Trapped In Flames (A Shivian fic)

Introduction ❥

17 years. That's how long it'd been since Siobhan Serpent had last had contact with any of her family.
17 years of living the 'freedom' she'd craved as a child, but it turned out that leaving that household hadn't prevented the wounds of her trauma from scarring.

Siobhan didn't think she'd ever really experienced prolonged happiness, most of her childhood memories felt blurry and confusing, the young, carefree girl that she used to be felt like a distant entity independent from herself. Her teenage years were flooded with anger, tainted by the hatred she now had for her parents, and for her older sister for never trying to shield or defend her from the cruel words spat from her mothers lips.
Now as an adult she was overcome with a feeling of mourning for the person she could've been- should've been if she hadn't become such a hopeless product of her upbringing. That was her outlook on it, anyway.

Siobhan knew she was heavily disliked throughout her town, and she knew that in the last decade she'd hurt more people than she could even think of to count. But projection is an interesting thing, and she was more than aware that the way she treated others was simply just a reflection of her own disappointment in herself, and the person she had become.
She'd spent years being silent as a teen, once she realised that anything she said was twisted and resulted in punishment, she decided it was easier to just stay quiet. But she never stopped listening. Never stopped listening when she would perch at the tops of the stairs each evening and overhear the hurtful things her mother would say about her that felt as though they cut through her heartstrings like a knife, and she never stopped listening to the homophobic, sexist and racist rants her father would go on every time a drop of alcohol entered his system.

But she also never stopped listening to that tiny little voice in the back of her head, the part of her that her mother's words had never quite been able to suppress. The voice that whispered that things could get better, that she only had a few more years until she would be able to finally leave home, finally be able to be authentic version of herself and live her life with the passion she was never allowed to at home.
She'd always dreamed of moving out the second she turned 18, and that's exactly what she did- filled with courage and determination, she left without even a glance backwards. At first things were brilliant, Siobhan began to speak her mind again (this time without the threat of punishment), and for a few months she was blessed with a grace period of joy, but of course, these things never last. Slowly but surely, she found herself becoming angry at the world once again, and in a way she found that anger comforting. All she'd ever known was the fierce fire that burned inside her, driving her through her childhood, and without it she'd felt happy, but empty; she supposed she just wasn't ready to let go of her anger yet.

Now she knew that rekindling that fire was the worst thing she ever did.

Could she ever feel free again, or would she always stay as a slave to her past, always being suffocated by the family she was never really a part of?
Maybe it was just her birthright, to end up as bitter and as cold as her mother.
Truthfully, Siobhan had no heartfelt desire to change her ways, but recently she'd begun to regret the social isolation she'd induced upon herself, as she now found herself in a situation where all she needed was a friend.

She knew she couldn't leave Roger, but maybe his abuse would feel easier to endure if she had a shoulder to cry on, somebody to understand why she had to stay, and how it was that she'd ended up so firmly tied to such a monster. Maybe not, Siobhan didn't know how these things worked- she'd never had a friend.

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