Ren scratches out yet another failed attempt at writing but she is getting better though not as quickly as she should be, since some nights she can't move at all or her arms are cut to ribbons Nova has only come by twice, and right after her visits always accompanied by really delicious smelling tea Rens dad forces her to use her quirk until she passes out. Labels on furniture and kitchen appliances, the manufacturing information tag, faded though it is on her blanket, that's how she was learning to read and write. It's a slow process learning what various letters mean. Still, if it were easy it wouldn't be such an efficient distraction from constant nausea and near starvation, and it wouldn't block out the pain of the bruises and cuts as effectively so she's happy for the challenge.
The door and Ren can smell the alcohol and blood on him the instant he steps in, both smell foul on their own but mixed they create a nauseating smell that almost makes Ren puke up what little food she has consumed. He stumbles through the door black-out drunk and Ren winces when his eyes lazily trail around the apartment if he sees her she knows that she would lose all use of at least one limb. She climbs into the kitchen cupboard she'd used for hide and seek a few weeks ago. It has become her safe place, she has used her shadows to expand into an almost fort and even managed to improvise a lighting source using the light from the oven it may not be ideal, but it's better than the alternatives plus her dad doesn't know about it. She makes a mark on the wall of her little room and mumbles. "That's the 8th time... He normally only does this if heroes are snooping and getting close... I should be ready and pack my things just in case."
Ren puts all of her stuff in her bag yes that means slightly less comfort but she can't lose any of her meager possessions she still has nightmares every night after losing silver sometimes they end with her dad killing her other times with her mothers screams but regardless Ren never gets a night of uninterrupted sleep. Ren pulls out the picture, "Night mama" she mumbles quietly before tucking it back away and then turning off the oven light.
The following days were painful Ren passed out 6 times 4 from exhaustion and 2 from dehydration her dad came back more upset every day and Ren knew this pattern well, at most there's another week before they move but it's most likely less. Sure enough, he walks in the door the next day and shouts at her. "Five minutes to pack brat then we're out here!" Ren slips out of her fort, ensuring she has everything, and walks over to him.
"I'm ready to go," Ren says confidently hopefully taking less time to pack would afford her kinder treatment.
"Wow I'm impressed, alright then let's go no point collapsing the apartment it makes too much fuss so just cover us with your shadows." Just like that they're gone once again Ren makes the mistake of thinking just maybe this time she did well enough to avoid punishment, that is of course not the case.
"OW!!" Ren cries out in pain as the blades slice up her leg her father's expression is scarily calm, and his eyes have a sadistic glint in them. The brat thought I didn't notice, didn't she? this is going to be fun. Eerily his face breaks into a grin as he plucks the photo out of her bag croutching down he holds it in front of Ren's face and her eyes widen in terror what a delightful expression to cause.
"Oh you little sneaky brat," he makes a tsk noise. "You thought you could hide your smile? You fool!" He laughs as Ren desperately grasps at the photo knowing full well he had severed a muscle so she can't move her left leg below her knee. He cuts a corner off the photo and Ren uses her shadows to help in a desperate lunge, he dodges laughing with glee at the brat's pain.
"No... mama!" She cries pushing herself up and lunging again, as she does so he cuts the photo just a tiny bit more this goes on for hours until Ren is dryheaving from exhaustion and the photo is shredded to cruel confetti. He leans down smirking this is satisfying.
"Remember brat you exist to help me with my job, it's your fault your mother had to... be taken care of and I can always find a brat to replace you if you become too much of a pain." He tosses her over his shoulder carrying her to wherever their next hideout is Ren blacks out when they are somewhere near the best underground hero agency.
Ren wakes up both legs are numb and looking down she can see why both of them are only slightly healed from the cuts, she won't be walking for several days that much is abundantly obvious. Ren takes the opportunity to glance around the room, to her surprise there's a bed, a rare commodity in the places they stay Ren has only slept in a bed a handful of times other than the bed the room is completely bare, and her bag is situated next to her.
"It was so funny how much the brat cried over that dumb photo." Ren hears her dad in the other room talking over the phone to someone, she knows her dad won't hear her so she lets herself cry. She is crying for losing Mama, crying for losing Silver, crying over the old photo which had been her last bit of hope. Once the tears start they are impossible to stop but... maybe she could get away, run as far as she can Ren doubts anybody would care about her and doubts it would work but she wants the pain to stop either she'd be dead and incapable of regretting it or she'd be out of here either way she would be free. These aren't thoughts a six-year-old should be having but six-year-olds should also be in school and should not have more scars than war veterans and heroes unfortunately for Ren she has quite a few scars and has never so much as stepped inside a school building.
