Memory ✔️

First Write: Electricity Before Lightning

Thump, the steady beating of the brave and fearful hearts the same for once. 

Thump, the steady silence, the tension before battle, all of the soldiers preparing for the upcoming war. 

Thump, thump, soldiers line up behind the barracks to gain their armor and weaponry. 

Thump, thump the sound of metal scraping metal against the stone floor alive in the kingdom. 

Thump, thump, thump, the bark of the hounds that wait for their release. 

Thump, thump, thump, silent tension, the kind that happened before war, before pain, before fear, and before violence. 

Thump, thump, thump, thump, the anxious fear tearing at the citizens of the kingdom as they hug their loved ones' good luck. 

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, the squeal from children who think of the situation as an adventure. 

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. Then, the first soldier flies, the swift slice of the air as if cut with a sword.

 "Hey! No headshots!" I squealed as he threw Ponds the turtle over his castle walls, aiming for my head. I cried out before dodging it and throwing his SpongeBob over my wall, hitting the bottom boxes of his east wall and making them fall.

 "Hey! That's cheating." He whined as I did my best to fix the cardboard boxes of my wall, Ponds the turtle and Dangles the monkey lying on the floor as if exhausted by being tossed over the taped up cardboard box forts. Puffy the shark waited in the corner of the south wall while the soldiers of my land lined up before Maximus the yellow dog for weapons. The lego minifigures all tilt in the curly carpet and watch from the side of the south wall as I throw another stuffed animal over the castle wall.

  "It isn't cheating if you aim for the head instead of the fort, or is it?" I ask cheerfully as he grumbles, doing his best to fix his east wall. I take the time to grab Puffy the shark and throw him over my wall, crashing the west wall of my brother's fort. The light sound of the boxes all falling to the floor were music to my ears. The soldiers of my kingdom cheered at the fall of the enemy. He pouted in his own undefended kingdom, his soldiers strewn across the floor in chaos.

He got up and before I knew it, my fort had fallen under his swift kicks. "Hey! No fair!" I laughed as I picked up Puffy and threw the big stuffed shark at my brother's head. He caught it and laughed as he picked up a smaller stuffed animal and tossed it at me.

We laughed and threw the animals through the air happily. It was one of the moments that we could enjoy, one with the music of children playing happily. It was a celebration, where all of the children danced, played, and ran around, our stuffed animals jumping around just like children. I hugged my brother lovingly before tickling him, falling to the floor as he starts to get me as well. I did my best to enjoy these moments of innocence and laughter, before the storms that came out of hiding.

 Then came the static before the rain, the stressed sail of a ship before it tears, the silence before chaos, the rope pulled taut before the tear, paper tensed before ripping into pieces. I felt it before my brother did, since I was always wary of our father, I always did my best to figure out when and where he is when he is near enough. It was as if he broke the wards of the demon towers, making everything cold and chaotic. 

I tensed before I turned away from the doorway and knelt to pick up Dangles the monkey, holding him against my chest.

 "Daddy!" I heard as my brother ran up to my dad to hug him. I heard our father step back, the coldness following him even if it were a small movement. My brother stopped, probably finally figuring out why our father came straight to our room from the front door and living room.

I always had warned my brother to not look up to our father, since it made him a bigger target to our dad. He had gone to war in the military during the battle in Iraq. Even though he was the medic, he was the one who saw the most. He was out on the battlefield, looking down at all of the pale faces filled with soot, hoping to see anyone alive. Maybe the army burned the kindness out of him, maybe not, but my grandparents only have the memories of his childhood to look at for kindness.

I feel the temperature drop a few degrees. "Why," he asked coldly, " is there a mess in here?" I knew this would happen. Every time we acted like normal children or just felt like messing around, he pulled out the soldier card. I could hear the sharpness to his voice, scraping glass into shards. "Answer me." He adds when none of us say anything.

My brother is the first to respond, fear and sadness clear in his voice. "We had nothing to do while we waited for you, and Papa had all of these boxes outside, so we wanted to play for a little bit. We can clean it up." 

"Of course you will." I don't remember what he said afterwards, or the sharp words our father replied to him, but I remember the next part like it happened yesterday. "Catita," he said to my back. "Get out." I hesitated before walking out of the room. The static before the storm raised to higher electricity levels. I sat down on the couch, shaking before pushing my back against the cold wall. 

I tense when I hear him pick up one of the boxes. I felt the electricity in the air before the lightning strike. "Look at me." He ordered and I heard rustling before the short milliseconds, before going rigid as the sound of the impact against something solid, the cry out of my brother's mouth, the pain shooting up my gut and stomach. I could sense him fall before sliding to the corner as my dad threw another. 

Each impact was a bullet to the side, but my brother's screaming cries were knives to the heart. Each impact shattering me physically, as if I were connected to my brother and felt the same pain as him.My brother's cries each devoured a piece of calmness, a great fraction of the calmness we had around each other, knowing we didn't need protection. I curled up tighter every time he cried out, tears streaming down my face freely without any consolation. 

My grandfather was too tired, even for normal, that day. My grandmother had either been out or passed out in bed as well. 

I learned, that day, that you should always look both ways before crossing, look at both sides of a problem before finding the solution. Even though it was painful at the time, it was how I learned why my dad had retaliated. Even though it had been the wrong thing to do in his situation, he was right to know we wouldn't listen to what he told us to do. That day he had told us to clean the bedroom before he came back from work. We had cleaned it up as best we could, but we got bored and destroyed the cleanliness to replace it with chaos. 

I don't blame my father for anything he did, but I thank him. If he had known the right way to treat us, I wouldn't be the helpful and sympathetic person I am today. I would still be the violent and short-tempered little girl I had been before. Sure, I do still get angry and I'm violent, but it takes me a lot longer to get angry and violent to anyone. I can sympathize with lots of troubled teens, ones who even had worse childhoods than I did. In the end, I still thank my dad for being ignorant and stubborn, because in the end, I became a better person than I could ever have been before. Now I can only remember the little girl on the sofa, and what she used to see.

____

That was written last year for English. 9th grade. I got an A for it.

To me, it doesn't really matter about the grade. That was the first time I was able to express some type of feeling and emotion, even if it was after two years being away from my dad. It's been about three years now, but now I feel almost every emotion.

Again I dedicate this to Gamer_God115 for pulling me back up to the surface, something that is still new for me even if it is natural for you. I will post this school year's one tomorrow, but most likely this week.