Echoed Angel

There were a few hours yet to pass before the sun would rise and embrace the tiny village with its warm presence. Seagulls jeered at each other selfishly, each screeching its right to have the remains of the fish supper, jostled around on the sand now, its newspaper wrappings torn by the birds' inspired squabbling. The beginning of a new day. At this time of the morning the island was beautiful in its solitude; the tall, windswept trees danced energetically in the strong Northerly winds and the jagged wild cliffs cut into the horizon, their invisible natural strength evident to any observer who would pull themselves from bed at that hour. However, it was highly unusual for any of the villagers to do this, and it was unheard of for the tourists. There should have been no human life present at the bay - this was the time for the seagulls to take advantage of the careless and lazy tourists who had paid the beach a courtesy call the afternoon before; a chance for the sea to thrash with satisfaction against the rocks; an opportunity for the seals to lie undisturbed on their favourite rocks without the cameras being forced in their faces, without the little girls with blond pigtails asking their Mummy if they could have a pet seal, please Mummy, please!

A sudden CRACK. The seagulls continued their noisy bickering until the monstrosity was right upon them. Who dared disturb their peaceful disagreement?

She ran. She ran so quickly that it seemed to the seagulls for a moment that this queer dishevelled little spectre would sprout wings and be lifted clear off the ground to fly with them. Her lank red hair hung loosely on her shoulders, swinging rapidly from side to side. It was obvious that this little girl had once sported a piece of elastic to tie back this fly-away hair, but now it hung only to a tiny strand, its influence quite diminished. Her face was as pale as the morning was chilly before the sun bade the village Good Morning, a few scattered freckles standing out on her sharp nose.

A man's voice erupted from the distance, "Shona! Shona, I've told you once too often what happens when you don't behave yourself!"

But little Shona had not heard this rough cry, unless she had chosen to ignore it. She ran and ran and ran and ran. She kept running until her young legs could take no more and she almost appeared to pant like her father's collie dog. And then she began to scream, almost silently at first, then with increasing volume and renewed energy.

"No! I won't, I won't, I won't! No! Go away: I've told you, I won't!"

The little girl was no match for her father's agility and brute force. He slapped her deftly on the cheek before picking her up as if she was no more than a feather, and carrying her under his arm, kicking and screaming alternatively, banging his thigh with her white fists before eventually admitting defeat and allowing her companion to hasten his pace and jog back home with her at a comfortable rate. Exhaustion had won that battle, and would surely win every battle as long as this child remained sickly and thin. Shona was a fighter - she met up to the tempers characteristic of her normally brightly coloured and vibrant hair - and should always have been a pretty and spirited little creature. She looked just like her mother had at Shona's age, seven-going-on-eight. Both had a dimple in their chins which would flash as they threw their heads back and laughed merrily, nymphs in the glade, sure-footed as the sheep which farmers in the village allowed to roam freely over pastures ending in treacherous gullies and cliffs. Shona's laugh was a tinkle of a fairy's laugh, and she had a cheeky elfish smile.
The little girl's red lips were painted in a pout at that moment, and her thoughtful grey eyes were glaring at her father, as if trying to see straight through him, attempting to find a weakness she had previously been unaware of.

To Shona, it seemed that her father had no flaws. But she couldn't love him. She knew she should love him; everyone expected a young daughter to adore her father, to look up to him absolutely. And he gave everyone the impression of being the perfect father: as soon as his little daughter had started her disturbed phase of sleep walking and throwing tantrums with a vigour that should have been long abandoned; he had ensured she'd kept safe, never removing his sharp eyes from her when she attempted to venture out alone.

She'd tried to love her father as other little girls loved theirs, but something was preventing her from forging such a deep bond with him. She was always trying to reach out to him - she needed comfort like any child of her age - but she felt his powerful arms locked around her relenting figure as a constraint, not an affectionate physical gesture.

Her father was the only person she had left. She had been his mistake, and something about the commanding manner he adopted when dealing with her on one-to-one confrontations told her that. Yet Shona had barely met the mother the outside world so often likened her to, not to the extent that she could close her eyes in a pensive moment alone and picture this strange woman's face. The little girl had, at times, dreamt about her mother. She was just another creation of her imagination in a sense, yet very different from the monsters that peeked at Shona from under the bed, the creatures which were out to get her - the reason for her sleep walking and continual attempts at running away from the house she shared with her father. Shona sub-consciously begged for her mother to speak when she dreamed of her, but to no avail. Her mother just smiled and waved, rather like Shona thought angels would wave at their old loved ones from Heaven. It was the words Shona would have remembered forever: a single comforting word would have taken the little girl to Heaven on Earth.

