[Fiction] The Child

[Officelover]

Note: This is my "graphic" adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin's classic 1973 short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas". You might want to read the story here, for a deeper understanding of the setting. I've changed many details, but I'm attempting to stay true to the compelling questions the story raises about scapegoats and society. This is going to be a fairly short piece. Also, this story will be quite violent, disgusting, and, hopefully, also intellectually stimulating. Thanks!

* * *

I was thirteen when I first saw the Child. My mother took me to see it. She said that her mother had taken her to see it when she was thirteen, and her mother had seen it first when she was thirteen too.
She smiled reassuringly at me as we waited, in the children's section of one of the central library. I casually flipped through a storybook I'd picked up. I remember that the chair I was sitting in was very comfortable.
A matronly librarian in a light blue dress came up to us and asked my mom if we were looking to see the Child. My mother told her that it was my first time.
“Your first time?” the woman beamed at me, “What grade are you going into this year, love?”
“The eighth.”
“Why, then after this summer you'll be with the big kids. What do you like to do?”
“I like to read.”
“I'm always happy to hear young people say they enjoy reading,” she grinned, “Any favorite books?”
I told her my favorite books as she took my mother and I down the long, spiral staircase to the basement. She nodded and recommended more to me that I might like. When we reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs, she told us to wait so she could get the Child.
I hummed and swayed back and forth. My mother asked me if I'd like to go get ice cream after this. But before I could answer, a terrible scream came from the door she'd closed behind her. The only screams I'd ever really heard before that were when Daddy dropped his hammer on his foot, or when Mom burnt her fingers. I asked my mother what had happened, but she just raised a finger to her lips. The crying only got worse and worse until I heard a series of slaps that must have shut whatever was causing that screeching up.
The door swung open and the old woman pushed the Child ahead of her. It cowered, shivering, in the corner. It was naked, tall, and almost skeletally thin. It had long, slender arms, and scrawny legs. I tried looking into its eyes, but it looked down, curling up into a ball and covering its penis.
It could hardly be described as a child at that point; when I first saw it, I'd say it was nineteen years old. I was only thirteen, and even I didn't consider myself to be a child. The librarian began hitting it over the head, shouting at it to get up and to stop covering itself.
It did so, with what appeared to be reluctance, and it began to whimper softly.
“This is the Child, Yalda,” my mother told me.
It looked directly in my eyes, and blinked; I couldn't stand to look at it. I scrambled behind my mother's dress, not out of fear of the child, but afraid of the librarian who had seemed so nice only a minute ago.
I asked the librarian, “Why are you hurting it?”
She began to deliver an answer she had obviously repeated countless times before: “The success of our city—the bounty of our farmers, the pride of our craftsmen, the knowledge of our scholars, the joy of our artists—all depends on the suffering of this Child. It might be difficult to understand, but it has long been known that the happiness of everyone above depends on keeping this Child down.”
“There's nothing we could do to make,” I looked at the Child again, “him better?”
“We could improve his life, but we would bring unhappiness on Omelas.”
“Why?”
“That's how it is.”
“But why him?”
“It is all of the evil of our world. You know what evil is, don't you? We don't have much of it. The citizens of the other cities—they envy us because of our good fortune. Yet they never attack us, because we never attack anyone. We are content with what we've got, and poverty and hatred are virtually nonexistent in Omelas, right? We are succeed for one reason only: we channel all of our hatred into one, inconsequential Child.” Turning to it, she said, “Isn't that right?” as she pushed it face-first onto the floor.
It stayed there, and though my mother and the librarian talked for minutes, listing more of reasons and explanations of the importance of keeping the Child down, I couldn't stop looking at it, heaving on the floor, its vertebrae bouncing with every breath.
Finally, we left, and at her desk the librarian told me I was welcome to come to the Library whenever I wanted and to use the Child however I wanted—provided no one else was using it.
“Is it always here?” My mother asked for me, politely.
“No,” she answered, “it's hardly ever here. It really only sleeps here, when we allow it to. It's free to roam the city, but it tries to hide, I think, from people. Who knows what it does? Who cares?” She reached into her drawer and pulled out a green lollipop for me.
“No thanks,” my mother said with a laugh, “we're going out for some ice cream now.”
I didn't sleep that night. That was the first time I'd ever stayed up all night, and it was terror. The Child haunted my dreams, obviously, and I couldn't stop remembering it curled up, or how the librarian beat it over the head...
I remember wondering how I'd never seen it before, if it was free to roam Omelas. What scared me most, I think, was that in retrospect it was in a lot of my memories. I thought I had seen it lurking in the shadows of that year's Festival of Summer. It seemed to be in a lot of shadowy memories, or maybe I was just adding that ghoulish body in. Whether or not it was there, I couldn't imagine that kind of cruel treatment in memories so happy for me.
I cried for the Child.
I think all children do. My friends did, I recall. One day soon after, my best friend Lana and I whispered about the Child in school. We came up with a plan to free it—it was more just a game to us than anything else, but I would think about freeing it all the time.
Then I would imagine a great storm-cloud above the city, and heaven opening up and—

