The Sacrifice [Undergoing Editing]

Chapter 3: Don't Relive the Past

The darkness lifted. Yes, my mind gasped, please, let me wake up. To see the world, one more time. Images flashed through my mind in a storm. My fifth birthday. My deviously smirking best friend. My normal life... before I was taken as the new Sacrifice. I had long forgotten each of these, and the images were attached to emotions I hadn't longed for. A memory played back, as if reminding me of what I'd been forced to abandon. I'd once enjoyed these things, but they no longer brought me happiness, and the memories felt false. It reminded me of the gaps in my memory.

My mother smiled sweetly. "Come here, Snow." She said. "Mommy wants to tell you something." My ten year old self grinned. 

"Mo-om, I already know. You love me." I said, my eyes closed blissfully. My mother laughed gently. I would come to hate that laugh later in life, but at that moment, it sounded like angels giggling to my ears. 

"I love you. Daddy loves you." She said. My eyes sparkled happily. It was these moments that would confuse me most when I left. 

"I know, Mom." I replied, my high voice happy. A knock came from the door, insistent and urgent. I ran to the door, smoothed my clothes, and opened the door just wide enough to peer outside. "May I help you?" I asked cautiously. Mother had always taught me not to talk to strangers. She said they'd take me away if I wasn't careful.  

The man outside was dressed in a long white robe, the ends fluttering about in the breeze. He loomed over me, but his face was gentle and kind. He was anything but.  "May I talk to your mother?" I nodded, asked the man to wait just a few minutes, and shut the door gently. My brow furrowed. Why would the strange, tall man be at the door, asking for my mom? 

"Mom? There's a man outside in a funny-looking white robe asking for you." I said as I arrived in the living room. My mother's face drained of happiness. I watched with something almost like fascination as her eyes became flat and furious, and her face became stony. 

"Oh." She said. I couldn't understand. Why was my mother not happy? Was the man someone dangerous? A few minutes later the man came. "Sweetie," My mother said, "This man is going to take you away. You can't come back here. Ever." I heard contempt in her words. Her voice was like the sweetest poison I'd ever consumed, falsely comforting, and sick to the core. 

"Mom? What?! Why?" I asked, my eyes wide. My mother laughed harshly. Instead of the sound of angels, my mother became a demon to my eyes. 

"We traded you at birth. You're the next Sacrifice. Now don't come back. Go." My ten year old self began to cry. I pleaded with my mother, and with my just-arrived father, to please not make me leave and go with the funny-looking man. I was pushed out the door, tears streaming down my face. My heart snapped. Family was nothing to me. 

The memory faded, and a new one arrived.  I wasn't anxious to remember things. In fact, I was quite happy forgetting each of my memories. To start over, completely and utterly over, wouldn't be so bad, would it?

"This is training." The harsh man replied. "If you can't take this, you'll be punished more. Now be silent." Tears raced down my cheeks as the whip cracked and lashed at my exposed back. I held back the scream, biting my lip and tasting the metal as my blood flowed into my mouth. I quickly spat the blood out. I'd learned that swallowing too much of it made me sick. 

"Think of it this way," The man said, "you'll be pleasing your parents by showing them the pain you're in." I felt my eyes narrow. He'd brought up the evil ones, the demons who tormented me in my sleep. The whip cracked, and my face didn't change. I didn't even whimper. "There you go." He said approvingly.