Maybe Shona's mother really was an angel. The little girl liked that idea, as she couldn't think why her mother wouldn't want to see her and had never talked to her if she hadn't left this world. She was clever that way. Despite her young age, Shona had always taken her worries to friends rather than face her father with problems. That was before what her father called her "difficult period", of course. Her friends had played with her and talked to her, as she was their equal. Shona knew her father got enjoyment from looking down on her. She was fast growing out of childhood, left without even a memory of the mother she knew she would have been so close to. Her father had let her see photographs, but they didn't seem the same thing as having a mother like all the other girls she once counted as friends. Their mothers hugged them before they left the house for school and then again when they returned home. They listened for the doorbell ringing, watched for their children to walk up the drive and wave to them. They never missed a parents' evening at school, and made the effort to attend all the school shows or dancing displays their children happened to be in.

Some children might have dreamed of being a dancer or teacher when they were Shona's age, but this girl's upbringing had made her react differently to the world around her. Her only wish was to be a good mother to any children she might have when she grew up. That's what she told the first star when it twinkled before her bright young eyes. She didn't want other youngsters to experience the pain of being regarded as the odd one out by their peers, and to be left by themselves in a tiny dark room every night, listening to the silence around them.

For it was this particular little girl's vivid imagination of what happened when the bedside light was sharply switched off that had scared her friends away, or so Shona's father would have her believe. She would run down to the sea every other morning before the sun rose. She was aware of the fact that the monsters that hid in the most shadowy corners of her mind would never vanish now, would never fail to catch her if she didn't set up a resistance. Running from her reality was the only way the little girl knew to escape her father's clutches.

"Shona - snap out of it! You can't live with the fairies forever. There's no place in this world for a child with her head in the clouds," Shona's father growled, trying to shake her awake.

The little girl had her eyes open wide as she replied in a soft whisper, "Daddy, the monsters are real. I needed to get away from the monsters. They hide in the shadows."

"Nonsense, child! There are no monsters. There haven't ever been any monsters. There will never be any real monsters. The monsters are nothing but figments of your over-active and preposterous imagination, do you hear me? I'd be careful if I were you, girl. The men in white coats from the loony bin will come and fetch you if you go on living in some implausible story reality. And I, for one, will show them where to find you," her father paused to let her work this out, and then continued in his gruff and harsh voice, "and make sure they take you away."

Shona's eyes filled with tears as her father spoke these last words, and she stuttered, "Daddy - no - no - Daddy, you can't do that!"

The little girl abruptly stopped speaking. Her father looked furious, although she couldn't quite understand why. He glowered at her in the manner of a tormented bull, before pulling himself up a chair opposite his daughter once more and slamming his fist down on the wooden dining table.

THUNK!

Focusing her attention rapidly on an oddly-shaped knot in the wood at her side of the table, Shona almost wished the monsters would come to her again. When she'd started to see them in her sleep her friends' parents had been frightened. The adults of the village had heard many of the stories Shona's father had to tell concerning why it would be best for his child to be alone. He'd told them she was dangerous when she thought she was being captured by her imaginative monsters, that she could no longer control her actions. Shona knew the monsters were real, and she hated her father blatantly lying to her in this way. She didn't understand why her friends wouldn't listen any longer; she her childish heart was innocent yet, and believed deep down that they should at least should have believed the tale.

Her father snarled at her, running his hand through his dark hair and tugging at it slightly.

"Shona - get to bed."

The little girl was genuinely afraid of going to her room, as that was where the monsters lurked. It was the same most nights. The monsters would creep up behind her if she let her guard down and fell into even the lightest of sleeps. They hadn't touched her yet, but they talked to her, and Shona didn't think imaginary monsters would be able to taunt her in the way these monsters did. They would cry out at night, and the little girl would simultaneously dive under the covers of her bed, her only hope of drowning out the noises that she heard so often. She could hear the voices in her mind even after the monsters had left: they wailed to her to disappear or they would catch her. Shona didn't want the monsters to chase her, but on some occasions her terror was too advanced not to take flight. It was then that she ran to the bay, quiet and serene until her arrival in the early morning. The monsters otherwise stayed with her all night, whispering in her ear, making moves in the shadows to try and touch her beautiful golden-coloured red hair, spun finely onto the pillow she rested her head on.

