Cold

Chapter one: The shattering

She first broke her mind.

She then broke her heart.

When she broke her soul, she split.

The girl ran into her bedroom in fear. A person stalked after her through the dimly lit hallway, shouting insults the child's way. The girl closed the door behind her and flopped onto her bed, trying to block out the noise. The child looked up with a start as she hears slamming on the door. Each one rattled her to her core, and she held back a scream as tears ran down her face. She opens the door as the adult yells through the wood, and then returns to her bed, the only safe haven she had. The only place the child could run.With one glance at the enraged lunatic giving the child a death glare, the child curls against the wall, fearfully staring at them.

"You're such a stupid, ugly child." The woman screamed, walking closer with every venomous word. The child looked at the woman with wide eyes, her mouth open in shock. "I wish I had never met you, you little bitch." The woman growled. "You should just go die in a ditch." The woman's voice raised, becoming high and shrill as crazy seeped into each word. "You are such a slut you won't make any friends because you're annoying!" The girl's heart started to beat faster. Fear coursed through her blood as she trembled.
"I'm sorry!' The child wailed. The girl had no idea what they had done to get this woman so mad at them, but they wanted this to stop. They just wanted this to stop.
"I'm sorry?" The woman mocked. "No, child. I'm sorry you're a pathetic piece of shit that's just taking up wasted space on this goddamn planet." The child couldn't take the spew of insults anymore, and curls into a ball on her bed. That didn't stop them though, and she flinched with every verbal assault that came her way.The adult still draws closer, spitting out words of poison that cuts deeper than any knife could, and creating scars that will last longer than any physical abuse that could have been given to the child.

    The child was curled into herself as the full grown woman approached with anger blazing in her eyes. The child, this little girl,this kid,  under the age of eleven, leaning towards nine to ten,this person was afraid, this person was shocked, this person was frozen.
    The child cried out when the first slap hit her skin. The little girl screamed when the woman pulled at her long brown hair. The child trembled when her glasses were pulled off her face and being thrown across the room by this woman who was so close to her. Through every slap, through every punch, through every shake as if she were a rag doll, the little girl screamed and cried for her to stop. She cried for her father, who was away at work, to help her. She screamed for her older sibling, who was away at a friend's house. She begged the gods above to just end it. The woman did not. She thought that maybe she could survive this, maybe she could get past if she just took it. It wasn't until the woman picked up the chair that she broke completely.

    This girl stared up at the woman as she picked up the child's rocking chair. She scurried away from the woman, pressing her back against the wall, and curling into a ball on her bed. It wasn't until the wooden chair, that she had given up. Through the insults, she thought she would be okay. Through the slapping and punches, she thought she would be okay. Throughout the shaking as if it weren't someone dear to her, she thought she could survive it. But when the woman picked the wooden chair up, with the intent clear in her eyes, the little girl became afraid because she didn't know how far the woman was going to go.

    The woman with black hair and insane eyes took the child's rocking chair, carved out of wood, and slammed it against the child's body. Over and over again, the wood slammed into the poor girl, as she lay there shaking, crying, and wishing for it to just end. When at last, it had felt as if her body could take no more, when her mind was just as frail as her skin that was being bashed by the woman with black hair, the little girl broke. She had lasted through the words that stung, had survived through the slaps, the pulls, the punches. But knowing who the woman with the black hair was, who she meant to her. Knowing that her own mother wanted her dead, that was too much.