
Jade's thoughts were interrupted by her father's deep voice, calling her down to the dinner table. Sighing, she blew out the candle and retreated downstairs, each time she did, it felt as though she was retracing the steps of that fateful evenning.
She sat at the table in silence and stirred her food around a couple of times before eating it. She had no appetite that evenning but she forced herself to eat from fear that she would have to face her father's wrath if she chose not.
"So, how was school today?" he wasn't interested really, he was just trying to find some fault that he could use to bully her.
"Fine," replied Jade quietly.
"Just fine? You mean nothing interesting happened?"
"It was just a normal day."
"Alright then."
Jade smiled inside. She was doing well in her attempts to avoid giving her father and piece of information that he could use against her. He was bad enough already. Ever since her mother's death, Jade had found that she had unwillingly become her father's tool for stress relief. She had spent many evennings trying to figure out excuses for when her friends asked her where the cuts and bruises had come from and Jade found herself hoping that tonight would not be a repeat of any of those nights.
"I'm going out tonight," her father said suddenly, "there's some business that I need to take care of."
Jade was used to hearing this, he often went out in the evennings to deal with 'business'. Mostly it involved him going out and doing something that was far from being shady but on some occassions, her father would return in a drunken rage, leaving her to pick up the broken pieces and to try and cover up the painful scars he had given her. She was almost positive that he was off to do proper business tonight and that she would be let off lightly this time round.
Once her father was safely out of the house, Jade retreated to her bedroom and stood in the doorway waiting. A few moments later, her bedroom window slid up and a dark figure slipped inside. Smiling, she motioned him closer.
"I saw your father leave for the train station. I didn't think you'd want to be home alone," said the boy to his girlfriend.
"Well you thought right," she replied, wrapping both of her arms around his neck and pulling him closer so she could kiss him full on the lips.
He was the only thing that kept her going. To Jade, Mark was the one person left in this world who she truely loved and that was the only thing keeping her alive.
"So, are we going to...you know..."
Jade thought for a moment, she wasn't sure she was ready. She and Mark had been dating secretly for six months now. Perhaps she could grant him this one favour...
"Alright then."
Mark smiled and started kissing her neck.
"But not here."
Mark stopped, "why?"
"Someone will see." she paused for a moment, "downstairs, in the living room."
She took his head and lead him dowstairs and into the unlit living room. The two of them were just getting started when suddenly the lights were switched on Mark was pulled quickly off of Jade and thrown across the room.
"Dad!?" Jade found herself unable to hide her surprise.
Her father, turned to Mark and growled, "what did you think you were doing?"
Mark's mouth moved frantically but nothing came out. It was as though his brain had stopped working altogether and he found himself unable to explain what was going on.
Jade stepped in. She ran between Mark and her father and began to explain that it had been her idea and that he should leave Mark alone. The response she recieved was slightly expected but at the same time, very shocking. A powerful hit from the back of her father's hand sent her sprawling across the floor.
"Why'd you do that?" asked Mark angrily, lifting himself to his feet.
His only answer was the sudden grasping of his throat by a man far more powerful than he was. Mark was pulled clear off the floor, his feet dangling helplessly as he struggled against the man's grip.
"What did you think you were doing with my daughter," the man's voice was deep and full of anger.
Mark tried once again to explain but his words were blocked by the powerful hand gripping his neck.
By now, Jade had managed to pull herself to her feet and had began edging her way over to the cabinet that hung on the far wall. Desperation had taken over and drastic measures now needed to be taken to insure the survival of the man she loved. Silently, Jade removed the small handgun from its hiding place and snuck up behind her father. With each step she felt herself losing more and more control, it was like some being had possessed her. A creature, spawned from the hatred that she had hidden inside of her for too long.
As her finger tightened around the trigger, Jade felt every bit of anger and fear that her father had caused her, begin to rush out of her and became absorbed into one, single, bullet.
Her father's body tensed up and Mark was finally released from the murderous grasp he had been kept in and scrambled to the nearest wall just in time to see the body of Jade's father crumple to the floor and lie there motionless.
Mark looked up at Jade, who immediately released the gun from her grasp as though it was burning the very skin off of her hands. Mark walked over to her and held her close to his body as she began to cry.
This wasn't Jade. This wasn't the person she was. She was no murderer. And yet, there it all was. Her, the gun and her father's dead body. She'd killed him in cold blood, just like he had done to mother. How would she ever face the monster she had become?
"It's not your fault," whispered Mark. "It's not your fault."
Jade spent the next twelve years trying to bury the terrible memories that plagued her mind. Although she and Mark had never been charged for the murder, Jade had never been able to live it down. It built up inside of her day by day, just waiting to be let out.