The next morning Shona again could not stand the creatures which so haunted her, and slid away down to the picturesque little bay. In a way this seaside landscape was disguised, for observing each new wave push its way towards the shoreline it looked calm and gentle, but to view the smashing of stormy spray on the rocks and raise the eyeline to the high and regal-looking cliffs would make even the bravest of villagers feel nauseous. And then, of course, there was the odd ill-informed person who had had a little too much to drink in the village pub of nights and chose to take the costal walk home. These few individuals were occasionally lucky, and would be spotted before they could get too close to dicing with fate while others would trip in their drunken stupor and would plummet from the cliff-top path to their deaths in the freezing, unforgiving icy bleakness that was the Atlantic.

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The school nurse bent over her stack of notes to talk to the girl sitting opposite her. A plump, bustling woman she had an efficiency and ear for gossip that - for there was no denying it, especially at this point in time - alarmed both her fellow staff and the students she was paid to care for. Mrs. Howlett never met anyone's eye, and spoke down even to those far older and wiser than her. A self-important woman of around thirty years of age she had piercing grey eyes and an iron, somewhat impersonal, tone of voice which she used on the occasion of conversing with the secondary school's students.

She ran a finger through her raven black hair, frowning whenever she thought she had met with a hair which just might have an imaginary fine sparkling of silvery grey over it. Remembering quickly that she was meant to be interviewing a student, the nurse spun round in her comfortable swivel chair once more and energetically rustled her official papers.

"You're Catriona Fairstone, are you, dear?" she asked, propping her silver-rimmed oval glasses firmly back on her nose before they had the opportunity to slip down again.

Staring up at the seemingly interesting office ceiling, the girl answered carefully, "Yes, I know I am."

The crease in her forehead deepening, the nurse proclaimed her next words with the uncouth volume of a fog horn, "I'll have none of your impertinence, child! I'm here to help, but first you need to help yourself, and answer these questions without rolling your eyes and looking at me in that tone of voice!"

Catriona almost smiled, although it was a rather weak smile, and nervously flicked her long golden-red hair back over her shoulder. She caught the nurse glancing enviously at her hair, and shared another grin with herself. She knew her hair was eye-catching, and she loved it that way. Not that it would do much for her in this situation. She muffled her sigh so the nurse wouldn't catch the sound, and bit back her desire to ask how somebody could "look at someone" in a "tone of voice".
Definitely intriguing, Catriona thought. What a very teacherish thing to say!

"Snap out of it, Catriona - we must discuss what you came her for before I'm accused of not doing my job. I'm very thorough, you understand. Very thorough indeed," the nurse attempted a smile which turned out to more resemble a grimace. "I've been told that you and one David Thorope of the sixth year have got into a spot of trouble. There are some ways out of this, but none fast or easy, you'll find. Some state for a girl who's already suffered what you have to get yourself into! I should have kept a closer eye on you in school after what happened to your mother, child."

No, she can't have mentioned it. All of the staff have been told to avoid the issue. They know how it hurts me. It stabs me, in a way, just the mere mention of her name causes that degree of pain, all at once, bringing back all my memories. I thought I could count these things as passed. Of course, I should have known better. I'm not surprised they were told to look out for me, but I hate such a forced show of kindness! I wanted everything to stand still; I can scarcely comprehend it now, but I even wanted time to stop. I wanted it to wait until I could catch up with my life, before it left me behind entirely. Now I see it was wrong to think I could ignore this pain - but it's something else to let the staff bring it up like this. My wounds are still raw, and it's as if someone's taking a sharp and ragged knife and turning it over and over in cuts yet to heal. I hate feeling this way: I wanted to regain control of my life. I know what the teachers say. They think I've ruined my life now, that although I suffered from the tragedy I've acted irresponsibly. I wish they felt this pain. It's deep inside, and it's still hurting. I think it will always twinge a little. But now I've done as a young child would, and interfered with the scabs. I'll mend, but I'm not the same person now. I've done enough. At one point in my life this would have been the end, but now I know I'll get through it somehow. I know I will, even if they don't have faith that I can pull through. I know I can.

"Catriona," the nurse saw the glint of a tear in the girl's eye, "you must face the facts. I can't hide from the truth, and no more can you. You've got to deal with this, and you must do it in your own way. We're here to help you, but first you must ensure that you always do what's right for you."

