Lucian (Draft 1)

DISCLAIMER: Blood, gore, bodyhorror, violence, abuse (all light). I’ll post new drafts when I can.

Lucian
Alira Cohen


I used to like long walks in the park. I used to like fishing, and riding my bike, and throwing breadcrumbs to birdies. The most simple looking little thing, I found, could be so beautiful; my mama told me that sparrows are plain birdies, nothin’ to make a fuss about. But I always liked their pretty chestnut feathers and their puffy bodies. And they have that dumb look. That dumb look that I find so cute. Always twitching around, doing little hops. It amused me; I wanted to take one and throw it in a cage, but Mama woulda been mad. I’m amused by different things now.
While I’m walking through these dark woods, I feel little chips and sticks and rocks pokin’ into my heels. Some are embedded into my skin now. It hurts me. But the body just keeps on walking. I wish I could go back home. Sometimes I want to scream, I want to cry, I want to yell into this world’s core, but nothing comes out. Nothing proper, anyway. My screams aren’t human anymore. I don’t know a whole lot of what’s going on but I do know that I’m dragging a man by his limp left leg down this path. I can’t see much. I can’t see much, and yet this body goes on as though I can. Night crawlers are squealin’ from all around me. Little cicadas are crying like I wish I could cry. My big meat sack body just moves and moves now. I’m not what I used to be.
My housemate, she tells me that it’s okay to be different from how I was before. What does she know, though? Old b***h has lived in a dark smelly cave her whole life. All her years, surrounded by bats and cranky fishes. That can’t be good for someone’s brain. Then again, there isn’t much else to say about wolves, especially loner wolves; they’re pretty comfortable with their insanity, I’ve found, and she is no different. I’m going back to that cave now, where this path leads. The tired trees dance with the gentle wind. I can see ‘em, I can see ‘em moving around me. I wanna dance too. But no, this body doesn’t allow that.
The corpse I’m dragging bumps over some of the larger stones that litter the forest’s path. It annoys me so. The forest bays in disapproval. Human meat makes it stink. I can smell it with my scrunched piggy nose on my long piggy face, but this body I inhabit doesn’t care. In fact, I can feel the primal part of this brain, the part that I don’t control, groaning with joy. My body is tall as all hell with loose pinkish skin. I could be a basketball player if I didn’t look like a swine. My eyes used to be green but now they’re red. Mama used to say my eyes were so pretty, so pretty. I kinda like my red eyes sometimes, though. They make me appear mean. I’m mean and I mean business. My arms are powerful now when they used to be twiggy and pathetic; I used to get punched in the face a lot. That’s one of the good things about being a big scary beast, I don’t get punched in the face anymore. As for my mits, well, they’re beefy and twisty with big old claws. The claws are almost kinda like hooves with how big they are. They’re real good for digging. At least I can still dig in the dirt like I always loved to do. A sad thing is that I don’t have much hair now. What’s left is stringy and odd. There are some good things though. Some good things. There are some good things. I wish I could go home.
The corpse gets stuck on a large sharp rock. The primal pig brain screams in anger. I beg him stop, stop, please stop. I’ll get it unstuck. I take proper control of the body. Our system is strange, but I think I understand it. Sometimes the pig brain gets it, sometimes I do, sometimes both for the sake of basic function. Either way I gotta do what he says. I drop the corpse’s limp left leg and I go for his torso, lifting him carefully. This man’s face is blank to me. I can feel the blood all over my hands; its warmth makes me weep. I lift the man off of the large sharp rock and then his lifeless self slips out my arms and makes a thump on the ground. Some of his innards slip out and they make the sad forest floor stink. I pick up those red gooey things and try to stuff them back in. His face is blank to me. His face is blank, so I don’t care. I don’t care about him.
The primal pig brain takes control of the body again and we walk, dragging the corpse. He likes to drag the corpse. He’d rather I fix the messes. I can still hardly see a thing, but I can see enough to know that the cave is close by. The telltale white oak tree that sticks out like a sore thumb reveals that much. Skinny branches break under our footfalls as we go on. I feel like a prisoner in here, but that’s okay at this point. I’ve been stuck in this body, sharing it with the pig brain for almost a year now. I bet Mama wouldn’t be happy with me at this moment. I wonder if she would forgive me. I wouldn’t forgive a son of mine if he broke a man, battered a man, murdered a man. Would I?