A few days later, a woman in her early thirties recieved a letter from a close friend of hers. The letter was full of emotion, as though the person who had written it had poured their very soul into each individual word and it made the woman's heart cry out with worry. Fearing for the life of her friend, she phoned the police and begged them to go to the house where her friend was living with her husband.
To her dismay, a news report was plastered across television screens only an hour later. It appeared that a young woman, greatly distraughted, had thrown herself off a bridge and onto the busy road below. Her husband, who had been trying to stop her at the time, followed her which resulted in the death of the couple and the woman's unborn baby. After studying diary entries found at the couple's home, psychologists decided that the woman had killed herself after becoming overwhelmed with distress and that her husband had followed her to an untimely death.
Shocked and saddened, the woman sat at home holding the letter tightly in both of her hands. It was the very last thing her friend had written before she had killed herself and the words tore deeply into the woman's heart as she read them aloud at a press conference two weeks later as a part of her speech against child abuse.
"As I am writing you this letter, I know that I am coming to the end of my sanity. The past twelve years have been harder on me than anything I have ever experienced in my life and if I don't tell someone the truth soon I fear I may explode. Mark won't listen and I fear the results I will recieve, should I confer this information to anyone with professional experience. And so it is with great saddness and relief, that you should be the one I turn to in my hour of need.
"The events that took place on September 13th and resulted in the shocking death of my father was, I regret to say, intentional. After watching him murder my mother some time before, I had had the urge to end his life just as brutally but I couldn't bring myself to become the monster he was. However, as the days went by, each hit he forced upon me brought me closer and closer to the edge. That night, when he tried to kill Mark, I just snapped. I knew where the gun was and murder was the only thought on my mind. I wanted to end it. I wanted to stop him from hurting anyone else. I wanted my revenge.
"Pulling that trigger was the greatest feeling I have ever known and for a few brief moments my life felt complete. But it got to me. I had comitted murder and when they didn't charge me for it I felt as though I had become the same monster that had murdered my mother not so long ago.
"There is only one option left for me now. Death. It seems extreme but it is the only choice I have left. I am pregnant and I fear that if I allow this child to be born into this world it will suffer from the mistake that I have made. Mark would never understand this decision and so I must take my own life as well. I beg you not to try and stop me, not even Mark can do that now.
"I pray that I can prevent Mark from seeing me complete this task but I know that I have no other choice. It is only in death, that I can rid the world of this monster that has destroyed so many lives."
The woman paused for brief moment to wipe the tears streaming down her face. This letter touched her so deeply that she couldn't help but feel complete and utter sadness for deceased friend who had clearly suffered immensely in her short life.
She looked down once more at the letter. There was still one part left. The part that made her feel the most emotional sadness she had ever experienced. Scrawled at the bottom of the letter - in what tests had shown to be the blood of her good friend - were four final words:
"May God forgive me."
I'm not going to tell you what this about because I think you'd be better off reading the real thing than some silly summary that I can make up.
All I will say, is that the purpose of this story is for it to touch you on an emotional level so please let me know if this fic does/doesn't fulfill this goal.
Well, here goes...
It was a dark autumn evenning in the lakeside town of Lenshall. There was a bright glow in the dining room windows of each home but in one window however, the light was much dimmer.
A young girl sat miserably upon her bed's edge, staring blankly into the abyss, her face void of emotion as she tried to work through the tangled web of feelings she felt inside of her.
A candle was the only source of light in this dark room and it was in threat of being blown out by the short gusts of wind blowing in through the open window on the other side of the room.
She hadn't noticed how dark it had become and it did not concern her either, everyday was the same. Ever since that dark night to weeks ago. The night her mother was killed...
Jade lay on her bed, her eyes wide open. She couldn't sleep, not with her parents arguing as loud as they were. She sighed sadly, why couldn't they just get on? Why was it always them that had to fight?
She rolled onto her belly and thrust her pillow over her ears to try and drown out the sound. To her surprise, it worked.
Slowly, she pulled her head out from beneath her pillow. Silence. Had they stopped? No, they couldn't have. She would have some sort of thump. Her dad would always end the arguement by hitting her mum and she would always be able to hear it, pillow or no pillow. Something must else have happened but what?
Carefully, Jade crept downstairs. A cold draught greeted her as she set foot in the living room and she was forced to push down her purple nightie to try and keep her legs warm. She walked into the kitchen where she saw that the dackdoor was open. Had they gone into the woods?
Jade headed outside. It was a cold evenning but she didn't care, something sinister was afoot and she had to find out just what it was.
The forest was dark and silent and the moon was barely visible behind the ever-darkening clouds. Rain began to fall swiftly from the skies.
