Reunited

One beating after another. Again and again the whip lashes my back. I try to hold it in, but it becomes too much for me. "Please... Dad... stop..". "WE AREN'T DONE UNTIL WE SAY WE ARE DONE YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARD, EVER SINCE YOU WERE BORN YOUR MOTHER HAS LEFT ME! NOW, YOU DESERVE ANOTHER TWENTY LASHES FOR TALKING BACK TO ME!" One after another, the whip came down with a huge amount of speed, with it, came the excruciating pain of the whip hitting my back. Just like he had promised, another 20 lashes came. I was completely worn out. Once he had left the room, I fell to the ground and went unconscious. My name is Gabriel, I am fifteen, and I live with an abusive father. We live on the far outskirts of the town "Holoville." In fact, our house is the only structure out here. I usually have to walk about a mile to reach Holoville. My dad usually is outside working on the weekdays and on the weekends, he uses up most of the money he has on beer. I have to find a job each day in a town, mowing lawns, walking dogs, cleaning homes, basically anything where I could get a little bit of revenue. When I was five, my mother had enough with my dad and stormed out the house, never to be seen or heard of again. When she left, my dad decided to let out all his anger on me, his fury and all his hatred on his little boy. Oh how I wish we could have returned to the past, when we were still a happy family... I always stayed at my window, waiting and waiting, waiting for my mother to jump out of a bush to spook me and say that she has finally made it home, each day, every minute, just waiting. Now that I am older I now know she is never coming back, never in my life will I get to see her again. I have finally given up hope on her returning at the age of thirteen.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. I woke up quickly, expecting my father to open the door and whip me with his whip. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. I look around and spot my alarm clock. I sigh. I get up and head towards the loud, annoying, clock. I turn it off and get dressed. A long sleeved shirt to hide the cuts on my arm, long trousers to hide my small, puny legs, a jacket to hide any scars that have escaped the sleeves of my own shirt, and hard boots. "Time to leave this hell hole for a while" I say to myself in a low voice. The walk to Holoville is quiet, I don't mind the quiet anymore, at first it bugged me, but now, I have gotten so used to loneliness and the lashings he gave me that the quietness sort of... put me at ease. The walk was long but today was different, my father was going on a business trip and wouldn't return until the following day. How delighted I was when I heard that from my father, but I was also afraid. He had told me to clean the house, perfectly clean without a single speck of dust on the floor, yet the one rule also applied. I am not allowed to enter my dad's room. I always wondered what was in his room, yet I was too afraid to even be near the door. Could my dad be a serial killer? Is he hiding bodies in his room? Or maybe he is a thief who is shoplifting from stores. Or even a kidna- I stumble onto the floor. I turned my head behind me, terrified of the fact that my dad would have returned home and dragged me home. I look behind me and see a tree root. Oh my goodness! I am so clumsy, I thought to myself. I got up from the floor with a small cut on my hand, but that didn't matter, I was already hurt from my father often, a cut is normal to me now anyways.

After a while I reached Holoville. The town is as loud as ever. People on the streets, in the restaurants, even on the small little playground near the outside of the town walls. The town felt so overpopulated, yet it was massive. It was so crowded, just like the center of an ant nest or a beehive. Even though I knew how big the town was, every time I arrived, I still looked at the place in awe, admiring the beautifully colored houses, with the bright pastel colors, the aroma of flowers, and what hit most, happiness. There were actual people, laughing, smiling, and having a blast. Right, today was the big festival. People from different towns usually visited Holoville as the town was a huge plantation farm itself. Lots of stalls were open, selling goods like vegetables, candy, and relics of the town. I can't believe I forgot, everything is half off. I actually felt happiness for once, getting to know now that I did not have to work so much to get myself some basic nutrients. The festival was called "Holo's Growth." The backstory behind the festival was for a god. They called it "Holo." Holo was a humongus wolf who would help the wheat in the wheatfields grow for our ancestors, they eventually became so wealthy from the wheat that they sold that they created a massive town which they named 'Holoville'.