We all have times we try not to remember, right?
Way back when, I lived on an island far away from here-- an island among many. I had a mother, a father, a sister, and a babysitter. An average expat family for the region, I'd assume.
Though, other people only ever knew about my sister of the two of us.
Or, rather, they did until "that fateful day".
On "that fateful day" my mother brought the both of us outside rather than just my sister, Xhianei, in secret from our father. It was the first time I had seen the outside world through something other than a window or dimly-lit photographs. It was a surreal experience at the time, given I, for whatever reason, was never allowed to set foot past our threshold. The only things I knew about the world past our window was through the mouths of those around me, usually my mother, Xhianei, and our babysitter, Parana.
No, this time I could see, hear, and even feel and taste these things for myself. I could feel the dirt under my feet, the sand through my fingers, and the bright sun on my skin as the wind mussed my hair. The leaves on the trees seemed greener, the sky looked bluer, and the food in the carts smelled amazing against the sharp saltiness of the sea. I even got to see the ocean for the first time, dotted with some of the other smaller islands outside of our own. That bright, cheerful blue under the endless sky was a sight that still sticks with me even today, so many years later. Though my first time outside was short-lived I soaked up every minute of it, quietly longing for more.
The return trip was not so nice. My father was already home and, upon seeing us again, urged us to quickly come back inside.
For reasons I couldn't understand, a fight between my mother and father ensued. Parana took my sister and I by the hand and quickly brought us to another room and closed the door. My mother taking Xhianei out of the house was routine so that couldn't have been a problem.
Was it me? Did I do something?
I had always felt some modicum of disdain from my father from even my earliest memories, but never knew why. He tried his hardest to pretend I wasn't there unless he had to, and even then it was quite clear he wanted nothing to do with me.
At the end only one loud voice prevailed and my father cast my mother from the house. It was the last time I saw her.
Days turned to weeks and I only heard from my mother through our babysitter in secret, away from the eavesdropping ears of my father as best as we could manage. Something about how she would come for us when she could, to try to stay strong with our father, stuff like that. My father's distant disdain turned to yelling and beating, but I tried to keep going. I'm at least glad Xhianei never had to deal with what I got, and both she and Parana tried to compensate for what my father forcefully took away. Slowly but surely my fear, too, grew to something more than that.
Our babysitter told us of a small sum of money kept in our father's room while she packed a variety of our belongings away into a bag. She told us she had "pulled some strings" over the last few weeks to do something about our situation, but didn't go into any detail. She then told me, specifically, that I would need to steal that money to put her plan in motion, and that the money wasn't actually his? You know, I was always told stealing was bad, but even an odd voice in my head seemed to encourage it, if only just this once. I agreed to it and did so the next day while my father was out of the house, hiding it in the bag our babysitter prepared. Gears were turning in plans I couldn't make but only follow, but I was hopeful that everything would work out.
We both went to bed early that night as I guess we had something big just ahead of us. Despite the tension we both managed to fall asleep only to be woken up just a few hours later. Parana held out the bag for me to carry while she scooped up my groggy sister. I took it and we slowly, quietly shuffled out of the house, the slow and steady pace turning to a full sprint a few meters past the porch. The dirt road kindly softened our steps as we flew down its length and bolted toward the shipyard on the edge of our island.
I couldn't help but look back once at the prison so cutely disguised as a quaint lakeside house. Under the misty moonlight and sparkling stars you really couldn't tell what harsh realities took place there. Even then the split second was a bittersweet one as it had been the only home I'd ever known, and just like that, it was now but a memory.
---
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Way back when, I lived on an island far away from here-- an island among many. I had a mother, a father, a sister, and a babysitter. An average expat family for the region, I'd assume.
Though, other people only ever knew about my sister of the two of us.
Or, rather, they did until "that fateful day".
On "that fateful day" my mother brought the both of us outside rather than just my sister, Xhianei, in secret from our father. It was the first time I had seen the outside world through something other than a window or dimly-lit photographs. It was a surreal experience at the time, given I, for whatever reason, was never allowed to set foot past our threshold. The only things I knew about the world past our window was through the mouths of those around me, usually my mother, Xhianei, and our babysitter, Parana.
No, this time I could see, hear, and even feel and taste these things for myself. I could feel the dirt under my feet, the sand through my fingers, and the bright sun on my skin as the wind mussed my hair. The leaves on the trees seemed greener, the sky looked bluer, and the food in the carts smelled amazing against the sharp saltiness of the sea. I even got to see the ocean for the first time, dotted with some of the other smaller islands outside of our own. That bright, cheerful blue under the endless sky was a sight that still sticks with me even today, so many years later. Though my first time outside was short-lived I soaked up every minute of it, quietly longing for more.
The return trip was not so nice. My father was already home and, upon seeing us again, urged us to quickly come back inside.
For reasons I couldn't understand, a fight between my mother and father ensued. Parana took my sister and I by the hand and quickly brought us to another room and closed the door. My mother taking Xhianei out of the house was routine so that couldn't have been a problem.
Was it me? Did I do something?
I had always felt some modicum of disdain from my father from even my earliest memories, but never knew why. He tried his hardest to pretend I wasn't there unless he had to, and even then it was quite clear he wanted nothing to do with me.
At the end only one loud voice prevailed and my father cast my mother from the house. It was the last time I saw her.
Days turned to weeks and I only heard from my mother through our babysitter in secret, away from the eavesdropping ears of my father as best as we could manage. Something about how she would come for us when she could, to try to stay strong with our father, stuff like that. My father's distant disdain turned to yelling and beating, but I tried to keep going. I'm at least glad Xhianei never had to deal with what I got, and both she and Parana tried to compensate for what my father forcefully took away. Slowly but surely my fear, too, grew to something more than that.
Our babysitter told us of a small sum of money kept in our father's room while she packed a variety of our belongings away into a bag. She told us she had "pulled some strings" over the last few weeks to do something about our situation, but didn't go into any detail. She then told me, specifically, that I would need to steal that money to put her plan in motion, and that the money wasn't actually his? You know, I was always told stealing was bad, but even an odd voice in my head seemed to encourage it, if only just this once. I agreed to it and did so the next day while my father was out of the house, hiding it in the bag our babysitter prepared. Gears were turning in plans I couldn't make but only follow, but I was hopeful that everything would work out.
We both went to bed early that night as I guess we had something big just ahead of us. Despite the tension we both managed to fall asleep only to be woken up just a few hours later. Parana held out the bag for me to carry while she scooped up my groggy sister. I took it and we slowly, quietly shuffled out of the house, the slow and steady pace turning to a full sprint a few meters past the porch. The dirt road kindly softened our steps as we flew down its length and bolted toward the shipyard on the edge of our island.
I couldn't help but look back once at the prison so cutely disguised as a quaint lakeside house. Under the misty moonlight and sparkling stars you really couldn't tell what harsh realities took place there. Even then the split second was a bittersweet one as it had been the only home I'd ever known, and just like that, it was now but a memory.
---
music
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Please consider supporting my work if you enjoy it:
https://www.patreon.com/ratte
https://ko-fi.com/ratteart
https://commiss.io/ratte
Category Artwork (Digital) / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Multiple characters
Size 1000 x 1300px
Listed in Folders
I was saying because one of your character's name is Ushuaia, so i thought Parana was taken from the argentinian river.
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