It began with the storm—not the kind that rattled windows or tore at rooftops, but the one that lived in the chest of my father. A slow-burning tempest always on the verge of breaking loose.
I was four. Too young to understand why my stomach clenched when I heard the front door creak open. Too innocent to name the dread that crawled beneath my skin when his boots hit the floor with that heavy, deliberate rhythm.
My world was a fragile thing—pink curtains fluttering over cracked windows, dolls missing their glass eyes, a teddy bear named Lala whose arms I hugged until they flattened. None of it could protect me. Not from what happened that night.
My mother's voice came first—a shaky plea muffled by distance. Then a crash that made my heart leap into my throat.
I sat upright in bed. Cold sweat ran down my neck. I looked at Lala and whispered, "Don't move."
Another crash. And then the sound of flesh hitting flesh. A low grunt. A cry. The unmistakable sound of pain.
I crept out of my room. My feet were bare and silent. I peeked through the crack in the doorframe, heart pounding in my ears.
He had her pinned against the wall. Her robe was torn, her hair tangled like seaweed, her arm shielding her face. A kitchen knife lay uselessly on the floor, glinting under the flickering bulb.
She had tried. God knows she had tried.
"I told you not to speak to that man!" he barked, voice guttural.
"It was about the rent!" she sobbed. "That's all!"
He hit her again. The sound echoed in my skull.
It wasn't just the violence that chilled me. It was the look in his eyes. They weren't eyes anymore—they were glass marbles, blank and inhuman.
I should have screamed. I should have run at him, bitten him, scratched him—but I was four. And terror roots children to the ground like old trees.
He dragged her by the hair across the room. She fought. Kicking. Scratching. Clawing at him like a cornered animal.
Then a lamp shattered. Not by his hand, not hers—maybe the table gave way, maybe it was rage itself breaking things. But for one breathless moment, time stopped.
He paused. She turned her head and saw me.
"No!" she screamed, eyes wide. "Not in front of her!"
He followed her gaze and saw me. Just a child. A trembling, wide-eyed ghost in a hallway of horrors.
His hand dropped.
Not in mercy. Not in regret.
In that second of stunned silence, she moved—grabbed the vase from the shelf and slammed it against the side of his head. Blood sprayed across the peeling wallpaper. He staggered, dazed.
"RUN!" she shrieked.
And I did. Down the hall, past the kitchen, past the broken chair. I ran into the open night, the door banging behind me.
The cold air slapped my face. My feet hit gravel and thorns, but I didn't stop.
Behind me, I heard his roar, deep and feral. Then my mother's scream, high and thin like it was being torn from her soul.
I turned back just once—and saw her. My grandmother. His mother. Standing by the gate with a soft smile. Just watching.
She didn't stop him.
She never did.
I ran harder.
My lungs burned. My breath came in gasps. Lala was crushed to my chest so tightly I thought I'd rip her seams. My legs were shaking. The streetlights flickered, or maybe it was my vision. I wasn't running toward anywhere—I was just running away.
Then a hand yanked me into the shadows.
I screamed—until I saw her.
The flood woman. That's what they called her. She lived by the bend, in a shack that sat half in water during the rains. Everyone said she was strange. That she talked to spirits.
She looked at me with eyes that saw too much. Strong, weathered hands. A scent like ginger and smoke.
"Shhh," she said. "It's okay, little one."
She cradled me like I was glass. Wrapped me in her shawl and carried me to her home—walls made of thin wood, floors that creaked like secrets.
She fed me sweet tea that burned going down, and sang an old lullaby I'd never heard before.
I slept off before i knew it.
That was the last night i stopped being a child.
The night everything shattered.
That night was the beginning.