Forgotten

Prologue

My father's speech was slurred as he stumbled into the living room a little after midnight; he was drunk as hell.

"My beautiful family," he said happily. "Always a joy." My mom stood to the side, a worried look on her face. She fiddled with her hands and squeezed her eyes shut, probably holding back tears.

"Please, d-dear," she said, her voice wavering. "P-please just go up to bed. a You must be tired from working all day." Dad laughed.

"I haven't been to work in over a week," he said. Even from a distance I could smell his alcohol-wreaked breath. "The old geyser must've fired me by now. Ah well. It's for the best, anyways. I don't like workin' see? It...wears me out."

"But, John, how are we going to pay the bills? We-We can't! We're going to lose the house, we're already a month overdue on the mortgage-"

"Shut up!" Dad yelled, whacking my poor mother across her face sending her flying against the wall. She sat there, crying, her face in her hands.

"Leave her alone!" I shouted, standing from my hiding spot at the top of the stairs.

"Oh, eavesdropping, are we?" My dad took another swig of alcohol from the bottle in his hand and threw it towards my mother. She screamed as the bottles crashed and shattered against the wall about an inch from her head.

I was very glad that my younger sister Lily was not here...she had been a part of far too much abuse for a little girl of twelve. At least she was safe and sound at her friend's house. But I still had to protect Mom. I won't let this monster hurt her.

"Yeah I am! You can't treat Mom like that!" I said, sounding more brave than I felt as I walked down the steps and towards my father.

"Really? And who's gonna stop me? You?" Dad laughed, "A fifteen year old boy?" He laughed so hard I that he was going to fall over.

I don't know if I was being brave or just stupid, but I closed my hand into a tight fist and slammed it into my old man's hysterical face. He staggered backwards, a look of astonishment briefly flashed across his face as his nose began to bleed. Then his face turned red and I swear I could see steam coming out of his ears.

"You're gonna regret that!" And then he charged at me. My mother's pleas were drowned out by my own screaming as my dad threw me back towards the stairs. I heard an ominous crack as I crashed through splintered wood. My dad dragged me out of the pile and threw a red pot directly at my head. I rolled out of the way, barely missing it, as it shattered against the floor. My dad grabbed me by my collar and threw me into another wall. He began beating me with his fist, repeatedly slamming it against my face and punching me in my stomach.

I vaguely saw my mother pulling on Dad's arm, trying to stop him from beating me to death, but he just pushed her away and she fell back into the wall. My dad threw picked me up. It was hard for me to distinguish much of anything, my eyes were blurred from the tears and the blood now pouring into my eyes. Everything looked almost unrealistic. I couldn't pick out anything specific, the room seemed to spin and everything began to palpitate.

I could tell that we were in my room. He set me on the bed. When I say set, I mean he threw me onto it so hard that I fell off the other side and hit my head on my dresser. A ringing noise sounded in my head. Dad started throwing my things around the room, most of them were in my direction. He started yelling, I don't dare repeat what he said, and continued breaking everything I owned. He picked up my long mirror and walked towards me. I tried to hide under my bed, but he grabbed my foot and held me against the wall. I knew that he would crush me with that mirror and cut me with the shards from it. He crushed the mirror against the wall and picked up a broken shard.