* Scarlet POV *
I wake up to Mama's soft, tinkling laugh bringing me back to the world. I wish my laugh was like mums's. Soft as valvet and as sweet melting honey; her laugh always reminded me of ringing bells. I throw my blanket and hurry down the stairs, eager to see Mama but when I get to the bottom of the stairs and make a turn for the Kitchen- where she normally waits every Sunday morning with daddy, pancakes with maple syrup and a big cuddle- I hear another laugh that is not daddy's. Confused by this, I open the door and what I see is not something I could have predicted because where the pancakes should on the dining table is Mama in her night gown and no pancakes.
I close and open my eyes and then pinch my arm but nothing changes.
"Mama?" I crock suddenly feeling frightened but she doesn't even look at me. Why can't she see me? I take a step towards her and stand in front of her but still she can't see me. Only the man, his eyes burning into me. My hazel nut eyes start to water but I breath in and try my best to not cry. I reach out for her but just as I am about to, the man who has midnight black hair and eyes so pushed together that there is almost no space between his eyes turns on the cooker then picks me up.
"Mama! Tell him to put me down." I am crying now because she is not listening or even looking at me and the man is laughing in my face, his hot, ash-like breath on my face. I start to turn my face away from him but he holds my tiny now wet with tear face and starts slapping my face hard. I scream for Mama but she still doesn't look. Mama hates me. But I was a good girl at school.
The man starts to spit in my eyes and then take my hands and holds it close against the fire. It burns but the man won't let me move them. The pain increases to the point I cannot feel it and my hands transform into black powder.
***
I wake up screaming but since this is has been happening for the past month, no one comes to check on me. Thank god. My face is wet but I am not the weak and defenless 5 year old me now. I hold my hands out even though I now know it was a nightmare and just as I expected, they are fine even though there are the same faded out scars from the endless fights from my time in so many different care homes. Nothing new there.
I stagger to the bathroom in the dark and splash my face few times. This was the third time this week. Third time I have been woken up late at night by the same old dream; I was used to the nightmares but they didn't happen as often as they did, every night, they start with the women who I knew gave birth to me laughing and me as an innocent, defenceless five year old but it never fails to make me sweat and cry. I should be used to it by now but it always makes me feel like I am five again.
The crazy thing is that nothing in the dream has ever happen to me but some how my twisted dark mind made up my biological mother and used her against me. I never even met her yet in ever dream I feel like I know her like the back of my hand.
I grab a book and start to read escaping to the only place I can. A world that doesn't exist. But even this can't help me now because I still can't get rid of the feeling.. You 're not five anymore. Get a grip Scar! I tell my self over and over again.
I read the same page again and hoped for morning soon.