I used to like campfires. I used to like binging tv shows with my sister. I used to like getting drunk with my friends behind Mama’s back, and we’d stay up all night howling at the moon. I miss it. I really do. At least, I think I do.
We stop at the mouth of the cave which is barely even a stretch away from the white oak. There is moss dangling from its great old maw, and it smells musty. Nasty. Nasty old thing. But Loner likes it here, so here we must stay. With a great big grunt, this body of mine pushes forward into the cave, dragging the corpse. It’s crazy thinking of those ancient eighties popcorn movies Mama likes so well. I’ve become the monster those movies showed. It isn’t really funny anymore once the suit is on you, that’s what I realize.
PLOP
I toss the stinking thing down and it splashes in the dank shallow water that flows through the cave. I prepare to yell for my housemate, but I don’t need to do that. She comes creeping out from behind a rock as soon as she smells the flesh. Loner runs over to the corpse and immediately thrusts her teeth into it without even saying hi to me. She pulls back and starts rippin’ it up. My jaws open and I can feel my throat squealin’ at her, my body marching forward a bit to intimidate her. She growls deeply. Her matted grey fur is already messy with blood. What a b***h; she’s gotta be one of the most selfish animals I’ve ever seen in my life. I can’t really blame her, though; it’s all she’s known, having never lived with other wolves, or anything, for that matter. Through all her days it’s been her and her alone. It makes me wonder why she ever took me in to begin with, back when I first got stuck in this body. Then I come to my senses and I remind myself that it’s just because I’m good at snatching up bigger prey, like this poor fool here. Exactly that, of course, of course. I know the reason the pig brain doesn’t try to kill her is the fact that, just like me, he’s lonely. Everyone needs someone, after all.
The wolf rips off some more flesh and scampers away with it. I know she’ll be back later to talk or somethin.’ I pull the corpse out of the nasty water and put it down on the cavern floor. My hands start pullin’ out some guts and I stuff ‘em down my gullet. Even when I really try to think about it, I can’t remember where I found the guy, or how I killed him. From the looks of it, I crushed his throat; funny enough, the thought doesn’t make me as sick as it should. No sir. I’ve killed a number of men at this point and one of ‘em was only eighteen years old, same age I was when I became a part of this beast. My birthday was a couple days ago. Happy nineteenth.
I used to like reading comic books about superheroes. I used to like watching movies where some unit with the strength of a thousand men would destroy the bad guys and save the day. I wish I could save the day sometimes, ya know, instead of making it worse. But the pig brain and I don’t really agree on that, so it never happens. One time, though, I did rescue a sparrow from a mean old cat. She had it in her mouth and I made sure to break her in two, then I watched it fly away. Instead of being amused by the sparrow’s fluffy silliness I was amused by the sound of the bones snapping, which I’m embarrassed to admit. I even tried to reach for the sparrow, but it was in good enough condition to escape me. Sometimes I wonder where the pig ends and I begin. Is the hunger mine or his? I’d say it still all comes from him.
As I eat the flesh, I can hear Loner moving around. I peek over my swollen shoulder and I can see her watching me with those yellow eyes. I grunt and groan. A part of me is still trying to get words out, talk to her like I would a doggy or a cat, but that isn’t cutting it. This vessel of mine isn’t meant for such things. So I just keep on grunting at her. Loner doesn’t growl or snap at me this time. Instead she walks over quite peacefully and lies down beside me. I guess I musta made some kind of a decent impression after almost a year of taking up her space. Somehow.
It’s quiet here now. Empty, desolate. Even with the mutt here, I feel alone. Mama would hate me now because I’m so ugly. She’d hate me now because I’m so evil. I was never really a good son anyway, this I’ll admit. I had no liking for school, and there was nothing in this world that I was truly interested in, ya know, like for a potential job. She said I had no passion, no drive, that I just wanted to sneak around and drink and make all the girls at school uncomfortable. Well, where she was right about the first part, I never drank like that. Only when my friends wanted to, which, hey, I guess it was a lot. But it was never crazy like she thought. After all, when they got too drunk, they used to push me and trip me and beat on me and I wanted to avoid that. And girls? Nah, I hardly ever bothered with them. I wanted to, sure, but after that one time in ninth grade I kinda gave up…oh. Maybe that’s what she was talkin’ about. Anyways.
