Chapter 1
Luna
"I don't remember how I came to be.
I just remember one day I began to question what I was and who I was and why was I here.
My life, my purpose and my mere existence held a huge question mark." Luna Diana Welder
It was a cold blissful night as I sat on the rocking chair outside my house with my blanket keeping me warm. I loved coming outside and just seeing the starry night with its mesmerising stars that shone so brightly, they looked like sparks rather than stars. As a shooting star shot across the starlit sky, I closed my eyes and made a wish.
When I was still in my teens, I would always look up at the stars and wonder: Are one of those stars my great grandmother looking down on me? Is it true that if I count the stars then I might wet my bed? Questions with answers I know all too well to would always pop up in my tiny brain. As I rocked myself back and forth, I tried to remember what I wished for. Careful what you wish for, a little voice behind my head said. I know I didn’t wish for anything that bad, for I know that what I wish for is what I always pray for every night that I crouch down on my knees and talk to the man upstairs.
I wished to find my mother and just hug her, I don’t know why she had to leave me with dad.
From the moment I could walk and cook, I lived with my dad and his abuse. I never complained for I thought that it’s his way of showing his love. I always wanted to make him happy in any way, I would always cook before he came home and clean the house, but nothing ever made him happy. At night he would creep in my room and sit on my bed, I would pretend to be asleep, but alas I would be awake wondering if I did something wrong. He would just sit there and mutter to himself like a mad man.
‘’She looks like that whore of a mother’’ he would say under his breath. At that age I was too young to understand that he meant it, as at times he would lay his hand on me, but then blame it on the booze.
Like one of all nights I remember, 12 years ago.
I was in bed doing my math homework when I felt a sharp piercing pain between my legs. I was wearing my black school skirt and black oversized shirt as I stood up and saw blood flowing down my thighs. I was confused, horrified and shocked that I ran out of my room, I locked myself in the bathroom and wept. I thought someone had cut me down there or did something to me, but the worse was still to come.
As I sat on the floor contemplating, I hadn’t noticed how the blood now stained the mattress and how there were small dots of blood following each other from my room to my toilet.
The bathrooms door knob rattled making me jump, followed by a loud banging sound.
‘’Open this door!’’ he growled as he banged harder on the door.
‘’No I can’t!’’ I yelled at him as I pulled my legs towards my chest
‘’Young lady are you bleeding?’’
‘’No, I am not’’ I tried to sound as calm as possible through a shaky voice.
‘’Then why are the trails of blood from your room to the toilet huh?’’
‘’I… uh… I cut myself’’ I stuttered trying to sound neutral as possible, the banging on the door then stopped.
‘’Let me see’’ he ordered as he tried turning the door knob aggressively ‘’I said let me see Luna or I am going to break down this door’’
I knew he was my father, but I couldn’t let him in, how could I show him the place where it all begins, will he understand me and try to comfort me?
How would he react?
He was my father after all, so I stood up and opened the door letting him in.
As he stared at me, I could already tell that he was drunk. His pupils were dilated and his eyes were bloodshot red, he swayed side to side and the stale smell of booze had me crinkling my nose.
He approached me and took my arm as he inspected me from head to toe, his gaze stopped between my legs were there were long lines of blood trailed all the way down my legs.
‘’What happened?’’ he slurred not lifting his gaze from my legs. I was silent at first, as I didn’t know to respond to that.
‘’Are you deaf!’’ the harsh words were like a punch in the gut as I flinched.
‘’Not gonna talk huh?’’ he let go of my arm and rushed out of the room.
I sighed and sank down on the hard cold floor as I thought I was safe from him. A few minutes of silence later, he came back holding a black whip in his hand, he had a drunken and sullen expression as he came in the toilet and locked the door behind him. In that moment, I wanted to lunge for the door but he put the key in his pocket. He kneeled down next to me and sighed while tapping his whip in his hand playfully.
‘’You know, you could just tell me what happened and this can all be over’’ his expression softened as he looked at my legs and back at me ‘’Tell me, who did this to you’’
I looked at the black whip in his hands and my heart started racing, I shook my head at him as I was too terrified of him to tell him that it just came on its own. I watched his soft expression change from concern to rage, and as a child, I never thought he could get angry at me, his daughter that he would always boast about to the neighbours.
