Sightless

Calvin and Mara Anderson

A/N: This one is going to be a bit different from the normal flashbacks, more like something she's thinking about in the present, but it's still a flashback. You feel me?

~ Thirteen Years Ago ~

I was thirteen when I was moved into the Anderson's 'home'. 

Our supposed father figure told us to call him Master, but his real name was Calvin. His wife, our Mistress' real name was Mara and outside of the house, like most of my foster parents, they seemed normal, nice even. 

Inside was a different story. 

There were six of us that were living in the three story house. It should have been able to hold us all. Leonard Potter, the oldest of us in the house, and the only boy, told me that it was a Colonial house, and that when he came here a year before I was placed, there were nine of them. The house is listed to the foster system as being able to hold ten children, as they have six bedrooms,  one for themselves and then two twin beds to a room which the system normally feels is acceptable. 

But we only get to use those rooms when the Social Workers come by to check up on us. 

All other times, we are chained down in the basement, and only allowed to leave for school. 

In the morning, at six sharp, Mara would come down and remove the chains from the little one's feet. They were given more rope than us that were past elementary school, since they needed more exercise, but only enough for them to get form one side of the room to the other, not enough to escape. The little ones would be fed one protein bar each, and given another for lunch and sent off to school on the bus. 

While they were doing that, Calvin would be using the older children to 'relieve his stress before work'. Whether that be hitting us, yelling at us, he used us to satisfy any of his needs. At seven sharp, Mara would come down and remove our chains. 

Our chains were more complicated. Since we were required to wear shorts and a t-shirt for gym in middle and high school, we couldn't have marks on our arms or legs. Our chains wrapped around our stomachs, and had links that bent between our legs. It almost looked like a diaper. The back was attached to another few links that hooked onto the wall, and we were only given enough rope to be able to sit and stand against the wall. No more, no less. 

Four of us were old enough to suffer Calvin's torture, but I almost felt worse for the two little ones. Harry and William, twin boys who were only seven years old. When they got home, an hour and a half before us older kids, they had to suffer the wrath of Mara. I don't know what she did to them. But they would always come down right as we got off the bus, from her bedroom. They never cried until they were locked back up into the basement with us, but when they did, oh they wailed. It wouldn't stop, until Dinner. 

Dinner, wasn't really dinner. 

We were forced to cook for them, serve them, clean up for them, and if they weren't happy, they would heat up the chains before locking us in. 

They were never happy. 

I was there for six months before I 'accidentally' took my shirt off in the main area of the locker room. I had no friends at the school I was in, it was the tenth or eleventh one I had attended, I'm not really sure now, but even those girls who weren't my friends couldn't ignore the horrible red, blistering burns that littered the skin around my waist. 

They had called me 'freak', 'baby', 'attention whore' every time that I had flinched or cried out when something or someone had touched near my burns, but now, now they felt the guilt for teasing me. And they felt like they 'just had to do something'. 

Elizabeth Phillips was my savior. 

She reported it to the gym teacher, Mr. Hanks, and he reported it to the Principal, and so on and so forth until finally a Social Worker and the Police became involved. 

They raided our 'house' one night a few days later, and found us all huddled on the ground of the basement, in our still warm chains as we waited for dawn to break. 

They cuffed our Master and our Mistress, and told us that we would never have to suffer like this again. 

Of course, I didn't know it at the time, but I should have known they were lying. 

The next home I was placed in, was with Martha and Julian Blanchet. And we all know how that went. 

I had nice people look after me, such as Abbie and Sam Sharp, and Joseph and Willow Pittman, but I don't think that I've ever felt love from another human. 

I know that Dale pitied me, and that Irma felt like she had to step in as a mother since I didn't have one, but when I got pregnant with Max, they didn't step in to help. They left me, just like my mother left me, like Abbie and Sam left me, and Joseph and Willow, and every other family that I ever thought could be my family, left me. 

Every one that I have ever cared about, has left me as soon as something gets difficult. Maybe one day it will stop creating this ache I feel ini my heart when it happens. 

Hell, I'm sure it will, it's not like I have much heart left to ruin.