January 15, Hunt Point, Manhattan. Year 2010
The island was getting snowed in, but it wasn't a peaceful moment on one lone brick building.
Two girls ages between fourteen and eighteen were making a mad push out the small window. Fear and panic set in as the eldest helped the young girl out.
“Hurry Rachel!” The pink haired mohawk styled girl shouted. Trying not to push on the young girl's back, letting her go first.
The entire back of Rachel's was soaked in her own blood. The backing of the gray shirt drenched.
Her skin was pale and sweaty, hissing at the cold snap as she grabbed the makeshift wooden ladder. Her friend Justine grabbed the top of the ladder so Rachel could climb down.
Rachel started to climb before she heard the door knob jiggled and fist pounding. “The fucks's the door locked, Rachel!?”
The roar of her father's voice made the young girl shout.
“Go, go go!” Justine shouted as she said fuck it and began climbing.
Forcing through the pain and cold, Rachel climbed down.
Her foot slipped and she ended up falling off the ladder and she landed on her bleeding back.
“Fuck!” Rachel cried out as pain wrecked her.
Justine drops down and helps her up. “Come on!” Helping the tall kid up on her feet, hearing her shout when her back was touched. The snow mound she had landed was stained red.
The door is broken open, Rachel's father runs in. He took three steps over to the window and saw the girls making the run for it.
Growling, he moves out of the room and ran downstairs.
Justine dragged Rachel to a beat up blue pickup truck that was parked not far from the building.
The doors of the truck were unlock and let's Rachel in.
Rachel moaned and groaned as she made herself get in and sat in the passenger seat.
Once in, Justine closed the door and ran around to the driver side and gets in.
She gets in, closes and locks the door. Just as the young woman started the truck, Damian comes running up the truck.
The large burly man punched the window out, breaking the glass. He grabs Rachel by her arm and tries to drag her out.
Rachel and Justine screamed. Rachel claws and hits her father's arm and try to pull back.
Justine slammed her foot on the gas, gasket blew, black smoke bellowed out, tires spun as the truck took off.
Damian tried to hold onto the truck, still trying to pull his daughter out before he was forced to let go, hitting the pavement and ice as the girls took off.
“Whoo! Fuck you, mother fucker! That's what you get!” Justine cackled as she drove.
Rachel could barely open her eyes as the pain was getting too much to handle. Breathing heavily, getting paler and paler by the blood loss.
“Shit! Shit, Shit! hold on!” Justine punched it. “Stay with me girl, stay with me!”
Rachel breathes heavily, eyes unable to keep open. Her friend's voice became distorted, echoing.
Unable to fight it off, Rachel slips unconscious, confronting the darkness once more. The dark she was accustomed to her whole life.
Rachel soon comes to with a groan. Laying on her stomach on what she knows to be a dingy, filthy bed on the floor of an abandoned junkyard near the railroad tracks.
A barrel was on fire for warmth, bottles of alcohol littered the cold, concrete floor. Her back was still in a lot of pain. Her left arm was extended out and there was a makeshift IV bag of sugar water draping over a broken coat hanger and has a rubber tube and needle connected to her with masking tape, taped to her arm.
She slowly pushes on her arms before Justine came to her. “Whoa hold it,” she tells her, slowly laying her down. “You'll break the glue.”
Rachel looked at her friend tiredly. “You glued my back???” She asked.
“You swore you would never gonna let me sew you up, so glue is your next best thing.” Justine said before handing her a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka and three white round pills “Here, it's for the pain.”
“What is it??” The fourteen year old asks, taking the bottle and pills and takes it, not even knowing what it was before popping them in her mouth and washing it down with the alcohol. Coughs at the burning sensation.
“Uh Tramadol. It's what I could nab at the vet clinic.” Justine said.
Justine turns her attention to her back. Pulling back the blanket.
Rachel groaned and grunted, feeling the cold air hitting her wounds.
“Jesus fucking Christ, the bastard seemed to dig this go around.” Seeing the fresh wounds, the burns and cuts all over her back. The scar tissue on some of her back reopened from the cuts. Heated jagged metals carved into her back.