Ren pulls out her notebook and little nubs of crayons flipping to a page in the middle just to be safe she starts writing it's not pretty but it works basic facts she knows about her dad and roughly where she thinks she is, maybe this is dumb or maybe shes a genius ask her dad and she's a disposable tool, ask mama back when mama was alive and she's an angel, ask her papas friends shes a brat or a polite young lady, it's very confusing.
Ren works on her plans day and night not even noticing the growling of her stomach she figures out she can sense where shadows are to give her an idea of how things are laid out, only pausing her frantic scribbling when she quite literally passes out or her dad shouts at her to come and train. He starts feeding her more and treating her decently even letting her get a full night's sleep Ren wonders why until he and one of his friends who doesn't like Ren at all call her into a dark room there's a hero she recognizes from a newspaper, he's in bad shape but her dad smirks evilly making her stomach curdle... no there's no way this is happening she can't... she looks at the hero with wide eyes as her father speaks with glee.
"You thought your punishment was over? Far from it..." Her father sees the look on her face this is going to be so much fun... watching the brat break down is the height of entertainment. "Kill him brat, use your shadows to kill him or you both die quite painfully, he dies either way but you can save yourself." Ren looks at the man sadness and terror in her eyes.
"m s-so s-sorry but I don wanna die..." Ren whimpers out shaking violently as she uses her shadows to cut into him, the screams are something that will haunt her forever, and the blood... Ren pukes tears streaming down her face as she sinks to her knees. Behind her, the monster who is half her DNA looks on gleefully gently patting her head.
"Good girl." He motions for his friend to get rid of the corpse. Mama said killing people was bad, and that people like Dad were the ones who did it on purpose does that mean she's bad now? Ren looks down at her hands what had she just done... She runs off to her room having a panic attack, vision blurring as she scratches at her barely healed legs. Her dad's laughter and the hero's screams seemingly follow her, and she is brought back to earth only when her ankle twists into an unnatural position. Ren whimpers she had killed someone she... she's bad, dangerous...
Ren scribbles furious at her escape plan she needs out or she will go insane like her dad. What makes her puke more is when she realizes the date... Mamas birthday, she had done something awful on Mamas birthday, because even if it had been forced she had killed someone. The next day he makes her do it again this time it's some rich guy her dad doesn't like but he makes her do it slowly, dragging out not only the victims' pain but her own, Ren stops talking after the third time, and by the fifth starts to feel numb maybe it's the lack of sleep or the fact that her body is now quite literally shutting down from starvation after puking up all her stomachs innards now she dreads the sound of the door opening, she just sits in her room rocking back and forth and staring at the wall she's bad she'd failed mama and now she's just like dad.
When Nova visits she sees Ren's dead eyes and starvation, and sees her dad's glee at his daughter's suffering, Nova may be a villain but Ren will always remember the piece of chocolate she gave her, it saved her sanity after all. It's sweet like the bread Mama would sometimes make really good day when Dad would be gone fewple of days. Nova kept smiling and talking to her dad but kept Ren shielded. When Ren's dad goes to the bathroom she asks what is going on and why Ren looks so dead inside and everything comes spilling out Ren tells her everything and Nova grimaces handing her a backpack looking in it Ren is shocked it has clothing and some food plus a little neck pillow.
"Wh-why are you giving me this?" Ren looks up at Nova with confusion.
"I want you to run little one I saw the open wounds on your legs last time I came, you're a brave girl Ren and your dad doesn't deserve such a wonderful child." This makes Ren blink in confusion tilting her head slightly.
"But he'll kill you... when he sees I'm gone won't he?" Ren asks in a voice that is little more than a whisper, Nova shakes her head giving Ren as reassuring a smile as she can.
"I can hold my own and besides I plan on leaving as soon as I know you're out of the building plus I already stole all Razor's money so even if I weren't helping you escape he would be mad at me."
"Okay..." Ren nervously takes the backpack and Nova urges her to the door.
"Bye..." Ren tearfully hugs Nova before running as fast as she can she has no idea where she's going, just somewhere far away from this place, and far away from her dad.