Jade stepped quickly but carefully, trying to prevent drawing any attention to herself.
An ear piercing scream rang out; Jade's ears pricked up and she burst into a run. Twigs snapped beneath her slippers and mud splashed up as she passed through it. Her dress was almost completely soaked through, but she didn't care.
She stopped at a clearing. Blood was splattered up the sides of the trunks and across the ground. She spotted her mother's body lying motionless on the ground. Her eyes were wide open in shock, blood seeping down her face.
Jade turned behind a tree to stop herself from watching any longer. Tears ran rapidly down her face and she brought her hands up to her mouth to muffle the sound of her cries.
The sound of loud breathing forced her to look again. This time, she saw her father. He was leaning against a sledgehammer, breathing heavily. Blood was splattered all over his clothes. Jade watched him for a moment, and it was a moment she regretted for the rest of her life. He picked up the sledgehammer once more and drove it into her mother's. Again and again, at least five more times. Blood splashed up with each terrifying blow.
Jade couldn't hold it anymore, she let out a small scream then ducked back behind the tree just as her father turned. But how could she be sure he hadn't seen her? She didn't; so she ran.
She ran back to the house, back up to her room. She realised she was leaving behind muddy footprints but there was nothing she could do about that now. She rushed into her bedroom and dived into her bed, pulling the covers up over her entire body and doing her best to stop the tears from flowing. Maybe he hadn't seen her. Maybe he wouldn't kill her too.
She could hear heavy footsteps comming up the stairs. She covered her mouth to silence the breathing and closed her eyes tight. The bedroom door creaked as it was pushed open. All that could be heard was deep, heavy breathing, followed, by one of the most terrifying sounds Jade had ever heard in her entre life. Thud, CLUNK, thud, CLUNK. It got closer and closer. She felt his hand grip her cover tightly and then-
Jade's thoughts were interrupted by her father's deep voice, calling her down to the dinner table. Sighing, she blew out the candle and retreated downstairs, each time she did, it felt as though she was retracing the steps of that fateful evenning.
She sat at the table in silence and stirred her food around a couple of times before eating it. She had no appetite that evenning but she forced herself to eat from fear that she would have to face her father's wrath if she chose not.
"So, how was school today?" he wasn't interested really, he was just trying to find some fault that he could use to bully her.
"Fine," replied Jade quietly.
"Just fine? You mean nothing interesting happened?"
"It was just a normal day."
"Alright then."
Jade smiled inside. She was doing well in her attempts to avoid giving her father and piece of information that he could use against her. He was bad enough already. Ever since her mother's death, Jade had found that she had unwillingly become her father's tool for stress relief. She had spent many evennings trying to figure out excuses for when her friends asked her where the cuts and bruises had come from and Jade found herself hoping that tonight would not be a repeat of any of those nights.
"I'm going out tonight," her father said suddenly, "there's some business that I need to take care of."
Jade was used to hearing this, he often went out in the evennings to deal with 'business'. Mostly it involved him going out and doing something that was far from being shady but on some occassions, her father would return in a drunken rage, leaving her to pick up the broken pieces and to try and cover up the painful scars he had given her. She was almost positive that he was off to do proper business tonight and that she would be let off lightly this time round.
Once her father was safely out of the house, Jade retreated to her bedroom and stood in the doorway waiting. A few moments later, her bedroom window slid up and a dark figure slipped inside. Smiling, she motioned him closer.
"I saw your father leave for the train station. I didn't think you'd want to be home alone," said the boy to his girlfriend.
"Well you thought right," she replied, wrapping both of her arms around his neck and pulling him closer so she could kiss him full on the lips.
He was the only thing that kept her going. To Jade, Mark was the one person left in this world who she truely loved and that was the only thing keeping her alive.
"So, are we going to...you know..."
Jade thought for a moment, she wasn't sure she was ready. She and Mark had been dating secretly for six months now. Perhaps she could grant him this one favour...
"Alright then."
Mark smiled and started kissing her neck.
"But not here."
Mark stopped, "why?"
"Someone will see." she paused for a moment, "downstairs, in the living room."
She took his head and lead him dowstairs and into the unlit living room. The two of them were just getting started when suddenly the lights were switched on Mark was pulled quickly off of Jade and thrown across the room.
"Dad!?" Jade found herself unable to hide her surprise.
Her father, turned to Mark and growled, "what did you think you were doing?"
Mark's mouth moved frantically but nothing came out. It was as though his brain had stopped working altogether and he found himself unable to explain what was going on.
Jade stepped in. She ran between Mark and her father and began to explain that it had been her idea and that he should leave Mark alone. The response she recieved was slightly expected but at the same time, very shocking. A powerful hit from the back of her father's hand sent her sprawling across the floor.
