Saved Me From My Shadow//1D Fan-Fiction

Chapter 1-Memories and Meetings

Olivia POV

I could feel my world closing in around me. Sirens that once deafened me were going quieter by the second until they were nothing more than white noise. The man lay on the stretcher before me did not move, not even the slow rise and fall of a breathing chest. He was dead. And so was the lady on the stretcher beside him, frozen just as her husband was.

Distantly, I felt a hand lay itself on my shoulder, guiding me away from the sight before me. A part of me was silently thanking them for taking me away from one of the most painful things I had ever seen, whilst the other was desperate to find a voice and scream at them to let me go and stay with my parents. They couldn't be gone, couldn't be. I had nobody left. No siblings, no aunts or uncles, no grandparents. I was all alone. Well, I did have...but I wasn't going to him anytime soon, not happily at least, and definitely not without a fight.

I was an orphan. Nothing could be worse for a 6 year old kid, to lose both their parents in a fire while you were at school, only to return home to nothing but their burned bodies, frozen like statues, laid out on stretchers in the front garden. Nothing.

I looked up at the stranger, wondering who had broken me out of my mournful trance, only to find him. The man I never wanted to see again, not after what he did to me. He smiled down at me with faux pity and sorrow in his eyes, knowing that we were being watched by dozens of police officers. My new 'guardian', as I assumed he was going to be, leaned down to whisper something in my ear, hugging me close to make it seem like words of comfort to those who could not hear.

But they were not comforting. They were traumatic, words that reminded me of what he did last time I saw him and why I refused to ever see him again. Words I will remember till the day I die, and not for any good reasons. Words that made me lose all the will to fight back that I could have possibly mustered up during my grief.

"Let's get you home. I have to give you the gifts you missed for your birthday the last 2 years ." I could hear the smirk in his voice, even as young as I was. I started to cry, but nobody seemed to think anything of it as he walked me over to his car, telling anybody that asked that he was 'taking me home to recover after seeing such a horrible thing'.

But I knew better. I couldn't do anything about it, nobody would believe me anyway: they'd just think I was distraught. And then my father's 'gift' would be a lot worse. I got into the back seat of the car and he began driving, far away from the scene, far away from the people, far away from everything I had ever known and loved.

Eventually he stopped the car, and the faux kindness act was dropped instantly, with him dragging me out of the car by the hair into the house. His plans were clear to me, as he had already executed them once before, and that had been the last time I was this house of horrors. He was going to beat me again.

'And so begins the rest of my life with this man, my father.' That was my final thought before it all went black.

I woke up in a pile of bundled up sheets and the sound of my alarm ringing in my ears. Today was the first day of school, and the day dad got back from his summer long trip with his fiancee, Michelle. My dad, Stewart, had gone away for the summer, leaving me, his 16 year old daughter, home alone for a prolonged period of time, with no money for food and no way to contact anybody if something went wrong. 'Parent of the year award.' I thought to myself.

Not that I had anybody to call, other than him. My life was fairly boring, with the same nightmare every few nights that, over time, was no longer scary, just a reminder that I have to wake up to that same life 10 years later, going through the same abuse whenever Michelle isn't around. Michelle wasn't a bad person, considering. She would sneak food up to my room if my dad had 'forgotten' to get me some, and even left behind some money for me every time she visited, which was more often now that her and Stewart were engaged. She could never be my real mum, she was dead, but she was definitely better than what I could have gotten.