[Officelover]

By the time I was fourteen, I hated the Child, as most of us do. I don't know exactly what had changed my mind. I hadn't seen it again, and I still had the occasional nightmare with it. I think it was the fire that did it.
I had never seen fire before, outside of the fireplace in my home. Our family friends, Ievan and Len, and their crying baby Yon, had to stay with us for two months or so. Their house burnt down one winter day—bad luck I guess, but we all knew the Child had set it, everyone was saying it. Things like this didn't happen in Omelas. In Omelas, there are no fires or storms. That fire wasn't natural, and no one could have set it.
Omelas is a great city to grow up in. It's the only thing around for miles—a wall of sea on the east, endless endless to the west. There are other towns, across the ocean and downstream, but no one ever thought of visiting them. All their merchants and travelers couldn't wait to come to Omelas for vacation. The city wasn't one of gold, drowning in bullion, or the magnificent seat of a bloody empire. It was a great city in the sense that it is a terribly good place to be, not because it was grand.
There were no temples in Omelas. No soldiers, no politicians, no money really—you could barter for most anything—but we weren't simple people. We were intellectuals, I suppose—anarchists, socialists—all very idealistic, and very little of it nonsense. There was no discrimination in Omelas—men and women, people of all races, people of different worldviews—we just got along. We all considered each other human beings.
Omelas was fairly small. All the adults I knew growing up loved their jobs. My father was a baker. He used to love the feeling of dough in his fingers, and I'd help him bake on Saturdays. My mother was a painter. I used to sit for her every so often. She wasn't particularly good at painting, but honestly, I don't think anyone minded. I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, or maybe I've just forgotten. I don't remember much from my childhood, anymore.
Soon after the fire, I decided that I hated the Child. Gone were the days when I fantasized about freeing it. Now, I lay awake at night, imagining how I could hurt it for what it had done to those innocent people. I would rock back and forth, back and forth, thinking about how I'd like to hurt him.
One day, I finally worked up enough courage to go back to the library and ask the librarian if the Child was in. She said she thought she saw it go out the back door, into the alley. “Would it be dangerous if I went to go use it? Would it be able to fight back?”
“That thing?” She asked incredulously, “That thing can hardly stand up, let alone fight.”
So, I went to the alley where she said it had gone. I didn't see it anywhere, until I turned the corner and saw its raggedy, naked body sitting against a wall, with its head buried deep in its palms. While it wasn't looking, I gave it a big kick in the balls. As it looked up in bewilderment, I ran away giggling.
That was one of the first memories I ever touched myself to.

[TheFloss]

Oh wow that's heavy. Definitely appreciated the story, and super curious to see where your adaptation takes the concept.

[Officelover]

That wasn't the last time I used the Child. I started using the Child more and more often, until, when I was fifteen, it wasn't rare for me to see the Child twice a week, at times even more than that. My mother and father thought it was healthy and my teachers at school commended me on my community service hours.
I knew what sex was, and I forced it out of the Child. Sex was not a taboo in Omelas, it was a part of life. Sex and shame didn't mix. But still, I didn't even consider using The Child for sex to be... sexual. I lumped it together with the other tortures I would love to inflict on him. The librarian provided me with a small vial every time I asked her for it, containing a powerful medicine called Viala, which I would force him to swallow. It made his penis uncontrollably hard for hours on end, yet he was never able to reach an orgasm. Sex used to be rough between us; he was weak, and I was always pretty athletic. I had no trouble climbing on top of him, holding him down and riding his smallish cock. Sometimes, if he fought back and a couple of kicks to the balls couldn't calm him down, I would tie him to a table and gently ride him, at my own pace.
I never told anyone about having sex with him though, not except my best friends sometimes. As I said, I didn't consider it to be “intercourse”. He wasn't penetrating me as much as I was using him. It was almost exactly like masturbation, and masturbation isn't something to discuss. Not because it's shameful or taboo... because it's so mundane, and kind of private. I don't feel the need to tell everyone every time I shave, why should I make an announcement I masturbated with the Child's dick?
I used to love torturing that Child though.
I must admit, I loved kicking it in the balls. I don't know why. The reaction was just so sudden, so hilarious. Every time I did it, he doubled over and cried a little. It is an enormous advantage to have a male Child for that sole reason—it has such obvious targets for cruelty. I used to love seeing the Child grimace with pain when I would clap my hands with them in between, or when I would slap them twenty times in a row.
But gradually, I think it got used to its testicles being tortured, and I needed to come up with new, easy ways to punish it. I loved taking blood out of him. I would scratch his skin with a knife my dad gave me, drawing pretty designs in his arms or legs... seeing a little blood. I would take a long rose stem and whip it against his skin, watching starry-eyed as the thorns would stick in his skin. I would also use objects I found laying around to beat him, if I needed to.
Around the time I stopped hating him and just loved torturing him, I fell in love with humiliating him. I would always insult him before, while I was hurting him—calling him an idiot and a devil. But now, all I wanted to do was remind him that he was filth. I would take him out to the trash heaps and make him wallow around in the mud and the garbage, and I'd love to lay him down, clutch his balls in one hand and sit with my ass in his face. He'd lick it and I'd shit directly onto him. When I'd finished, I'd jump up and rub it all over his stupid face and laugh. Then I'd take a huge chunk of it and force it down his throat. If he vomited, I'd push his face in it.
I could list you a thousand ways I crushed him. I wasn't the only person I knew who used him like I did; I told my best friend, Lana, about how I used him, and she said her brother used to fuck the Child in the ass all the time. She suggested we go sometime, and torture him together. We made a great team. I would hold him down so Lana could ride him, and vice versa. The two of us made many memories with the Child in between us.
I didn't see anything wrong with it at the time, hurting it. Him.
Sometimes, after a long session, I would see him look down. He wouldn't stare at me, or glare, or show fear or hatred or pain. He would just stare at the floor, as if the floor wouldn't hurt him. It was only during moments of stillness like that that I felt... not remorse or guilt, but almost a longing to stop, to elevate him.
I don't know why I wanted to torture him. I don't think it was him, specifically. I think... because people don't hurt each other above, we have to sink below every so often to keep sane, you know? I wasn't even angry at anything... I just needed something to hit, something disgusting and terrible to remind me how wonderful my life was. The Child was that thing.