The thing I think about most, if I’m being honest, is how I wish I could go back and fix the way things went on the night before I changed. I remember we were walking. In the black of night we were walking. The sun had gone down a couple hours ago. There was a missed call or two from my mom, but I figured she wasn’t too worried; I’d done this before. It was me and three of my friends: Marty, Bill, and Neil, stumbling around like dodos through the park. It was the usual situation. I was pretending to be drunker than I actually was, while Bill and Neil, being brothers, were acting like tweedle dee and tweedle dumb, and Marty was trying to lead us. I wasn’t that intoxicated, still the taste of liquor burned in me. Marty, being my brightest friend who could get away with just about anything, had stolen the junk from his folks. I was the first one he handed it over to. I guzzled it down but I guess I was still noticeably grossed out by it, because he immediately snickered: “You’re a right c**t, Lucky. A real coward.” I didn’t let his comments get to me. After all, he said those things all the time. He didn’t mean a word of it, he just thought he was quirky or something. I didn’t care, didn’t care. The stuff was in my system now, and I was just trying to forget. But, once again, I hadn’t had enough to forget jack.
As they tripped around in the darkness like newborn foals, I watched them quietly, trying to keep that goofy smile on my face. These were the ones; the only three friends I’d ever had, really. I felt Marty hit me in the back. He was meaning to be friendly, but he was way bigger than myself, so it hurt. I didn’t say anything. I just kind of whimpered silently.
“Having fun?” he asked.
I shot him a disapproving glare, but it quickly went away.
“Yeah, totally,” I snorted. Really, I wanted to go home. It was too dark for my taste. But I wasn’t typically a scaredy cat, so I never would’ve admitted it.
“Eh, bulllshit,” Marty grumbled. He picked at the scab on his forehead. “You’re just saying that.”
“You asked me,” I retorted. “You won’t take my word for it?”
I went to sit down on the nearest bench while the others were pokin’ at a beetle on the stone pathway. Marty followed me. Though he smelled like alcohol and was tipsy like the rest of us, he was real good at holding it. The fact that he hadn’t gotten wasted tonight meant that he was probably going to do so tomorrow, and I was glad I wasn’t gonna be seeing that.
“See? You’re already tired,” he said, sitting down beside me.
I shook my head.
“I am wide awake,” I insisted after a yawn.
Though I wasn’t looking at him, I could see him rolling his eyes. “It’s okay. I know you’re not really cut out for this stuff. But you like being with us, huh?”
I chortled. “Somehow, yeah.”
There was a bit of silence between us. Then he awkwardly demanded, “What’s the matter?”
Bill broke the tension, accidentally.
“Look at that fat thing,” he squawked in that whiny voice of his. He picked up a stick and poked at the beetle’s shell with it. “Mart, come over here. This thing’s mad dumb.”
Neil shoved him, knocking his baseball cap off his head and telling him to leave the bug alone.
“What’s the matter?” Marty asked me again, unbothered by all of it.
I spaced out. I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t know. And how could I have known? I wasn’t like them, I never had been. They’d always said I was dainty, girly, too skinny, too quiet. And too open. Too open, until they wanted me to be.
My lip trembled. Really, I was somewhere far away. I could feel that something was wrong, but I didn’t know how to say it. So what I said was:
“I’ll never be anything.”
He looked confused. “What?”
I kept goin’ on. I said, “You’re gonna be a doctor, right? And Bill, he wants to fix up animals, and Neil, he’s gonna do construction with their old man. But what about me?”
Marty was quiet. He clasped his hands and looked down at his new red sneakers. Then he said:
“You don’t have to know that stuff yet.”
I was surprised. No one had ever said that to me before. I just looked at him. I couldn’t tell if he really meant it.
Bill called drunkely from the pavement, “Mart, quit chattin’ up the girl and come over here and see this thing. It’s so shiny!”
“You’re really gonna be a vet with the way you treat living organisms?” Neil growled, still trying to keep him away from the beetle.
Bill just laughed like an idiot.
Marty said to me, “See, Bill’s a moron. What he says he wants to be, hell, it might not even matter. But then again, it might. Who knows. You can never know. You just have to do the next right thing.”
I don’t know why, but the heat of anger overcame me then. That couldn’t be real. It couldn’t. Marty was talking out of his a*s. For a smart guy, he really didn’t understand.
“Sure,” I snarled. “And what’s the next right thing, Marty?”
