Sticks, Stones and Fishing Hooks {Briar}

Sticks, Stones and Fishing Hooks {Briar} Jun 16, 2014 11:59:35 GMT -5

Post by ali on Jun 16, 2014 11:59:35 GMT -5

[presto]

Daria
1,002

Hope. Hope had been the last thing that Daria was holding onto and she was slowly losing grip of it.

Things had started to look better and she hoped that they would continue to get better; except she thought this every year. Around reaping time, the peace would be more fragile than ever. People would try drown their kids to stop them being in the reaping, fighting occasionally broke out so it was a busy time for the peacekeepers. Her father would have to help stop these, make arrests and aid in the preparation for the Capitol cameras to arrive prior to the reaping and so was weighed down with work for at least 2 or 3 weeks but when that short period of time came to an end, her father went back to his usual routine. Go to work, come home stinking of so much booze that Daria's nostrils burnt and then beat up Daria before going to bed. This year was no exception, a week after the reaping her father had come home drunk and struck Daria across the face with his hand for apparently, according to his sign, not listening. That was his form of some sick joke the young girl had thought to herself. Every night she hoped her father wouldn’t come home but every night he did.

Last night was one of those nights. Daria was already in bed by the time he had got home- she had hoped that he would not bother her if she was ‘asleep’ but he did anyway. He pulled her out of bed, his mouth moving furiously as he shouted mutely at his daughter, by her hair and flung her to the floor. Cowering, Daria slowly turned round to stare at the monster who was her father. As she did, she felt the cold metal edge of her father’s baton strike against her face. Blood and tears streamed down her cheek as her father pulled her hair back so that she stood up before he hit her again with the baton on her legs; he repeatedly beat her on the back of her legs until she could take no more, crumpling to the floor. Her father said something, not that she could hear because she was deaf, before kicking her hard in the stomach. For her sake, he left her there without touching her again that night.

Sobbing, Daria curled up on the floor where she must have fallen asleep because the next morning she woke up in that same spot. Blearily eyed, Daria pushed herself up onto her knees. Her legs still ached from the night before and her stomach too, but the most painful wound was the one on her cheek. The girl was afraid, afraid to look in the mirror to see what her sick father had done to her face; she wasn’t pretty but that was beside the point. There was blood on the floor, not a lot but enough to know it was probably deep. Carefully, Daria shuffled her way into the bathroom and turned on the light. The cut was not as bad as the bruising that was forming around it. She put her hand to her cheek to hide it but that hurt so she stopped that. Sighing, Daria decided it was probably time to get dressed and go out.

The sea breeze stung her cheek. Maybe coming out wasn’t the best idea she thought to herself as she clambered over the rocks to get to the little beach near her house. It was only a small one, with pebbles instead of sand, and you had to be careful not to be cut off when the tide came in otherwise getting back to the other side of the boulders was dangerous. The rocks were rusty red and easily became slippery when wet. Luckily the heat had dried the rocks enough to make it a little safer to clamber over the top of them and down the other side. Daria liked these rocks- sometimes she would find little greenish coloured nodules in them or shiny white rocks and if she was lucky, a dead starfish! Today she wasn’t so luckily, the storms weren’t as bad so creatures hadn’t been trapped on the rocks yet but there was still time. Summer was long so she had time to find something interesting.
Jumping down onto the pebble beach, Daria began to make her way to a rock pool which sat in the middle of the small cove. She liked rock pools because she nearly always found crabs inside which were her favourite animal, she thought they were cute and she even had a few books on them which one of her cousins had bought her. Clambering up to the pool, Daria peered in and watched the little echo system in there. There weren’t any crabs today but there was an anemone, a sea urchin and a little shrimp that spun around in the little puddle. It was so interesting that life could live in such a tiny pool of water as if it was living at the bottom of the sea! Sometimes when the puddles dried up, only crabs and anemones would survive because they were adapted in those environments. Watching the puddle, Daria thought about how it was to be like a crab. Going where ever you wanted.
Leaning back, Daria sat on the pebble beach and looked out to sea. Maybe one day someone would discover a new world beyond its waters. Maybe there would be new types of crabs there, for Daria to discover. It would be nice to go far away from here, away from her father and his constant beatings. Maybe she would find hope again there, but for now she was stuck here beside the rock pool watching the waves of the oceans retreat out to see then retreat in land to where it almost touched her toes; the water was cool and fresh against her stinging legs.

[/presto]