As well she might. Ah, wonder of all wonders, she's rephrased her well-trodden lecture. I suppose even she realised it was getting a bit rusty, Catriona composed herself, fighting back in the way she always had - with her strong sarcastic nature.

Narrowly preventing herself from stating her thoughts out loud, Catriona added, "Yes, I know. You've told me this before. And I've given you my answer. It's not going to change, despite you doing your very best to alter it."

"I would never try to influence your decision, Catriona. I simply do my best to give you worthwhile advice."

Wonderful, that old lie again. Stupid hag, she knows fine well she's trying to "influence my decision." Who's she trying to kid? What's stranger still is that she knows it, and yet keeps trying to persuade me otherwise. I'm not totally ignorant, and I'm certainly not blind. For God's sake, this is my life, not hers! I wish she'd just go and get a life for herself...then she's stop sticking her ugly nose in everyone else's.

Gritting her teeth Catriona replied firmly, "Mrs. Howlett, I don't need your advice. I trust my own judgement above all, thank you so much."

The nurse looked as if she'd been stung. And indeed, she had, in a way. Nobody was meant to argue with Mrs. Howlett, and her subdued and muffled gasp of shock betrayed her. Her job was not to negotiate with the students but to intimidate them, wear them down until they agreed with her stance on almost anything.

Catriona was her own girl, and nothing could influence her in this way. She had no particular plans for life, and was happy to improvise along the way. If she forgot her lines in the play of existence she would quickly regain composure, and would learn from the experience to avoid it happening again. This girl was not afraid to speak out for what she believed in, especially if it concerned her own private life. This girl was also not afraid to ruin the reputation of any person who dared to think they were above her.

Just who does she think she is? It's my life, therefore it's my decision. Simple. And I've made it. She can try and block her ears to my own ideas, and will, but I get the final say. I will have the final say, Catriona smiled to herself.

The nurse made a show of wiping her glasses deftly on her sleeve as she made an effort to take control of the situation once more, lowering her steely voice, "You're only a child yourself, Catriona. You'd feel helpless having to be independent in caring for another."

I don't need to listen to this any longer. She can't shut her ears forever.

The girl yawned audibly, shifting her position in the hard plastic chair she'd been seated in, examining her nails superficially. She'd given up on taking in anything her companion said, but the nurse had yet to notice this, or so it seemed. Catriona knew Mrs. Howlett wasn't at all used to people ignoring her. She was generally regarded as the kind of woman one felt obliged to sit up and listen to; some felt almost frightened of her brash manner, and others were led into thinking that she could help them gain power in council circles. It was time that someone stood up to her, for even her fellow staff were a little intimidated by her presence in the school.

Standing up abruptly and edging closer to the door, the girl spoke firmly, "This is my life. I've chosen to keep the child, and I'm afraid I've rather wasted your time this afternoon, having been definite in my decision for some weeks now. Thanks for the tea and biscuits earlier. I'll see myself out."

And out she went, to the whispers and giggles of her peers. They'd always thought Catriona Fairstone was a bit strange and distant, but now she had ruined her life. Everyone said so, even the girl's parents. She had let someone only slightly older than her take advantage of her when she was at her weakest, floored by the death of her mother. They all believed she was an idiot now. Catriona, however, knew she'd made the right decision. He would stay by her, if she so wished him to, but she didn't wish any such thing. She wanted to strike out on her own and cope with this situation in her own way, just as she had done with her mother's death. Catriona barely allowed herself to hope that her baby would be perfect, but she did know that she hadn't regretted opening up to someone at last. In her mind he hadn't taken advantage of her at all - Catriona would never allow herself to feel weakness. There was true, flawless beauty in love.

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Shona shivered as she tossed and turned in her tiny bed. Dark. Everything was all dark. The monsters would come soon. They always came for her when it was dark. If it was dark they never failed to come.

The little girl had worked herself into a cold sweat and felt physically sick. Something told her that this night would be worse than any other, that this night would be the one when the monsters would get her for good. They would drag her down to be in the darkness with them. Shona hated the dark since she had witnessed the monsters. They would touch her beautiful red hair with long, cold fingers. She wanted to scream for her father and yet, deep down, she knew he'd never come and rescue her. Daddy didn't believe in her monsters. Daddy thought they were figments of an overactive imagination. Daddy was wrong.

The door opened slowly, emitting a tired creak, new shadows dancing on the worn pine finish. It was too late now. The monsters were coming, and Shona had no power to stop them. She was completely in their mercy, too terrified even to try and run for the cliffs again. The little girl knew somehow that she was safe every time she was able to reach the cliffs. The monsters would never follow her there.