With that, I got up and just started walking. Marty followed close behind me to make sure that I didn’t do anything stupid, but all I did was pace in the grass. Then I started to walk home, shining my phone’s flashlight before me so I could see where I was going. I could hear the three of them whispering behind me as they followed. I didn’t mean to concern them, but my head was just gone. The entire walk home I could feel their eyes digging into me. It was a truly awful feeling. I had plenty of reasons to distrust Marty; all those times he got shitfaced and used me as a punching bag or something to laugh at. The endless apologies, did they really matter? He didn’t have a girl of his own to beat down on, which I know he woulda done given the chance, so it was me. It was always me, because I was the closest thing, the way he saw it. The worst time was when I told him that he drank as much as his father. I meant it, too. Or did I? I didn’t really remember. Though it was a quick one, that punch had hurt the most.
“You have the nerve to talk?! Huh?! You’re a coward, a nothing, and you have the nerve to talk! How does it feel to eat dirt, Lucky?!”
My name is Lucian. But no one ever likes saying it. No one but Mama. And I never liked hearing it come outta her lips.
I made it home safely that night in spite of the darkness. The park was only a couple miles away from my house, so it was easy. Besides, I must admit that I did feel somewhat safer with my friends walking behind me. It was just their whispering, their endless whispering, that clawed into my ears and refused to leave me. As I stood before my little front lawn, waiting, waiting for anything, they walked up to me. Marty just looked at me. He didn’t say jack s**t. I guess he figured he’d already said his piece. Neil, well, he said goodbye like normal, giving me a quick hug and whatnot, but when Bill walked up to me, that’s when it got strange. Though he’d been the most tipsy of all of us, upon looking at my face, his big grey eyes widened. He looked dead-on and sober as hell, out of nowhere.
“Lucky,” he said to me in a cold tone, “there’s something very wrong with you. It’s under your skin.”
He scampered off real fast after saying that, and the three of them left swiftly. For fear of Mama seeing them, I’m sure. I stood there, slack jawed, not knowing what to make of those words. Then, when I turned to face my house again, I saw something odd. A small, dark shape standing in the driveway next to Mama’s car. It was stout and quadrupedal, with funny lookin’ big ears, and it turned to stare at me. Then, I could swear it said:
“It isn’t easy to clean one’s sins after letting them sit in the sun for so long.”
And just like that, it was gone.
I thought it was nothing more than what little alcohol I’d had doing something weird to my head, so I waddled up to the front porch and knocked on the door. My sister, thank the lord, opened it. She didn’t look too happy to see me. Her brow furrowed with disgust and her thin mouth pursed.
“You almost gave Mom a heart attack,” she said, real serious.
“Where is Mama?” I asked.
She crossed her arms and stiffened her posture. “Asleep on the couch. You probably shouldn’t wake her.”
I hung my head down low. “I’m real sorry, Olivia.”
“Just got to bed, Lucky,” she snapped.
Then she stepped aside, letting me walk into the warmth of my home. My bedroom was…well, I guess it still is…on the first floor across from the bathroom, so I just walked straight there. And when I tell you, I got under the covers like normal, and nothing weird even happened, I swear it’s the truth. But the next day, normal is not what I got.
I didn’t wake up on the forest floor or in some ditch on the fateful morning, like you’d probably think. Instead, I woke up in a dirty old place, a shack that seemed to be abandoned. It was a bedroom I awoke in, an unfamiliar one, so far from my own. The bed in the center of the room was busted up into torn blankets and splinters. The smell of the place was like burning logs. There were fallen portraits and paintings and odd lookin’ squiggly symbols carved into the floorboards that I’d been sleeping on. It was some kinda message for me, I know, but I can’t tell ya what it meant. I stood up from those dusty wooden floorboards and saw what was in the reflection of the tilted mirror that leaned against the worn wall in front of me: An unholy mass of muscle and loose skin, with a long piggy mug. I felt the scream building, but everything was locking up in me. My insides were all shut and I couldn’t vocalize. Then I saw it. When I flinched, the monstrous body flinched. When I shook, the monstrous body shook. And my old self, well, it was nowhere to be seen from the looks of that reflection. The red eyes widened. My heart dropped low into its stomach. I reached out to the mirror with a giant, trembling, misshapen hand. I was thinking that this couldn’t be possible. I know it’s cliche, but I thought I was gonna wake up. Wake up soon. Wake up. Soon.
