My Shattered Life

Introduction

It is dark and cold. My house has no AC and its winter. My dad is coming home, so I'm hiding until I know which version of my dad is here. The drunken bad version or the sleepy tired somewhat nicer version. My night depends on either one. I hunch quietly, shivering in the darkness as I hear our screen door closing.

"HOPE!!!!" He yells. I hunch lower. He's drunk, tonight is going to be bad.

"GET DOWN HERE!!!!" He will find me, he always does. When he finds me, I will have hell to pay. I hear footsteps walking towards the room.

My dad opens and slams doors, looking for me. He comes to the closet I'm hiding in and opens it. I hid myself well, under blankets, but my dad sees me breathing from under the sheets and yanks them off. Revealing a really scared me, he grabs my hair and forces me out of the small closet.

He pushes me to the floor and begins to unclip his belt, I smell his nasty alcoholic breath. I begin to beg, "Please dad, please, don't hit me!" I plead then he yells at me.

"You ungrateful brat, you killed my wife. You're a murder!!!" He screams, spraying spit in my face. He has the belt in his hand, ready to strike. He is talking about when I was born, my mother died in childbirth. And my dad never forgave me.

I scream as the belt hits my face. That's going to leave a mark, and I have school tomorrow. In a sense, I'm happy, I've been waiting for him to screw up, to leave a mark, and now he has. My sense of happiness fades as he hits me again, this time on my stomach. I double because it really winded me.

I scream as the torrent of belt slashes rains down on my arm, face, stomach back, anyplace it can reach. He's gone overboard, he's never gone this far before, he must be more drunk that usual. The edges of my vision turn white, red, and black, then darkness consumes me and I slump forward, into nothingness.