Shifting Sands (A Star Trek: The Next Generation Fan Fiction)

Chapter Eight

I was thirteen, and sat staring out the window. It was winter, and snow was falling out of the crimson sky. Night was starting to come, streaking the sky with veins of scarlet and red.

"Tasha, get away from the window!" A hand grabbed my shoulder, pulling me out of my chair. "What do you think you're doing?!"

He pushed me behind me and drew the window curtain closed, shutting out the last of the light. Turning towards me, he glared.

"What is the matter with you?!"

"I was just looking outside," I mumbled, not looking at my father.

"You were just looking outside?" he repeated. "You know that you're supposed to stay from the windows!"

"I know," I said. "I just...I wanted to see the sunset."

"Are you an idiot?!" he yelled at me. I backed up as he advanced on me. "Do you know how hard we work to keep you here?"

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't realize..."

"You don't realize anything, do you?!" he shouted. "That's it, I give up. I'm tired to trying to protect you." He turned and started toward the stairs.

"Dad?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

"Dad?"

I heard the door at the bottom of the stairs slam. I stood staring at the stairway, as if I was waiting for him to come back. He didn't. Slowly, I turned toward the chair that I had been sitting on. Looking at the table, I saw a plate of food. Mom had probably just finished cooking the dinner.

Sinking down onto the chair, I poked at the food with the fork. I was hungry, but I didn't feel like eating right now. I had made Dad angry again, just like I always did. I couldn't even understand what I was doing wrong. And he had seemed really, really mad this time.

Dad was always getting angry at me. I didn't see him much, maybe once every three days. But every time I did seem him, he seemed to find something wrong, something to yell at me about.

Of course, most of the time it was my fault. I knew that I was supposed to stay away from the window and keep the curtain drawn, but it was just so hard sometimes. It was difficult not going outside, even when I knew that it was for my own safety. Sometimes I wanted to see a tree, or a sunset, so badly, just to know that it was still there, that I didn't care about the consequences. It was selfish of me, I knew, but I couldn't help it.

Picking up the fork again, I took a bite. It was one of my favorite dishes, but I didn't have much of an appetite. I hadn't been eating much recently. Not getting exercise had made me less hungry, and thinner.

I stood up, frustrated. I knew that I should be grateful to my family for keeping me safe, but at times like these I thought that it would be almost worth the consequences just to be able to leave this room. But no, I knew that this was the only place that I would be safe. I wasn't selfish enough to try to go out. I knew that it would hurt not only myself, but my family as well.

That night, I didn't sleep. I didn't know what my father had meant when he said that he was "giving up" on me. Had I done something that bad? All I'd done was look out the window. I tried so hard to do what he wanted, to be who he wanted me to be.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of a hovercraft pulling into the driveway. Our family had never owned a hovercraft and the neighbors always walked to the house, so I didn't know who it could be. I fought the urge to look out the window. Instead, I moved to the top of the stairs and listened intensely.