Angst - Kein Welpenschutz (Für's Team)
Titel: Rage
Challenge: Angst - Kein Welpenschutz (Für's Team)
Fandom: Being Human Apocalypse AU
Charaktere: Christa Stammers
Sprache: Englisch
Ever since it happened, she dreams about hurting the ones she loves.
Rage
Ever since it happened, she dreams about hurting the ones she loves. A single moment would be enough, one slip of her control, to do something she would regret for the rest of her life.
Her own strength scares her to death.
And she is a teenager. She yells at her brother and fights with her parents about everything and anything, about doors that aren’t closed and books that aren’t returned and other stupid, stupid things, but no more, no more. She doesn’t argue anymore. She lets Toby take her stuff, she doesn’t disagree about the curfew. She doesn’t defend her declining grades either, just stacks her test results onto the kitchen table and disappears into her room as quickly as possible. When her mother asks about them, she has nothing to say.
She learns to bite her tongue hard enough to draw blood, to keep the words inside, so many words until it feels like she will choke on them, because she is afraid of what will follow. She can’t remember the last time she shouted, the last time she threw something, all anger is ground down inside of her until there is nothing but sorrow. She picks things up softly, closes doors gently behind her. She crawls as deep inside of herself as far she can manage until she becomes a ghost in her own home.
Of course her parents are worried about her. But worried is better than dead.
At night she wakes up drenched in her own sweat, sobbing at the unspeakable things she saw herself do. The blood of her mother on the neat tiles of the kitchen floor. Her brother’s limp body in a corner of his room like a discarded puppet. But her father is the worst because he just can’t believe what he sees, doesn’t have a place in his world for her to exist, for her to do the things she does.
She wishes this could be true for her still.
And now all their worlds contains this, these creatures that were once human and now don’t look like humans at all, and it feels like someone pulled a cruel joke on her. You think you’re inhuman, dangerous, terrifying? Look at this.
She looks at them and every inch of her body rebels against what she sees.
This time it truly feels like the end of the line. There are three of them in the alley and they have nothing to defend themselves except her father’s shot gun and the iron bar in her trembling hand. Not enough, not enough. Her own heavy breath is impossibly loud in her ears.
“Christa!”
They want her to run, her mother has lifted Toby up while her father shouts for her. But there’s nowhere to run, nowhere they wouldn’t follow, and somehow that feels worse, being slaughtered running, with their backs turned to what’s happening. In the dreams she had as a child she always had to stop in the end, to turn around and face whatever she was running from before she could wake up. But there’s no way to wake up from this dream.
They haven’t moved yet. They don’t quite know what she is.
A voice in her head whispers They’re gonna kill your brother and your mother and your father, they’re going to kill everyone you ever loved.
No.
NO.
And suddenly she understands with sudden clarity the evolutionary need for rage, for situations where fear wouldn’t do because there was nowhere to hide, where kindness was useless because the enemy was not kind, where anger was all that was left.
And she allows it to consume her.
Her hands become fists, the fingernails digging into her skin, the tension running up her arms making her tremble. The hot tears running over her cheeks lose all meaning. She screams with bared teeth, spit flying out of her mouth as she slams the iron bar into the first creature with such a relentless force that it feels like it rips her arm off.
The second creature launches itself at her before she can turn and she is thrown onto the ground. Claws pierce her shirt and the flesh of her left shoulder, but the white-hot pain only adds more fuel to the fire.
She feels the heat flare in her core and rise up, setting her nerve endings on fire. Her bones crack and break, her skin moves, but there’s no pain, just strength breaking through the surface. The iron bar slips from her grasp as her fingernails become claws and her teeth grow long and sharp. Her scream becomes the snarl deep in a wolf’s throat.
She welcomes it with every fiber of her being.
There’s no room for hesitation or doubt. She tears them apart. There’s no other word for the gruesome action, for her teeth ripping into skin, the feeling of bones splintering beneath the merciless power of her jaw. The last of the creatures is tossed aside like a ragdoll.