"Why'd you do that?" asked Mark angrily, lifting himself to his feet.
His only answer was the sudden grasping of his throat by a man far more powerful than he was. Mark was pulled clear off the floor, his feet dangling helplessly as he struggled against the man's grip.
"What did you think you were doing with my daughter," the man's voice was deep and full of anger.
Mark tried once again to explain but his words were blocked by the powerful hand gripping his neck.
By now, Jade had managed to pull herself to her feet and had began edging her way over to the cabinet that hung on the far wall. Desperation had taken over and drastic measures now needed to be taken to insure the survival of the man she loved. Silently, Jade removed the small handgun from its hiding place and snuck up behind her father. With each step she felt herself losing more and more control, it was like some being had possessed her. A creature, spawned from the hatred that she had hidden inside of her for too long.
As her finger tightened around the trigger, Jade felt every bit of anger and fear that her father had caused her, begin to rush out of her and became absorbed into one, single, bullet.
Her father's body tensed up and Mark was finally released from the murderous grasp he had been kept in and scrambled to the nearest wall just in time to see the body of Jade's father crumple to the floor and lie there motionless.
Mark looked up at Jade, who immediately released the gun from her grasp as though it was burning the very skin off of her hands. Mark walked over to her and held her close to his body as she began to cry.
This wasn't Jade. This wasn't the person she was. She was no murderer. And yet, there it all was. Her, the gun and her father's dead body. She'd killed him in cold blood, just like he had done to mother. How would she ever face the monster she had become?
"It's not your fault," whispered Mark. "It's not your fault."
Jade spent the next twelve years trying to bury the terrible memories that plagued her mind. Although she and Mark had never been charged for the murder, Jade had never been able to live it down. It built up inside of her day by day, just waiting to be let out.
A few days later, a woman in her early thirties recieved a letter from a close friend of hers. The letter was full of emotion, as though the person who had written it had poured their very soul into each individual word and it made the woman's heart cry out with worry. Fearing for the life of her friend, she phoned the police and begged them to go to the house where her friend was living with her husband.
To her dismay, a news report was plastered across television screens only an hour later. It appeared that a young woman, greatly distraughted, had thrown herself off a bridge and onto the busy road below. Her husband, who had been trying to stop her at the time, followed her which resulted in the death of the couple and the woman's unborn baby. After studying diary entries found at the couple's home, psychologists decided that the woman had killed herself after becoming overwhelmed with distress and that her husband had followed her to an untimely death.
Shocked and saddened, the woman sat at home holding the letter tightly in both of her hands. It was the very last thing her friend had written before she had killed herself and the words tore deeply into the woman's heart as she read them aloud at a press conference two weeks later as a part of her speech against child abuse.
"As I am writing you this letter, I know that I am coming to the end of my sanity. The past twelve years have been harder on me than anything I have ever experienced in my life and if I don't tell someone the truth soon I fear I may explode. Mark won't listen and I fear the results I will recieve, should I confer this information to anyone with professional experience. And so it is with great saddness and relief, that you should be the one I turn to in my hour of need.
"The events that took place on September 13th and resulted in the shocking death of my father was, I regret to say, intentional. After watching him murder my mother some time before, I had had the urge to end his life just as brutally but I couldn't bring myself to become the monster he was. However, as the days went by, each hit he forced upon me brought me closer and closer to the edge. That night, when he tried to kill Mark, I just snapped. I knew where the gun was and murder was the only thought on my mind. I wanted to end it. I wanted to stop him from hurting anyone else. I wanted my revenge.
"Pulling that trigger was the greatest feeling I have ever known and for a few brief moments my life felt complete. But it got to me. I had comitted murder and when they didn't charge me for it I felt as though I had become the same monster that had murdered my mother not so long ago.
"There is only one option left for me now. Death. It seems extreme but it is the only choice I have left. I am pregnant and I fear that if I allow this child to be born into this world it will suffer from the mistake that I have made. Mark would never understand this decision and so I must take my own life as well. I beg you not to try and stop me, not even Mark can do that now.
"I pray that I can prevent Mark from seeing me complete this task but I know that I have no other choice. It is only in death, that I can rid the world of this monster that has destroyed so many lives."
The woman paused for brief moment to wipe the tears streaming down her face. This letter touched her so deeply that she couldn't help but feel complete and utter sadness for deceased friend who had clearly suffered immensely in her short life.
She looked down once more at the letter. There was still one part left. The part that made her feel the most emotional sadness she had ever experienced. Scrawled at the bottom of the letter - in what tests had shown to be the blood of her good friend - were four final words:
"May God forgive me."