Peter's Flame

Part 23

(T.W!!! Abusive, swearing, and alcohol! Don't read if you doing want to!!)

I had fallen into a deep sleep after taking the vial but don't remember anything about my dream.

It was as if nothing could tear me from the darkness that consumed my mind, body, and soul.

-A few hours later in the middle of the night-

I was shaken away by frantic hands and I bolted awake.

Pan was above me, panting, with his hands on one arm trying to get me awake.

I opened my eyes and shot up out of the bed.

Pan stopped shaking me and let me go but I could feel him wanting something.

His eyes were wide, filled with gratitude and worry.

I zoomed out of the bed when I realized that I was shaking and sweating. My breathes were ragged as I hyperventilated through my stages.

I ran out of the hut without a word and bolted through the trees.

I heard Pan curse before footsteps pounded after me.

As the footsteps got closer, I increased my speed, dodging past trees and bushes.

Before I knew it, I was at my cliff, the cliff I had spent three days in, the cliff where I had spent was the sun rise and fall everyday, the cliff I had called my new home.

I climbed up a tree, not caring that I kind of flew up and sat on a branch just as Pan bolted out of the woods.

He seemed frantic and looked around only to stop.

"You can come down. I know you're there," he said.

I did not move as my brain worked to understand how he knew I was here. I stared at him in shock.

I heard him sigh before a cloud of green smoke swallowed him up and then he disappeared into the night.

I looked around frantically, trying to make sure that he was okay no matter what had just happened.

"Looking for me, are we?"

I spun around to face a grinning Pan as he sat on the branch with me.

I mentally slapped myself for not thinking of it sooner.

"How did you-" I asked.

"Magic," he replied.

I nodded and returned my gaze to the moon.

"What happened," he asked, his voice low and slow.

"Hmm?"

"What happened in the tent? You were shaking and muttering. I woke up because you were thrashing in the covers."

My mind went blank except for one answer. The truth.

"Memory," I responded.

He nodded, knowing not to push me for more information.

I didn't react to what he told me because I had been like that for fourteen years.

I remember it as clear as day. My brain repeating the scene over and over again.

My uncle had taken me in for six years but this was the last day of that brief period.

My uncle had staggered through the kitchen, a glass bottle in his hand.

He had just come home from work so his tie was loose as his button shirt was at least partly done, allowing him to breathe.

The office probably was the cause for his drunkenness but wasn't something I wasn't use to.

He set down the bottle and looked at the kitchen.

He turned and spotted me sitting on the floor and doing nothing at all except drifting off into space.

He growled and pounded over to me before I was smacked back into reality with a crushing blow to my skull.

He did it again and again but I refused to utter a single sound, not wanting to infuriate him more.

He kept mumbling about how worthless I was that my own mother, his sister, left me to him. It was my fault for being a pain and forcing her away.

He paused momentarily in my evening beating and grabbed the beer bottle, chugging the rest of the alcohol and slugging his way back over to me.

I was already covered in faint bruises that were still forming.

"You little piece of shit! Your own parents hated you and here you are. A weak, embarrassing, little girl that has no place, no reason, to live," he snarled.

He smashed the bottle on the counter, glass scattering and there was now a broken bottle in his hand.

Fear exploded through ever inch of my body and all I could think to do was lift my arms in the air as he lifted the bottle in a strike position.

His eyes were filled with fury and I shut mine, waiting for the strike to come.

Nothing came.

I opened my eyes to see my uncle frozen in his steps, fear in his eyes.

"You monster! This is why they left you, freak," he screamed.

His words struck me in his chest, as if pins plunged straight through my heart.

I glared at him, murder and rage coursing through my veins.

I watched as his face turned pale and then, in a flash, his eyes went dead.

I paused, reality setting into my brain. When it clicked, I gasped and lowered my hands.

My uncle fell to the floor in a heap. I looked down at my hands and shook my head.

I couldn't have killed him.

I crawled over to him and checked for a pulse on his wrist and then neck.

There was none.

I had sat back and cried that day, the last time I had ever cried.

That day, I had been eight years old and had discovered my abilities.

But at a terrible price.

The price of my remaining family, my uncle.

I had run away from his house and never looked back.

I had decided to find my family, my parents.

Now here I was, eight years later.

On a tree with a fairytale, alone, with no family, and no friends.

Elllo!!! That's enough for today! See you next chapter!! Have a fantastic day!! Ta taaaaaaa!