Truth - The Balance

Chapter 2 - The Vision

Natalie sat non-moving, her eyes boring into nothingness but silver. Her heat pounding, she swallowed hard.

'Who is he?' Natalie thought, eyebrows furrowed in a fury of different emotions. Fear slowly crept up her back and into her spine, sending shock waves of tremors.

It was like nothing in the world existed but the two of them, all the brilliant sights and sounds had disappeared.

Natalie's mouth went dry, her eyes wide and unable to blink. She began to sweat and her thoughts swam in a sea of uncertainty until it became a blur she could no longer comprehend.

She couldn't move a limb if she tried, sitting paralyzed on the pier. The entire world around her glowed of silver, only the blacks of pupils were contrasting against it in her line of sight.

Her head involuntarily jerked back hard, almost snapping and her mouth opened wide, eyes wider than they had ever been before. Unable to move or even think, the sudden thrust back threw her off balance and she fell back into the blackness of the lake.

Falling into the water had been like slow motion, silver ripples and bubbles forming all around her. Natalie couldn't feel anything, think anything. She was a vegetable in the world of silver then everything went abruptly black then white.

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" Mommy why can't I play outside w-?" Little eight year old Natalie asked frowning. "Because I told you no, Natalie Beth Young. " Natalie's mother responded with a snappy tone.

Natalie had forgotten all about these memories when she was younger, anything before the age 14 was really a blur. Just pieces she could remember. But now her memories came flooding back to her as she watched them.

Natalie's mother was a small fragile woman. No larger than five foot two. She always wore bright colorful button up blouses with blue jeans. Mrs. Jacky Young's blonde hair was pulled up in a tight, neat bun.

Young Natalie whimpered but her mother shook her head, leaving no room for protesting. She bent down to her child's level and gently placed her hand under Natalie's chin, "You know how furious your father will be if he sees you outside playing with a boy..." Her mother's voice drowned off as if she heard a sound, and she straightened upright, turning her head to the right to look out the dusty kitchen window.

Her face became serious. "Hurry up stairs now baby, he's home." and she shooed her. Natalie knew who her mother had been referring to, her father.

Natalie ran up stairs as fast as her tip toes could carry her, her long curly black hair flowing widely behind her. She reached her bed room and swiftly eased her door closed and flung herself under her bed, holding her breath. She would pretend to be as quiet and small as a mouse.

Allan Young, Natalie's father, was a big man; Nearly reaching six feet and weighing over two hundred pounds. He was the mayor of their small town and every one loved him. No one truly knew what his home life was like, just the image of his beautiful family front.

Allan never once laid a hand on his daughter, but he did his wife. Jacky was terrified for her daughter to ever see it, but Natalie knew the wrath of her father's leather belt, and when daddy was mad, it was best to be under her bed.

Natalie never knew what happened that night, but now she was watching it unfold before her very eyes.

Allan slammed the door to his white duelly pick up truck, mad as a hornet about tax revenues. His hands ran through his gelled back raven hair in a frustrated frenzy, a skewing stray hairs sticking up in odd directions.