The land of the Renegades: A new generation

Chapter 1

  I was a normal girl, a 15-year-old teenager. I lived with my parents in a small town, about 70 km from the capital of Romania.

  I had many friends and very good results at school. I had no idea that my life would change completely the day I would have turned 16.

  The year was 2016. It was a hot day in June, and I was sitting at home planning my party that evening, which my parents knew nothing about. They were very good, understanding people, and I thought they would not be against the party.

  But when the evening came and I asked them if I could go out to see my friends, I was surprised to hear that they wouldn't let me.

  My mother was always watching the news, where she saw all kinds of cases about rapes, kidnappings, and she was afraid that something like that might happen to me. She was saying that now I'm grown up and I'm an easy target for people who enjoy hurting young girls.

  I was more skeptical and didn't believe in everything that was shown on TV, I didn't think that these things could happen to me.

  So I tried to convince her that there would be more friends there, that I wouldn't be alone.

  From here, a big argument started, she maintaining her arguments, me telling her that it's stupid and that I want to celebrate my birthday with my friends. Seeing that I couldn't convince her, I nervously went to my room, locked the door, and thought of a plan to get out of the house anyway.

  In my mind I had the perfect plan: I was going to climb out the window, hoping they would leave me alone that evening after they saw me angry.

  From the other side of the door I heard my father telling my mother that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to let me go outside. For a second I thought there wouldn't be any need to hide after all, but then I heard my mother stand her ground, strongly disagreeing.

  I had to continue my plan, it was clear I wasn't going out with their consent and I figured they'd be too busy arguing to check on me. And if they find out after I get out, I'll get my punishment after I get back, but maybe when he sees that I'm okay, he'll stop all this nonsense.

  I got ready to go out, I had one foot out the window when I heard someone unlocking the door. I hesitated for a moment, wondering who could have the key, and then realized that a week ago I had left the spare key with my mother because she wanted to paint and do general cleaning while I was at school.

  The next moment I saw my father in front of the door, surprised that I wanted to go out the window. In all these years he never even touched me with a slap. Admittedly, I was the kind of obedient child who did not deviate from my parents' word.

  But at that moment, I felt that something much worse than a slap was coming, and so it was.

  I, out of fear, went back into the house and apologized for what I was about to do, but apparently, it wasn't enough.

  In his mind, I had done something very bad, and he thought it was time to punish me a little bit, to make me never think about such a thing again.

  So he took off his belt and started hitting me. He was a big, solid man, he had strength, and at that moment also nerves, and because of this, he had already made marks on my body with just a few hits.

  My mother heard my screams and immediately came to see what was happening. Seeing him hit me with such brutality, she started yelling at him to leave me alone.

  He, becoming more and more angry, his eyes turned completely black and turned to her, knocking her down with a punch and didn't stop until she was out of breath, scolding her that it was her fault, that she didn't raise me right.

  My mother, being a smaller and frail woman, immediately succumbed to the wave of punches that rushed at her and couldn't fight back.

  That was the moment when I went crazy, when I could no longer see anything in front of my eyes, I could no longer feel my body, I could no longer feel even the bruises that my father had made on my body.

  I felt an indescribable need to take revenge, but most of all, I wanted to revenge my mother, who was like an icon to me.

  I don't know what happened next, I didn't remember anything, but when I woke up to reality I was covered in blood, my father was lying on the floor next to my mother, and from somewhere in the distance the sirens of police cars could be heard, sign that the neighbors had heard the screams from our house.

  Until they came, I had time to quickly change my clothes, washed my hands and face and went out into the courtyard of the house. I had put the clothes in the washing machine, thinking that they wouldn't suspect me the first time and wouldn't search there.