#hitg

     Prologue:

     Thorns pricked my bare feet but I didn’t care. I just needed to get away. My filthy t-shirt billowed behind me, acting like a dress. A tree branch thwacked me in the left cheek and caught my hair. With too much adrenaline to care, I let it cut my face and rip out my tangled tresses. I could feel his daiquiri and smoke soaked breathing on my back and the loud, heavy galumphing of his feet trailing just behind mine. For such a large and not-so-sober person, dear god he was a good runner. I let the vivid green leaves stroke the fresh cuts on my bleeding arms and face. His throaty voice rose into a yell.

     "GET BACK HERE YOU LIL RUNT. I'LL SKIN YE 'LIVE AND HANG YE ABOVE THE FIREPLACE!" he bellowed, shaking the ground and making me stumble slightly. I choked on my own breath, running out of energy fast. I shouldn't have run, I shouldn't have tried to escape my fear. Suddenly the ground fell out right from under me, and I collapsed in agony to the ground. I looked at where I had fallen to spot a huge depression in the forest floor, miles deep perhaps, though my foot caught a tree root only a few inches from the border. Just enough to trip over. The tears in my eyes flowed freely down my burning cheeks. I couldn't breathe in the slightest. For a short second, I forgot about father, who was standing right in front of the hole in the ground, in front of me with a gun in his hand. He aimed, and fired. His drunk shooting missed my head, but instead nailed my right arm, at the top of my shoulder. He hissed and cussed while reloading. Meanwhile, I only just realized I was shrieking in agony. I hadn't heard my voice in over a week, I think. My vision blurred and darkened. Suddenly all color in my vision saturated. Father’s face turned bright red, the trees were bluer than the sky. Swirls of oil paints streaked and marbled the sky. Red, blue, green, whiteblackorangepurplered. Blinding hues of red. Suddenly my fuzzy thoughts are interrupted.

     “Who the HE—“ CRACK. I looked up at the red man who was previously towering over my body. His face, in pain and in shock. Like a tree, he landed with a thud, blowing dirt into my face. I grimaced and tried to find the one responsible for the blow. A woman stood in his place holding a large branch in her purple hands. Her full lips curved down into a disappointed frown, and she shook her head sadly.

     "Tsk tsk tsk. No man oughtta treat his lil one that way." Her voice was surprisingly deep, mellifluous and soft, despite her hardened look. "...Hey kid, you alive? He made one nasty hit to your arm." She poked at the ground by my side with the branch. Dazed, I nodded slowly, still catching my breath. The woman picked me up without a second thought.