It's cold out, the late autumn chill biting at Ren in her tattered dirty clothes as she runs eyes watering from the cold she can't run very far pausing and slipping into an alleyway she's good at hiding, Ren pulls a granola bar out of the bag and eats half of it, it's good and tastes like heaven in her mouth, with little chocolate chunks in it but she knows that there isn't much and she needs to make supplies last so she wraps the rest back up slipping into a random dollar store beelining to the bathroom changing into the clothes Nova gave her she even washes her face off in the sink warm water feeling nice on her face
The first night in the alleyway isn't so bad sure it's cold but it's not freezing or anything Ren shivers through the night losing precious moisture in the form of cold sweats. When she fell asleep she was plagued by screams and memories of running and a shredded photograph but the nightmares didn't wake her up after all the hellish dreamscape was no worse than the real world Ren knew she'd have to wake up to.
Without someone screaming at her to get up and train or just flat-out attacking her Ren gets a full night's sleep for once waking up to heavy winter storm clouds and a biting wind she curls harder into her hiding spot and hugs herself tight eating the other half of the granola bar. She feels a sharp pain in her leg and looks down to see blood rushing down it. Her cuts had reopened and were losing blood at an alarming rate. Ren debates between freezing and bleeding out and decides there are more ways to protect from the cold than there are to deal with bleeding, she uses her shadows to rip off the bottom of her shirt turning it into a crop top then ties them off above the cuts to make a tourniquet the bleeding slows to a manageable trickle and Ren eats a full second granola bar rationing her food after bleeding that much would only serve to get her killed.
Ren just curls up snow falling lightly as she shivers. She's cold, wet, and miserable with no way to have an actual building to sleep in, she's bad she'd hurt people and a bad person shouldn't ask for help, so using her shadows she ties some cloth up as a makeshift tarp it's not much but at least the snow isn't falling on her anymore her area is far from clean and she sneezes she hasn't been sick since right after her quirk manifested when mama made her chicken soup and sang to her, but Mama is gone Ren remembers her dads haunting words, mamas gone because of her.
Ren drifts in and out, in a bleary state of half-consciousness eyes watering as she shivers and sniffles. She hugs herself tight it's freezing, the slight chill from the blizzard has grown to biting and painful, nobody is on the streets and the snow is almost 6 inches deep. Ren hears people heading for the safety of the shelters but she doesn't feel like she deserves it and even if she did she can hardly move.
Ren completely loses consciousness being thrown into a hellish nightmare scape the hero she'd killed with her shadows tied lifelessly to a chair, blood trickling from his wounds. The pat on her head and the look of pure glee and pride in her father's eyes as he praises her the sound twists around her making shadows of the other people she had been forced to hurt. "I'm sorry!!" she tries to scream only to find she has no voice the floor shatters, dropping her into a room mama is there she gets mad and hits Ren "All your fault brat I wish you were never born you're a monster just like him." Ren tries to cry wanting to tell her mama that it wasn't her fault but still, no voice comes out as she remains rooted to the spot. Then the room tears apart like paper suddenly she's kneeling in front of her dad as he shreds a blurry photo.
The nightmare continues repeating the all too common one of the night her mom died, a younger her before her quirk manifested looks up at her asking why and telling her she's a horrible monster. Without a sense of time, the nightmare is seemingly unending. Now there's a swimming pool her dad pushes her in but as she sinks it turns to blood, she's coated in the liquid its coppery smell invading her senses. Next, she's paralyzed as she's torn to bits by her father's quirk it's like a horror show memory and fiction blurring together till she can't remember what is memory and what's a figment of her feverish mind.
Finally, it relents briefly in a warm embrace and the wonderful taste of chocolate only for that to be snatched away and engulfed in writhing shadows. Ren briefly wakes up only to see pure white nothingness she can't feel anything, and moments later slips back into her fever-dream.
The monsters made of her shadow claw at Ren, laughter that sounds exactly like her dad's ringing from them as they mock her cries calling her weak. "Please just leave me alone!!" She sobs out but it has no effect.
"You rotten brat, just like him, should have never been born, I'm so disappointed in you." Ren's mother's voice destroys her with harsh words as she curls into a tight ball covering her ears and closing her eyes but now the tortured screams and scratches won't stop invading her ears even when they're covered, her pathetic cries from whenever her dad got mad mixing with the screams of mama in the kitchen and of the poor people she had hurt creating a cacophony of screams that just won't leave.
"Please mama I'm sorry!!!" She finally finds her voice only to be ignored she sees mama trying to kill a little toddler Ren, that never happened though... Right? Then it all fades to a dull black nothingness still alive just barely, but with the cold her mind is too feeble to keep tormenting her.