Vibrant Eyes

Chapter 15 - World So Cold

"If you truly want to remember your 'childhood', look at your face," He said pointing at me. I pulled out my phone and looked at my face. There were tons of tiny scars scattered on my face, but one that went over my eye stood out. Suddenly my mind had a flashback.

"Hey... what're you doing there?" My father walked over to me. He smelt of alcohol. "Playing," I said as I held my blue rabbit. Kuragari had gone to school and had to leave me for the day as I couldn't go to school. "Playing..." He said with a scoff. He started to pace around me. "Do you know how much I've sacrificed for you?" he started to raise his voice slightly.

"Do you know what I've done to raise you useless rats?" He walked towards me slowly. "Yes..." Before I could say anything, he knocked the glass of water off the table. I watched it shatter on the ground.

"DON'T SPEAK TO ME UNLESS I TELL YOU TO!" I screamed.

"YOU DISOBEDIENT WRETCH!" He grabbed me by the neck. I couldn't breathe. His grip was so hard that I was being chocked.

He threw me across the room, my back slamming into the wall. I fell to the ground holding my neck in fear and pain. Tears streamed from my eyes as I looked up at him thinking 'what have I done wrong?'. "CRYING IS WEAK ALANA! DON'T CRY!" He yelled. I yelled back. "I'M SORRY DADDY, I'M SORRY!" He grabbed a broken beer bottle and hit me in the face with it. Blood streamed from the wound across my eye.

"DON'T SAY SORRY! YOU'RE WEAK ALANA! YOU'LL ALWAYS BE WEAK!" As he said this, the front door opened. My brother walked through the door. "Alana?" He looked around and saw me on the floor at my father's mercy. He dropped his bag and ran to me. "LEAVE HER ALONE!" He grabbed my father's arm and pulled him away. "STAY OUT OF THIS KURAGARI!" He threw Kuragari across the room. I took this as my chance to run for the front door but he grabbed me by my hood and held me up. I tried to run but couldn't. Suddenly, heard my father yell in pain. Kuragari had stuck a broken bottle into his back. My father dropped me and I ran for the door. I opened it and my brother and I ran out of the house.

"COME BACK HERE!" We didn't look back. We kept running and running till we couldn't anymore.

Kuragari held me close as we hid in an alleyway. The night was cold and my hands felt as though they were about to freeze off. The blood trickled from my wound as I cried. "It hurts Kura," I whined. "I know, we'll get you help I promise," He said reassuring me. We held each other til the sun came up.

My mind flashed back to the present. I held the scar with my hand and looked at it through my phone. "That's what happened Alana." Our father took another swig. "Deal with it," he said quite bluntly. My brother comforted me as I looked down at my knees. I took my hand off my eye and looked at my father. "You're a monster," I said. My father looked offended. "I sacrificed everything for you kids, you weren't grateful enough..." Before he said anything more I stood up.

"You don't deserve to have the privileges of being called a father," I said with rage.

"Calm down Alana," Kuragari reminded me.

"How can you tell me to calm down after what he's done?!" I started to raise my voice. Suddenly, all the memories came flooding back to me. My childhood from when I was born, to when CyberCorp took me and my brother away. I looked my father dead in his blank eyes. "He doesn't deserve to even talk to us right now!" My father sighed. "Just leave her Kuragari, she's always had a bad temper." I glared at my father, my rage growing stronger by the second.

"I have my reasons to be mad. Look at you! You sold your own kids to get money, and where did that get you?" My father looked up at me with a glare. "It obviously got you nowhere." I thought for a minute and spoke.

"You... spent it all on booze, didn't you?" he didn't respond. He just looked down at the ground. "YOU SPENT ALL OF THAT MONEY ON BOOZE DIDN'T YOU!?" I yelled at him. Kuragari stood up. "I think it's time we go," He said as he touched my shoulder. Tears streamed from my eyes as I looked at my father's lifeless eyes.

"Answer me this, Ray. Who in their right mind would sell there kids off to a sketchy organization, and then proceed to blow off all of the money on drugs and alcohol? I wouldn't be mad if you were doing well, but clearly you're still living the same life you did back then." My father stood up.

"Don't you dare use my name in vain. I am your father..." I cut him off.

"NO, YOU LISTEN TO ME, RAY! YOU DON'T DESERVE TO BE MY FATHER!" My father slammed his bottle on the ground. I watched it shatter and pieces flew across the room. "ENOUGH!" His voice shook the very earth we walked on.

"Get the hell out of my house," he said pointing to the door. I scoffed.

"Even now, you're still afraid to face the truth." I walked out without hesitation. I stood in the now dimly lit street as the cold wind blew through my hair. I felt the door shut as Kuragari walked towards me. He turned me around and embraced me in a hug. "I got the answers I wanted," I said as I cried in his arms.

"Don't worry, you won't have to see him ever again," Kuragari squeezed me tighter before letting me go. "Let's go, Haru texted me saying he wants us back." Kuragari grabbed my hand gently and led me to the car. We hopped in and Kuragari turned the key to start the car. He drove down the street and into the city. The car ride was silent as I looked back at everything that had happened until now.

I looked back at my life in school, my childhood, CyberCorp and the war.

'The war...' I thought to myself. I couldn't remember most of the war. All I remembered was the screams and cried of my friends dying in the war.

'What was the war even for? Why was I in that war?'

I knew I needed to find out more. But where would I start? I didn't know much, but I knew CyberCorp had something to do with it. I needed to find out what happened, and what was going to happen. We arrived at our private garage and parked the car. We walked through the forest, Salem meeting us halfway as we finally made it back to the camp. Saturn jumped at me and squeezed me tightly.

"I missed you!" Saturn said with a big smile. I smiled slightly. "I missed you too."

Haru walked over towards us. "How did it go...?" He asked. I shook my head.

"I got the answers I wanted, but I'll never talk to him ever again." He placed his hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry about it, you won't have to. Your family is here." Haru gestured towards all the villagers in our camp. I smiled.

"Yeah... this is my home."

"And forever it will be."