CONSTELLATION || GLENN RHEE [TWD]

[09]: STAINED STEEL

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CHAPTER NINE;
[ STAINED STEEL ]
[CONSTELLAION || GLENN RHEE]

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Athena still remembers how it all started. It was a Wednesday, at least, that's what she remembered. It was hot outside and the wind seemed a bit tougher than usual, the debris and dirt that came with the beauty of living in the Texas hills blowing into their home. Athena and her three siblings, including their mother, all lived in an area free of any sort of new buildings, stores, or sign of life. The house they occupied was three stories tall and was accompanied by a large barn in the back that held the livestock and other items of the Lee family that was too big to fit in their home. Let's just say that their family was, well, special.

Athena had been born two years after her older brother, Ares, and slowly grew up to the idea of living in complete isolation. Well, not completely. The nearest grocery store and small school they attended was around thirty minutes away, still a far distance enough to make it seem like the Lee family lived on their own though.

Overall though, it really was a picture perfect life: Ares helped raise his little sister alongside their divorced mother, Athena was enjoying every day spent with her siblings, and together they completed each other. Not a day went by without a few enjoyable hours of complete and utter happiness. One of the things they did most was running around in the fields of grain and cotton with rain boots and white shirts and khakis. They would push each other on the tire swing by the large oak tree near the stream of water by their house, sometimes Mother would even let them go swimming when the water grew deeper and the temperature wasn't as cold.

This never stopped, the beautiful life, even when Artemis was brought into the world and Atlas after. It continued, but now they had two other people to rope swing into the deep water.

Of course though, things got a little bit worse at night.

Their mother, Josephine, had split with her husband of twenty years after their last child, Atlas, was born. Turned out that her father, Daniel, had been having one night stands with the woman that worked at a burger joint in the next town. He left right after Mom found out, leaving her to single handedly raise four children on her own.

She did pretty well in all honesty, she kept money high to where all four kids had everything they needed, but that didn't mean things were okay.

During the day, her Mom would be working or busying herself in the house, but once the sun came down and all four children were inside, she would just snap.

Josephine would start screaming and yelling and going on a major rush about how things were never going to be the same because of Daniel. No, she never hit Athena or Atlas or Artemis, but she did hit Ares. Many times. He would take the beatings when she came home from her job already drunk and smoking cigarettes, yelling about something that had happened during the day. She would pull off her belt and whip the boy like there was no tomorrow, sometimes even throwing things at him like it was a game. It was all because of Daniel though, according to the woman, but Athena refused to believe that Josephine had let that man take over her life so far to the point where her kids had learnt that fear was normal.