I’m still waking up.
So, see, that’s what I think about all the time. And I try to find the answer, what could I have done to stop this? What could I have said differently, done differently, to change fate? I don’t know who or what did this to me. I don’t know if anyone or anything is even responsible. I don’t know if that animal I saw, the one that spoke to me, was real or not. I don’t think I even want to know any of that. I just want to know, could things have been different? Probably not. But ya never know.
I spent the next month or so wandering on my own, losing time, waking up hour after hour with blood on my face and hands. I was no longer me. I was one with the pigman, and he was clearly fighting me in an attempt to get me out of his head. A battle neither of us could win. He was trying his very best to make my life a hell, being as homicidal and controlling as he could. Breaking me.
We just wandered on our lonesome until we found the grey wolf in a forest countless miles away from my home. This very forest. Loner, I named the wolf. She let us stay with her as long as we could be of use, and god d****t were we useful. Turns out a giant pigman makes for great protection. Judging by her scars, she needed it. Due to Loner’s demands for food and the pig brain’s ravenous fury, we became the scourge of the busy town that dwells not too far away from these woods, and the town after that, and the town after that, and the town after that. They know there’s an animal, a big one, running around gobbling people up, but they can’t begin to imagine the true horror. Not until we get our hands on everyone.
With that, the long memory fades. About an hour has gone with me just sitting on the cavern floor thinking about all of this. I rip into what remains of the human carcass, thinking, thinking, thinking. Suddenly, much to my dread, that piggy squealing goes off in my head again and I can feel him taking the wheel with a strong grip. I wonder what set off the pig brain this time as our body rises to its calloused feet; lucky me, I don’t have to wonder long. I can hear rustling motions going on outside. I can hear moaning and a good deal of shouting. There’s something going on out there. Two horny or angry idiots who forgot that there’s a beast on the loose. Ran into the woods to isolate from the rest of the world, get some privacy. Yes, it’s the age old tale. I was never ready to be the slasher of my own life story. I never will be. I don’t even properly know the name of the town these two soon-to-be corpses probably came from yet, after all this damn time; I believe it’s called Fishhead? The pigman marches with me held prisoner inside of his vessel once again. My tears come out of his eyes and roll down his cheeks, but he doesn’t feel a thing. I don’t wanna do this. I don’t wanna do it again. I’d rather die first. But I don’t have a choice. Same big whatever as the last one.
We exit the cave while Loner stays behind. I heard her whimpering as we left; whatever’s happening, she clearly doesn’t like it. Only the pig brain would be stupid and bloodhungry enough to want a part in it. And vengeful toward the pacifist in his noggin, might I add. We crash through the brush as unsubtly as possible. We’re stomping like a madman, but the pig doesn’t squeal or snort or make any kinda noise like that. No, not yet. I don’t even try to fight it or take over. He’s driven, and I know this is goin’ down right now.
“Hold still, ya damn b***h,” I hear it, a man’s gruff voice snarling. I stop. Something is pounding, pounding, pounding. Yes, I was actually able to halt this damn body. What gave me the edge over my captor this time? Whoever he is, the man’s horrid voice sounds so angry. The pig brain works up the nerve to push us forward a bit more, but eventually we park our body behind a tall tree. We watch. It feels like, for once, the pig brain is retreating into me, trying to hide. There’s a foul smell, like fish and booze, and a woman screaming and grunting. I guess the pig doesn’t like this particular smell, or this particular scene. The woman doesn’t even speak; she’s just crying out and making all sorts of agonized sounds. Then we see it. The two of them crash onto the forest floor before us, but they can’t see us now. The man is tall, from what I can tell, with greasy slicked-back hair that reminds me of Marty’s. He appears to be decently well-built, strong. He is wearing a long grey coat. The woman is thin, almost sickly thin, but she’s fighting with intense power. She’s dressed in a real boyish manner, sweatshirt and ripped up denim jeans. She looks rough, like despite her frailty she would take just about anyone. She kicks the man in his gut, and he stumbles backward for just a second before he’s back on her.
“F****n’ talk, goddamit!” he roars. “Even now, you got nothin’ to say? Damn b***h!”
She spits in his face and he strikes her, hard.
Our whole body is trembling. I can feel myself getting sicker and sicker, and even inside this giant meat vessel, I feel naked, vulnerable.