Yet it was too late now. Shona hated being so scared as she liked to think of herself as a fighter, carving her way through life with ease. She was mature already in some aspects, preferring to hide her feelings rather than share them with the world. She wouldn't curl up with a teddy bear in her arms like all the other girls did when she felt in need of comfort. Shona didn't want teddy bears when she had her father to love. If only her father would love her, and then she could wrap her arms around him and hug him when night fell upon them again, and the shadows returned. The monsters belonged in the shadows, and deep down Shona knew that only her father could stop them from escaping their gloomy prison.

Noises. The door knob was turning. Slowly it twisted, and Shona watched it with rapt fascination.

The monsters had returned again. And this time they would take what they had for so long been after. They would steal her away from her bed, even in the dead of night. It was so much easier in the darkness. Always so much easier in the darkness. For that was when the children were at their most vulnerable, fresh for the picking. And it was Shona who was alone. No-one would hear her scream. They never did, but today was different; she needed them to hear her screams, her pitiful calls for mercy. Perhaps the rest of the world wanted to ignore her. Shona was just another young child - but a dot on the surface of the planet Earth - and she was completely alone. Nobody would ever listen to a mere child.

As they approached the bed the floor creaked, and all of the tiny hairs on Shona's back stood up perfectly straight. It would all be over soon, she had assured herself.

It was happening...the fingers like icicles were stroking her shimmering golden-red hair like it was their treasure. Another cold finger on her neck, another on her throat. Similar to a forest of deadly frozen tree branches the fingers continued to reach for her, and not even the sunny halo of her beautiful hair could thaw them. But then the light shone once more, and the darkness slid away into the blankets of Shona's little bed.

This was not a natural light as Shona's bright hair was, but the electric light. Shona wondered for a moment if the monsters had indeed only be the product of an overactive imagination, but only for a moment, for she then saw the figure perched on the bed beside her. She attempted to turn away from them, but she could not ignore that frosty glare. The fingers had been real. They had reached out for Shona's flushed and wretched young face. However, they had not been the fingers of monsters. Had they ever been the fingers of monsters? Shona couldn't be sure now.

What she could be sure of was the fact that her father was sitting right next to her, carefully guiding his rough hand over her soft pink cheeks.

He cupped one of Shona's tiny hands in his, and looked up into her eyes, great tears slithering sluggishly down his face. "I'm sorry", he whispered, "I'm sorry I lied to you. You're just a child and you won't understand. When you're older you might see why this happened, you could understand. And I say sorry so that when you understand you can forgive me. I need you to forgive me, Shona. Until you understand you can't forgive, but I can wait. Do you promise you'll remember all that I've said?"

The girl wondered why her Daddy had come. Could it be that the monsters had been real, and that her very own Daddy had saved her from them? She liked this idea, and she would hang onto it with all her heart.

"Yes, Daddy. And you made the monsters go away."

The little girl's father gave her a lopsided and not altogether genuine smile, lifting her up high into his arms. Shona was her father's angel now, as she'd always wished she could be. The stars which blinked at her at night had granted her only wish, and even Shona's eyes seemed to twinkle now. She didn't care if her father still thought she was too much of a baby to understand his pleas, and to be truthful, she wasn't quite sure that she did. All that mattered to her was that her father had his powerful arms around her in a strong embrace, and she no longer wanted to squirm away from him. It felt right, somehow. A warmth spread through her father's arms to hers, and she rendered herself completely in his control. Shona knew she no longer had any reason to envy the other little girls. It didn't occur to her to question the monsters again, or to ask her father why she no longer had any friends. She cared only for the affections of her father. He'd realised what she was worth, and that she could not be forced to trust or love him, but that Shona had just been looking for an excuse to give up fighting against the only parent she'd ever known. The monsters would never frighten her now. Daddy would defend her if they dared to approach her again: Shona's father had won his daughter's love at last. He cradled his daughter's head as she gradually allowed herself to fall into a peaceful sleep. She was safe now, and that was enough.

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It always sounded the same. A repetitive thud, never ceasing. Such a terrible echo.

