Memoirs

Nightly Detriments

Anyone would notice the scars that marred her face, hiding her once prevalent beauty. The stories that lay hidden behind her blank features were open for all to see. No smiles passed over those red lips of hers; no laughs were voiced in open conversation. As though they all had died along with her broken heart, she was left as only a shell of who she once had been.

Some may have even said that he broke her heart so completely, she could never hope for a full recovery.

She was an innocent little girl once upon a time, believe it or not. The world had treated her rather cruelly, of course - but even so, the light in her eyes hadn't yet been dulled. Newly adopted by parents that died in an accident shortly thereafter, she was left almost completely alone in the world once again. She had no one to love her but her adoptive brother - who, in the early stages of their relationship as siblings, was good for little more than cooking a meal or two and doing the occasional load of laundry. Even that wasn't very good, at least from her perfectionist's view. She was the one who prepared meals most nights, considering that he seemed to have a penchant for almost burning down their flat. He swore it was on accident, but that didn't change the fact that she didn't trust him with an open flame.

Her life was steady, and rather mundane, all things considering. It wasn't until she grew curious, following their friend out one night, that her life spiralled downwards again, back into a dark hell like the one she'd thought she'd finally escaped from.

That hell went by a name: Ransom. She first saw him at the night club that she stupidly followed Deltin to, one of the spirit's many hideouts these days - and one of the few that cared almost too little about the age of its attendees. Poor Deltin, who would forever look seventeen. A beer and a breather were what he claimed to get from such places, and before long, she had to agree with him. The atmosphere, while initially seeming quite invasive and egregious, began to have a bit of a calming effect on her.

Who the fuck cares? was what it said to her. Let it all go.

Maybe she was a little too reserved for such an extreme at that point in her life, though, because she barely even touched the alcohol she shouldn't have been served, simply sat and watched all the dancers crowded in the center of the floor, breathed in the scent of freedom and ease that this kind of place brought her. It was liberating, not having to worry about the more menial parts of life, being able to just sit and be, while everyone else around you does the same. It filled her veins with an electric excitement, one that had nothing to do with the alcohol in her red solo cup.

A guy approached her near the time that she and Deltin left, asking her to dance with him; she declined. She never forgot the predatory look in his eyes as she walked out the door, though, a look that she'd see only too many times afterwards. She'd later wonder why she'd ignored it then.

Unsurprisingly, she was drawn back to the atmosphere that surrounded that club, the carelessness that she'd never experienced anywhere else. The freedom, the lack of fear and inhibition - and even without a single drop of alcohol.
He approached her again, almost as soon as she walked in the door. Ransom was his name, or so he claimed - and despite her innate withdrawal from this type of person, she found herself hooked to his company almost as much as she was hooked to this nightclub. He listened, he cared - and he seemed to understand the effect he was having on her, giving one of his signature smirks as he led her off to the dancefloor.

It wasn't love, and she knew it. Maybe it was an addiction, at best, but never an attraction. He'd always find her when she tagged along with Deltin, or the times that she came alone because she couldn't stay away from the lights, the heat, the /life/ that filled that place. He'd find her, drag her across the dancefloor, buy her drinks - and even her natural wariness couldn't stop him. It was destiny, maybe - or just some kind of hellish scheme that escaped her notice. Either way, she would never have seen any of what was to comne in advance, even if she hadn't been blinded by the mirage of that club.