She checked to see if the glue was holding up, dabbing a bit of blood that trickled a little, hearing the kid whimpering.
“I-i deserved it.” Rachel shuddered before taking another drink. A long one.
“Stop it, nothing you did deserves this.” Justine grunted. She made sure her back was fixed before Rachel attempted to sit up.
“Ah ah shit fuck!” Rachel cried out as she finally sat up.
Justine carefully takes the blanket and covers her friend. Having to remove the girl's shirt to work on her back. “Easy, don't push yourself.”
Rachel didn't say anything as she sat there.
“Rach, say the word, I will go back to that house and I'll kill the bastard.” Justine says. “Please give me the word.”
“Don't bother….” Rachel muttered, taking another drink, beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol, feeling numb.
“Bullshit. Let the mother fucker come here, I'll kill him where he stands if he ever touches you again.” Justine then pulls out a handgun out of the waistband of her pants.
Rachel's eyes widened. “Where the shit you get a gun???”
“Got it from one of mom's prick boyfriends. Guy's from Texas, he won't miss one.” Justine explained.
“Do you even know how to shoot, don't fucking wave it in my face, Justine!” The barrel coming close to her face.
“Finish that bottle and find out.” Justine grinned as she took the mag out to look at the bullets.
Booze, pills and guns, story of her life.
Rachel sighed heavily, taking another swig before handing the bottle to her.
“Feeling numb yet?” Justine asked, down the rest of the vodka. “Whew, this stuff's good.”
“Got school in the morning.” Rachel muttered.
“Fuck it. America's education system sucks balls. In your condition you wouldn't even make it to the school building.” Justine then loads the gun up, takes the empty bottle and set it on the open window still.
“Come on, let's practice. We may need it.” Justine said, stepping back to Rachel. She raised the gun, took aim and pulled the trigger.
However, she couldn't pull it back. “What??” Justine slaps the gun, trying to get it to work. “Oh come on, Texas, don't fail me.”
Rachel watches the older girl before taking the gun from her, takes a look at it before taking the safety off, cocks it back, takes aim and fires a single shot. Even tipsy, she manages to shatter the bottle.
“Holy shit, Rach you holding out on me??” Justine laughs.
Rachel didn't say anything, hating even having the gun in her hand, does the safety and hands the gun back to Justine. “I hate guns. I hate my dad, I hate this life.” The rightfully moody teen says.
“Sorry Hawkeye, no bows here.” Justine sighed. “Look, we got a few hits left. Once we get the cash, we're leaving this fucking island and head to Alaska. We'll freeze our tits off but we'll be far away. You'll never have to worry about your asshole dad ever again.”
“If he doesn't find me again.” Rachel said softly.
As Rachel watched the fire in the lit barrel danced, she began sensing something. The teen moved her choppy layered blonde hair away from her pierced ears and listened.
At first she thought her father's truck was coming towards them, but it wasn't.
“What is it?” Justine asked, examining the gun.
“I…. I don't know.” Rachel responded. Something told her things were off. A shift in the air happened.
Soft whispers seemed to echo out of the lit barrel causing Rachel to turn towards it. Flames illuminating her warm brown eyes as she listened.
Rachel didn't know what the words were saying, but she knew. She knew something changed in the world. She didn't know how to explain it to her friend.
One year later
Now fifteen year old Rachel was in the small kitchen. She was cooking eggs, bacon and toast in the morning. She hunched down a little to cook, hoping to get it done before he wakes up in a moment.
Nearby she had the small boxed TV playing in the background in the living room. Turning on KNN news as background noise. If it wasn't the news or true crime shows, nothing else was allowed on the screen.
“And now on other news, this marks the first year since the fabric of reality was ripped open and the Portal to another world was revealed.” One of the news anchors said.
Rachel cracked some more eggs on the pan, only to drop some shells in the pan. “shit.” the teen grunted, grabbing a utensil and tried to dig the shells out.
