Nenatalav |Chapter 01|

It was possibly the worst Halloween night in her memory. The storm raging outside was one of the worst Huntington Beach had seen in over a decade; the chiming as the grandfather clock in the living room struck midnight was barely audible over the wind. Sixteen-year-old Hanna Valtanen lay face down on her bed, blocking out the violence of the storm outside, and trying to pretend that she couldn’t hear her parents arguing downstairs. She forced herself to turn over, ignoring the shooting agony in her chest as she did so, staring blankly up at the ceiling. Then she looked down at her arms.

A lattice of deep lacerations carved a pattern from her wrists to her elbows. The pain was unimaginable; it burned through her arms like fire. Though the occasional dry sob wracked her body, no tears fell from her misted green eyes: they had long since dried up. She turned her attention to the sheets. They were soaked with her blood; that, she knew immediately, was not good. Despite being wrapped in the quilt, she was shivering uncontrollably: she had never been so cold in her life. Yet the blood that soaked the bed was warm, which for a while left her confused. It was a moment before the thought occurred to her: she was only cold because she had lost so much blood.

As she stared, with faint incredulity, at the crimson flood, she realised that it meant trouble. It couldn’t kill her, she was certain of that. However, it would cause her problems; it would leave her weak, far too weak to cope with anything. The only idea left in her numb mind was that it should have been close to healing by now. Something, somewhere, had gone very much wrong. In the back of her mind, a small voice pointed out that much was obvious; if there hadn’t been something wrong, then she wouldn’t have been in this situation.

As the noise level from downstairs swung sharply upwards, a fresh wave of pain washed over Hanna. It hurt more than she could ever have possibly imagined; she was in so much pain that she hadn’t even the energy to move, and there was nothing she could do about it. She was no longer feeling the agony in her arms – having caused it herself, she found it easy to block out. No, the pain that she was thinking about was the pain in the rest of her body, caused by her father.

She knew instinctively that she had black eyes. Her chest was afire from broken ribs, there was a searing pain in her left shoulder, which was almost certainly dislocated, her head was bleeding heavily, and she wasn’t quite sure what else had happened that night; she was dazed, and in shock. She knew that, one day, it would come back to haunt her. She dreaded that day with all the force in her being: she wasn't sure she could take many more memories of that sort.

She sighed heavily, though her lungs protested at the effort. The room around her was slowly fading from her sight, gradually turning black. There was a strange, welcoming gentleness about that darkness; it was comforting. If she let herself fade into that darkness, she would feel no more sorrow, no more pain. It was all she had ever wanted. She could be happy, truly happy; she would no longer live in fear. Alone in the dark, she could heal all the old scars, close the open wounds, and rediscover herself. There would be nothing there to hurt her. Nothing but her memories; but they would soon be forgotten.

Her eyes seemed to grow heavier with each passing second. She fought to keep them open, though she was not sure why…she had long since given up any idea of going on living. To disappear into that beckoning darkness meant release from reality, an end to her seemingly endless fight. The storm sounded distant now, and she couldn’t hear her parents’ raised voices at all. This was a happy place, a calm place, somewhere she could find herself again.

And even if I never get back, at least I’ll never have to deal with that again. I’d rather die here and now than let tonight happen again… she thought darkly.

She gradually allowed her eyes to close. Just as she was on the brink of slipping into the warm embrace of that welcoming darkness, however, she saw a beam of light cut through it, a shadow against the wall. She was no longer alone. She had neither the strength, nor the presence of mind to even wonder who was there. Even if it was her father, there was little more that he could do to her now. She was too close to the edge for him to do anything more to hurt her. With all the strength of her soul she prayed that Satan might take her, far from this plane of existence, to a place where she could finally be safe.

Just as she was about to give herself up completely to the emptiness slowly creeping into her mind, she felt strong arms around her waist, warm and gentle, holding her, supporting her. She felt suddenly safe, safe in a way that she never had before. Then, she heard the voice, soft, gentle, familiar, begging her to hold on, for his sake, because he loved her and she was the only reason he was living. She knew that voice; it was the voice that had kept her going for so many years, the voice that had given her every reason necessary to fight, to remember who she was, despite the best efforts of her father to make her forget.

To give up now was to let her parents win. She couldn’t do that, it was the one thing that had never changed: she couldn’t ever let her parents win this fight, no matter what it cost her. Far aside from that, to give up now would only hurt him, and that was inexcusable. How he had managed to get into her room she did not know. Nor did she care; she knew only that she loved him, far too much to disappear into the darkness, more than could ever be put into words. She forced her eyes to open, gazing up into the deep brown eyes of he who held her, and as the gathering darkness finally closed around her, spoke one word, her voice barely louder than a whisper:

“Lauri…?”