She looked so innocent. Sleeping. Pouting, holding tightly onto the corner of her favourite fleece blanket with one tiny fist. She knew nothing of the circumstances of her birth, and he was only too glad of this. Too young yet. Her mother had been there, that was all. There. Fallen right into his clutches, and it had taken this long for him to realise the exact nature of what he had done. It hadn't been fair at all; he hadn't given her a chance. It was too late now, of course. His daughter was in the room, fast asleep. He wouldn't wake her just yet - she looked too peaceful, blissfully peaceful.

David Thorope.

Their daughter seemed to be nothing of him, and everything of Catriona. Her name had been selected at random, snatched from the page of some baby names book and slapped on the certificate. No real thought involved. He knew now that the name didn't suit the child at all. There was a radiance about her that it couldn't even begin to describe. He hadn't wanted to give her his name, either. There seemed to be something so horribly corrupt about it all. His daughter was his hope, his life, his honest joy. He still looked out for Catriona when he passed the bay, but she never came. She would never come.

She'd gone the same way as her mother before her. Down to the coast. Such a beautiful path, her wandering figure adding to its assumed charm. A trick. The monster below had swallowed her, and he had stared hopelessly on. She wasn't coming back. It had been her idea to meet again. Her parents had wanted them to have nothing more to do with each other, and he had finally agreed to care for little Shona. That had been their last meeting, on that windy cliff.

The rain knew it, and the wind knew it too. The sky had cracked open in its misery, wailing, screaming, and all the time the breeze it threw down contorted the faces of the mortals it watched, ensuring that they too would cry.

He'd kissed her, and then they'd spent an undetermined time in each other arms. He cared as he had never cared before, the salty tears oozed painfully from even his eyes.

"Don't forget me."

"No."

"Promise me you won't. Forget. Promise me you'll always remember her if you ever spare another thought for me. Don't forget about her. She has your beauty."

"No. And you - tell her I love her."

"I know. She'll know too, I know. I'm sure of that. But I'll tell her, like you wanted me to. I know she'll believe. Children believe everything, don't they?"

A tentative pause. "Perhaps."

Catriona Fairstone had changed over that past year. Her eyes were like those of the hunted, terrified that she would be dragged from the life she had accepted as her own. Her birthday had been no cause for celebration, and she had refused to celebrate her sixteen years with her family. She had been ill for a while, on and off. Pitiful, but few would spare her pity. They concluded that she deserved all she got. Good for nothing, completely irresponsible.

David, her baby: she'd wanted them. They -her parents - had had none of it. They wouldn't let her have them.

Her last chance for goodbyes. Wherever she was going, she was moving away from there. The daughter she left had observed her carefully in their time together, but she didn't understand any of it, and she didn't remember. People walked into her life, and they walked out of it. She spoke to none of them, remembered nothing but the haze of faces, not one distinguishable from another. There hadn't been enough time.

Catriona ran after the last words had been exchanged. She'd seen the bay for the last time. She'd seen him for the last time. Her eyes clamped shut, not attempting even a quick glance behind her. She knew what she'd be missing. Her father had forbidden any further contact: she wasn't to spend any more time on David or her baby. Her baby had no name, but she was to hand her over to David. They said that the only way she would ever recover was to leave it all. Hospital, they'd mentioned that. To abandon it all. The images would never fate, and she was acutely aware of this. She needed the reassurance that none would now offer.

"Wait!" he called desperately, watching her slid over the wet rocks. "Wait! Be careful!"

She had fallen as if in slow motion, crashing and thudding its way down to the froth-topped sea. It was excited, lurching towards her, claiming her for its own. Thud thud thud against the rocks. Thud, touched by these cold watery fingers, forever reaching just that bit further. Thud, her hair a streaming banner, billowing as she went under. Thud, he could watch no longer, but he knew that it had been her perfect porcelain head that had struck that last rock. Thud, he turned away. Thud. Always the same tone, always at regular intervals. Sickening.

Shona had a curious affiliation with these rocks. She could not recall a picture of her mother or grandmother in her mind, but something beckoned her to them in those cold mornings.

Monster. That was what the parents of her mother had called her father, although she could not remember even this. At the end, her father had been the one doing the remembering for her. He remembered his status of Monster. Screamed, they'd screamed it at him. He remembered, he had spoken, but he could not comprehend any of it. And Shona - Shona resembled her mother so very closely. He had finally believed that he was some class of Monster. The part was played, the player as confused as his audience. Wasn't that how it happened?

There it was, the light illuminating a rock here, a rock there. Swirling upon them, toying with their pointed forms. There lies a monster. Rearing up, savouring the taste of victory. There had been no struggle, there had been no war. There was, however, a monster.