And for the first time, she is grateful for what she has been given.
Challenge: Angst - Kein Welpenschutz (Für's Team)
Fandom: Being Human Apocalypse AU
Charaktere: Christa Stammers
Sprache: Englisch
Ever since it happened, she dreams about hurting the ones she loves.
Rage
Ever since it happened, she dreams about hurting the ones she loves. A single moment would be enough, one slip of her control, to do something she would regret for the rest of her life.
Her own strength scares her to death.
And she is a teenager. She yells at her brother and fights with her parents about everything and anything, about doors that aren’t closed and books that aren’t returned and other stupid, stupid things, but no more, no more. She doesn’t argue anymore. She lets Toby take her stuff, she doesn’t disagree about the curfew. She doesn’t defend her declining grades either, just stacks her test results onto the kitchen table and disappears into her room as quickly as possible. When her mother asks about them, she has nothing to say.
She learns to bite her tongue hard enough to draw blood, to keep the words inside, so many words until it feels like she will choke on them, because she is afraid of what will follow. She can’t remember the last time she shouted, the last time she threw something, all anger is ground down inside of her until there is nothing but sorrow. She picks things up softly, closes doors gently behind her. She crawls as deep inside of herself as far she can manage until she becomes a ghost in her own home.
Of course her parents are worried about her. But worried is better than dead.
At night she wakes up drenched in her own sweat, sobbing at the unspeakable things she saw herself do. The blood of her mother on the neat tiles of the kitchen floor. Her brother’s limp body in a corner of his room like a discarded puppet. But her father is the worst because he just can’t believe what he sees, doesn’t have a place in his world for her to exist, for her to do the things she does.
She wishes this could be true for her still.
And now all their worlds contains this, these creatures that were once human and now don’t look like humans at all, and it feels like someone pulled a cruel joke on her. You think you’re inhuman, dangerous, terrifying? Look at this.
She looks at them and every inch of her body rebels against what she sees.
This time it truly feels like the end of the line. There are three of them in the alley and they have nothing to defend themselves except her father’s shot gun and the iron bar in her trembling hand. Not enough, not enough. Her own heavy breath is impossibly loud in her ears.
“Christa!”
They want her to run, her mother has lifted Toby up while her father shouts for her. But there’s nowhere to run, nowhere they wouldn’t follow, and somehow that feels worse, being slaughtered running, with their backs turned to what’s happening. In the dreams she had as a child she always had to stop in the end, to turn around and face whatever she was running from before she could wake up. But there’s no way to wake up from this dream.
They haven’t moved yet. They don’t quite know what she is.
A voice in her head whispers They’re gonna kill your brother and your mother and your father, they’re going to kill everyone you ever loved.
No.
NO.
And suddenly she understands with sudden clarity the evolutionary need for rage, for situations where fear wouldn’t do because there was nowhere to hide, where kindness was useless because the enemy was not kind, where anger was all that was left.
And she allows it to consume her.
Her hands become fists, the fingernails digging into her skin, the tension running up her arms making her tremble. The hot tears running over her cheeks lose all meaning. She screams with bared teeth, spit flying out of her mouth as she slams the iron bar into the first creature with such a relentless force that it feels like it rips her arm off.
The second creature launches itself at her before she can turn and she is thrown onto the ground. Claws pierce her shirt and the flesh of her left shoulder, but the white-hot pain only adds more fuel to the fire.
She feels the heat flare in her core and rise up, setting her nerve endings on fire. Her bones crack and break, her skin moves, but there’s no pain, just strength breaking through the surface. The iron bar slips from her grasp as her fingernails become claws and her teeth grow long and sharp. Her scream becomes the snarl deep in a wolf’s throat.
She welcomes it with every fiber of her being.
There’s no room for hesitation or doubt. She tears them apart. There’s no other word for the gruesome action, for her teeth ripping into skin, the feeling of bones splintering beneath the merciless power of her jaw. The last of the creatures is tossed aside like a ragdoll.
And for the first time, she is grateful for what she has been given.