𝚂𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝-𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚝 | 𝚂𝚊𝚕 𝚡 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛 (S𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 F𝚊𝚌𝚎)

Prolouge (TW)

TW: implied sexual abuse

I open my eyes and I'm outside, the sky is purple and the grass is pink, toads in ballerina dresses and princess hats at my feet, Smiling and dancing along to fun piano playing from an undetermined source. I picked up one of the toads being careful to not hurt it and gently set it down in my tiny palm. The bumpy specimen was bigger than my hand but had just enough room to lace its legs between my fingers and lean back on its webbed fingers at the base of my hand. The frog looked over her shoulder, eyes almost gleaming in excitement to see me.

"What took you so long to get here (Y/N)?"

Pleasantly surprised by the toad talking, I responded with a casual shrug of my tiny shoulders.  While glancing around, I let my eyes land on a blue and gold pond. It looked like one of those ponds you would see in a garden, outlined with multicolored stones rounding about to a small waterfall cascading into the water.

Pretty...

I slowly make my way towards the pond, making sure to hold my cold-blooded friend to my stomach, so I don't drop her. The horizon seemed to stretch forever into an orange-gold sunset causing a slight overcast on the pink blades tickling my bare feet.
As I got closer to the water, it became clearer, showing small koi fish in all shapes and colors sitting around a table underwater. I set the toad down on a small stone as I get on my knees at the edge of the pond, and peak over. I noticed a particular koi fish in a cool black top hat and a sharp tux in corresponding colors. he used his fin to pick up his small pipe that rested on the table, made out of a small bead and straw. The fish looked up at me at waved. How did it know I was here? I thought I was being sneaky.
Pouting, I looked over to the toad who was waving at everyone underwater and asked what they were talking about.
" Just fish things!" the reptile giggled.

Click

I wake up to the pink-trimmed walls of my room, sleepily trailing my eyes over to the noise. I noticed a tall figure standing in the door frame of my room that I quickly recognized as my dad.

"Daddy... Why did you wake me up?" I whined.

He quickly walked in and closed the door behind himself fearful of something, lightly stumbling into the small dresser parked at the corner of the door.
"Shhh, baby...We're going to play our game.." he whispered, turning the big light back off and turning on the dim princess lamp on the other end of the nightstand, right next to my bed.

Oh... I don't like this game...

He always comes into my room to play this game with me only at night. He says I can't tell mommy about it or my brother, because it was just our game. He looked at me weirdly as he knelt by my bed. His stare made me feel all gross and itchy inside.  When he got closer to me I could smell the nasty drink he always drank on his breath. I remember we were sitting on the couch in the living room one time while mommy was at work, and we watched bugs bunny together. He was drinking the nasty stuff out of a brown bottle.

"Daddy, what's that?" I asked him.

He looked over at me and smirked.

"Do you wanna try it baby?" he asked, handing the bottle to me.

I took a big gulp of the drink and it instantly made me want to throw up. It was stale and cold but I swallowed it anyway because daddy said it was expensive. I must have visibly made a face because daddy laughed and took his drink back from me.

" you'll like it eventually," he said and took another sip from the bottle.

Back in the present, he put the bottle down on the nightstand next to my lamp. I eyed him warily as he stood up, and started to take off his belt.

...

At the time, I didn't understand what he was doing to me, I didn't like it but I couldn't tell him to stop. Eventually, I told my brother about our game and he told one of his teachers, who called DSS, after a few calls, they eventually caught my dad and hauled him off to jail. Forced my mom to be alone. She was always a drinker, but once dad left it got worse. Mom was an angry drunk.
She would drink until she could barely stand up and she would lash out at my brother for doing absolutely nothing to her. She believed the reason that dad left was because of him. According to her, dad never wanted kids. He stated that when they first started dating. So, when she came home from CVS with a positive pregnancy test for twins, he flipped out, trashing the apartment and leaving her there alone. That's when the drinking started, it wasn't as heavy as it is now, but it was enough to give my brother joint problems in his left arm.
And enough to give me vision problems. She would hit him relentlessly, he would always have bruises on him from her beatings but she was smart enough to keep him home for a few days to let them heal. Eventually, the neighbors called the cops on her for being loud, they caught her in the act and hauled her off too, sending us to foster care. We jumped around to Vermont, Maine, Texas, Delaware, and seemingly every other state that could exist. Unfortunately, I and my brother were separated in texas, and I haven't seen him since.

...

"Last night, you were dreaming and I heard you say"
the car radio basted.

"Oh, Johnny!" Maria dramatically belted.

"When you know my name is ray."

Upbeat jazz filled the chipped-up Nissan as it twists and turns down the roads of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Maria carefully gripped the steering wheel with calloused fingers and tossed bleached hair out of her face. Her green eyes looked into the rearview mirror and adjusted it so I could see her eyes. I shifted my view to the green sign approaching us, saying "come again soon!" in big white letters. I attempted to brush some of Donna's long black hair out of my face while she lit a cigarette. The windows were down letting cool night air flow through the windows, alongside Donna's hair oh so pleasantly drifting back into my face.

"Donna? Can you tie your hair back, please? It's assaulting my nostrils" I pleaded shifting around in the brown leather seats.

She turned back to me, shifting her sunglasses down her slender nose. Her brown eyes looked at me with a confused expression.

"What love? I couldn't hear you?"

"They said pull your hair back, Don," Maria said as she reached over the console to give her wife a hair tie.

"Oh! Thank you! Sorry love" she apologized.

Her long manicured fingers carefully slipped her hair into a messy top knot, pulling down face-framing pieces from the crown of her head. She pulled down the small mirror in front of her, smoothing down any flyaways in the noir sea. Maria kept her eyes on the road but gave loving side glances every once in a while. We sat in comfortable silence for about an hour or so, listening to the iheartradio station intently.
Shortly after me and my brother were separated, I was transported to an orphanage in Indiana, where I met my two adoptive moms, Maria and Donna. Maria was a head mechanic at Goodyear, while Donna was a doctor in a nearby hospital. I think back to how their personalities clash. Maria is the epitome of the trouble-making slacker trope, and Donna always walking around with a huge stick up her ass and a doctorate in microbiology. Her posture is so pinpoint perfect you would think there was a physical stick up her ass.

How the hell did they meet each other?

      They came into the orphanage together one day and scoped around a bit. At the time I was sitting on the swings awkwardly trying to push myself forward with my short legs. Maria saw me and asked me if she could push me. Since that day, they started visiting me every week and playing with me for hours until the orphanage closed. One day, they came back with my things in their arms and told me I was going home with them. Zoning back out of the memory I recognized another song coming on the radio. It was an intense song, with reverb and synth. I knew I recognized the song but I couldn't put a name to the beat.

"You're such a strange girl..."
"I think you come from another world..."

Oh, it was that one.
I haven't heard this in a long time...
I shift my eyes back to the stereo as Donna reaches over to switch the station.
"No! Wait! I like that song!" I shifted forward to stop her arm from moving further.

Authors note:
I apologize for something so serious was mentioned in the first part of this story, but it was needed to build character.