“Discovered by Doctor Helena Jurgen, the Temple of Draconia lay near the cold mountains of Denmark. We have her here, Dr. Jurgen, good to have you here.”
“It's good to be here. Thank you.”
Rachel glanced up to see the woman with glasses as she attempted to cook.
“Now, can you explain to us the viewers what we know about what's on the other side of this Portal? Is it dangerous?”
“Going into the unknown is always dangerous. There are creatures beyond our comprehension. The darkest parts of our oceans themselves are dangerous and yet we explore. What lies beyond this world is nothing like us, it's remarkable, wonderful, full of life.”
“And it's people?”
“Magical, Erin.”
“As a woman of science, why use the term magical? Surely what you've seen are illusions. Smoke and mirrors.”
The doctor laughs a little. “I am a woman of science, however, what I've seen, what our world leaders have seen, science cannot explain. This new world, Equis, is a land of opportunity to learn about our world.”
The pan with the bacon started to smoke and the cheap smoke alarm went off.
“No nono!” Rachel quickly turns off the stove, grabs the burning hot pan handle with her bare hands.
The heat was enough to burn her palms as she tossed it in the sink. She winced and pants as she flipped the water in and stuck her burning hands in the water.
“What the hell??” Sound of her father snapping at the sound of the alarm.
Rachel begins to internally freak out as the large man strides in the kitchen. Having to duck through the doorway.
“Dammit girl, what did you do??” Damian snarled as he went over to the smoke alarm, twisted the thing out of the ceiling and manually turned it off. He had unkempt brown hair, crooked nose from it breaking many times. His eyes were a cold green with the right eye more milky white. Being partially blind. Haven't shaved in over a month.
“S-sorry sir, I was trying to cook breakfast.” Rachel quickly apologized.
Then the scrambled eggs caught on fire. “Fuck!”
Damian roughly pushes Rachel out of the way, she collides with the wall with a shout.
Her father quickly grabbed the extinguisher from underneath the sink, spraying the solution all over the stove.
Once the fire was out, he turned his attention to his visibly frightened child. “You trying to burn me??” He asked coldly.
Rachel shook her head. “N-no sir. It was an accident, I swear!”
He grabbed the back of her head, forced her to look up at him. “Useless little bitch, just like your mother.”
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry!” Rachel tried to make him loosen his grip. “Dad please, I'm sorry!”
Damian smiled eerie, liking the look on her face. “Who owns you?”
Rachel shudders. “You do…sir…” She says.
Something she was forced to say for the past two years since her mother's death.
His good eye looks at the stove and back to her. Seeing her shaking.
He lets out a chuckle before shoving the end of the extinguisher into her gut, knocking the wind completely out of her. Forcing her down on the ground.
“You're lucky I got things to do today.” Damian said, watching her spasming before putting the extinguisher back underneath the sink. “Place better be clean by the time I get back or you will get it.”
Rachel couldn't answer him as he leaves her on the floor.
She listened as her father walked out the door, hearing him gripe about her lack of cooking skills and having to buy his meal. Hearing his loud steps going down the stairs.
She heard the truck soon turn on and drove off.
“So, are you saying, Doctor, that the people of Equis are not man, but anthropomorphic animals? You know that's crazy, right?” The news anchorman continued to talk on the TV.
“Portals to other realms sounds crazy, but here we are.” The doctor said.
Rachel pushes herself up on her feet, struggling to breathe. She drugged herself over to her room. Feeling like something was cracked, she limps to her nightstand.
Pulls the drawer and pulls out a bottle of pills. Just another bottle Justine stole for her to help manage the pain.
Rachel pops the cap, takes a couple and takes them dry. Her ears still tuned to the TV in the living room.
What she didn't know, her life will forever change as the path to home was opening up.
I'm already hating her father's guts and badly wanna see him reap what he's done to Rachel, no TRUE father would ever treat their daughter like this.
Fantastic start by the way, keep the good work.
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She shoves his body in lava in https://www.fimfiction.net/story/514630/the-queen-of-the-dragonlord
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A very fitting punishment for all the years of pain, misery and suffering he caused Rachel to endure.