“I loved you and you had nothin’ to say. Just trying to take care of you and fix all this for nothin’.”
The young woman doesn’t speak but her eyes, green like mine used to be, are pleading.
He is spitting venom down at her, and his words sound so familiar.
“Fitting you’d run to the place where we met to try and escape me, eh?? Try to escape yourself?? You can’t escape what you’ve destroyed. You destroyed it all, f**k all, f**k!! And you demand I still love you. How can I love you?? You’re nothin’, it was your sloth that brought you to this, and you don’t do s**t but eat f****n’ dirt!! Sloth! Bullshit! You’ve never amounted to anything! And you do this . . . ”
Eat
Dirt
Eat
Dirt
Something. Changes.
Something changes in me then.
I don’t know the drama. I don’t know how they got here. But I’m watching this man, and though I’ve never seen him before, he feels close to me. And my heart aches to reach him. Reach him with a closed fist.
Not only do I feel the pig brain’s intense hunger, but I also feel my own need to scream and thrash and squeal and punch. To ruin him. Ruin him. Ruin him.
After she knocks him over one last time, he gets up, lands a punch on her face, then stops. There is silence, nothing but the sounds of the forest and the two of them panting.
“Sammy,” he says softly, like he’s come out of a trance. “Sammy…I…”
Even after taking it this far, he wraps his stinking arms around her and holds her close.
“Baby,” he whispers, “just… god… you know why… you know why I did this, right? You know why I did this.”
His nasty lips press to hers, and with the smell of blood rising, we can take no more. A single tear rolls down her bruised face. And we charge.
Though the man spins around to face us, it’s far too late. We grip his shoulders like a vice and clamp down, bones cracking and snapping and I can feel it under my fingers.
He throws his head back and wails, but we aren’t done with him.
His body goes flying into the bushes like a ragdoll. We pounce on him just as he did her, and our mits, with all that old blood encrusted onto and under the nails, tear past skin and flesh. His cries are beyond human now, just filthy pathetic animal noises. He sounds like a sow being slaughtered, and his skin and liquids just fall and fall and fall. It colors the bushes red.
Then, he manages a couple words.
“MERCY! MERCY GOD! DEAR MERCY PLEASE F**K MERCY GOD PLEASE!”
And finally it’s please, please, please, please, please.
Then we bite a chunk out of his cheek and it’s just those animal noises again.
At last, we have him squirming under our foot, and he can’t even beg now. Blood spurts out of his wounds, decorating my skin, and I know it may very well be a mercy to kill him.
And yet
No.
He is going to survive this one particular moment. Though the pig brain longs to devour the man, since I joined him willingly in his hunt he allows me the choice this time. And my choice is, I lift my foot and I watch the man as he struggles to run away. He keeps falling and flailing, and I know he won’t make it. But at least he’ll have a few more chances to eat dirt for the last time.
I inhale and exhale my rage, calming myself down. Then I realize, this whole time the young woman, Sammy is her name, hasn’t cried out in terror once. She hasn’t made a sound at all. With pig brain still docile, I turn to her and see that she’s staring at me in all my fucked up glory; staring at me with green eyes, just like my old ones. I try slowly approaching her to see what she’ll do, and by god, she simply stares. She has to be insane. But then, without hesitation, she opens her mouth, and I see why she wasn’t talking to the man at all. Her tongue is covered in slices and scars. I long to know more, to understand her, but upon seeing the wounds the pig brain awakens. She still doesn’t move as he curls our snout to reflect his deep snarl. Hungry because he hadn’t been able to eat that man’s face, he begins marching over to her.
No.
No.
I can’t.
I can’t let this happen.
I grab our head with our powerful hands and squeeze. It hurts, but it stops him. That’s what matters. I can tell he’s shocked by my sudden dominance against him. All the while, Sammy watches.
I lift my head, open my jaws, and then I croak:
“R-run.”
She proceeds to smile, stand up, and walk away casually from this horrid, staggering beast.
Pig brain squeals, but I pay him no mind. In awe, I watch her walk away. She feels no fear. She knows that it was a guardian angel that had come to save her. Yeah. A guardian angel.
I wonder now if Mama would be proud of me.

Author's Note

As always, make sure to please be kind and respectful if you choose to comment. Respectful critiques are always welcome. This is an ongoing project, and I intend on posting even early drafts. So here ya go.