Damaged Oddity
TW: mentions of abuse/ual assault
Melanie would have loved to say that her childhood and home were happy and loving. That would have been a lie. It had been a dark, harrowing experience. She'd been locked up in a small room, starving and scared.
Her parents were terrified of her. Scared of what she would do when her emotions ran too high. She couldn't control her magic especially in times of being under great duress. She could still remember the feel of the cold blade pressed against when her mother made an attempt on her life. Her mother swore her magic was the work of the devil. She swore she would beat it out of her, even if it was the last thing she did. Melanie could feel the tears bubbling out of her. She swore to her mama that she wasn't trying to use magic, that she'd stop and she'd be a good girl. As the blade pressed further into her neck, an ear piercing scream erupted from Melanie's throat and her mother was thrown backwards by an invisible force. She remembered that was the last time she was allowed out of her room for what felt like an eternity.
Her father ultimately decided on leaving the both of them because he could not stand the religious fanaticism of his ex-wife. He refused to bring Melanie with him claiming that she was no child of his. Her mother seemed to take her frustrations out on Melanie even more after this. Refusing to feed her for days if she even had a small amount of her magic appear. Paying Priests to pray over her, to perhaps excise the demon that her mother swore lived inside her. There was no demon, but her mother refused to see any other reason. Melanie eventually learned to suppress her magic. As long as she could force herself to become emotionless, no magic would show itself. She told herself constantly that magic wasn't real. After all, her mama told her, "There is no magic when one no longer believes." She had to do just that. No longer believe. Then the punishments would finally cease.
Eventually Melanie became old enough to escape her abusive household and she ran for it. As fast as her legs could take her. She would never put herself in another situation like that again. She swore she would always put herself first. She would protect herself no matter the cost.
Melanie's feet tapped softly on the sidewalk as she was headed toward her minimum wage job, headphones over her ears and was disassociating hard. She was no longer aware of her surroundings. She was almost to her destination and it was late in the evening when suddenly calloused fingers wrapped around her shoulder. She nearly jumped out of her skin and recoiled from the stranger's touch. She wasn't quite fast enough because the man easily grabbed her again. She could feel the rotten stink of his breath wash over her face as he leaned in and grinned. "I've been watching you- you always come at this time, never paying attention," he quietly sneered. She grimaced and tried to force her arm out of his grasp but he was stronger than her. "You're not going anywhere, girlie, not until I get what I want." He drug her into an alleyway with ease, even though she was fighting, scratching, trying to shove him away. She gasped with fear when she felt his rough touch trailing up her thigh, under her skirt. She began pleading with him to stop, tears streaking down her gaunt cheeks. When her attempts failed, she began pleading with other forces. Darker ones. Melanie had almost forgotten what it felt like, the pull of magic slowly surging through her body, lacing around her like unseen tendrils ready to consume her, ready to consume her enemies. She squeezed her eyes shut and imagined the tendrils of magic shooting through the man in front of her.
Her eyes shot open at the agonizing scream of pain from the man slicing through the silence of the night. For the first time in her life, she felt in control. Before she could relish in her success of getting the ed pig off of her, she felt dizzy, the world spinning around her as it faded to black.
When she awoke, hours later, maybe even days, she couldn't even recognize where she was. She felt a cold breeze, her hair gently swaying at its touch, heard the roaring of the ocean in the distance and then realized that she was no longer in the city. Her body began to shake, maybe from exhaustion, maybe from the trauma she went through, but mostly it was from the fear of the unknown.