[uzaho]

Wow. This is strangely compelling. Good job with this!

[Officelover]

I couldn't believe it could talk. In two years of abuse, The Child said its first sentence to me when I was fifteen years old.
“I'm sorry, Yalda.”
That was all it said. I had just tied it to a chair and fucked its cock. I orgasmed three times, and then left him tied up. As I dressed, I saw out of the corner of my eye that the Child took it's free hand and started rubbing its penis. I pretended not to notice it at first, but it only grew more vigorous. Obviously, it believed that I couldn't hear it. I finally turned to it and said, “What, you disgusting animal? Did I ride your cock too hard, and now you want to cum?” I spit in his face.
That's when he apologized to me. I was taken aback. I asked him, “What did you say?”
He told me, “I just want to cum. May I?”
I didn't know what to say. He'd never asked me for anything before. I was kind of curious. I had never seen a man orgasm before, so I said, “Yes, you may masturbate for me.”
The child nodded and I drew up a chair. I untied him, and silently watched him as he moved his right hand up and down, up and down his cock. It was almost sacred looking, the silent intensity to which he assigned this chore. Gradually, the pace got faster and faster, and at last, he smiled for the first time when a whitish fluid came from the tip of his penis. It puddled at the base of the chair. I approached him, when I thought it was over, and picked up the fluid with my left index finger. I painted his face with it, and he moaned as I did so.
I pressed my index finger down onto his tongue, and without asking or forcing him to, he licked it. I got a chill in my spine all of a sudden, and I left him there.

[Officelover]

Things weren't really the same after that. I didn't go back for almost two weeks, and when I did, I felt like I wasn't being cruel enough. I actually felt guilty about that—and I ascribed my sadness to the increasing evil I had brought upon the city by “going soft” on The Child.
I came back less and less frequently. Every time I'd go, the Child would say something to me: “You look nice today, miss,” or “What would you like to do today, miss?” It almost seemed to be egging me on; no matter how I humiliated it, it only seemed to smile some weary smile at me. Even when I kicked its stupid balls in, it winced but never yelled or shied away from me. The fear was gone; I guess I had done everything I could do to it. Nothing phased it anymore.
One day, I went to the library, convinced I was going to break my 'weak streak' and put it back in line. I came in, ready to beat him, cut him, shit on him, do something... and I did nothing. I don't know why. I sat down in a chair, looked at him for an hour or two. Didn't say a word. I felt petrified, transfixed in his gaze.
The Child finally said to me, “Are you going to hurt me, miss?”
I looked at him a long time, and said at length, “No.”
I never hurt him again, but I came back. There was no restriction on time you could use him. I think the librarians grew concerned when they found him less badly damaged, and in generally higher spirits. But they never tried to get me to be crueler to him. I came back now three, four times a week, just to enjoy his company. At first, we didn't talk. Then one day I asked him to show me the city from his eyes.
We walked around all of the dark corners of Omelas. All of the places he felt safe, he was free from passers-by attacking him. We ran breathless from alleyway to alleyway. He knew his way around like a feral cat, knowing how to pinch food from such and such shop, or how to draw a sip of clean water from the fountain. At first I thought of his theft as justification for my treatment of him, and then I asked him why he stole.
“Because no one gives me food. I get hungry,” he said, somberly. Then he brightened up, and said, “Except you, Yalda—you've given me more to swallow than anyone else in this town.”
I had to smile at the thought of him being depraved and starved enough to enjoy my shit.
He said, “Come on, Yalda, I have someplace special that I want to show you.”
The Child took me to a back alley I'd never seen before. At the end of it there was a sewer drain. He lifted the circle up, and heaved it on its side, motioning for me to go down the ladder.
“I'm not going down there!” I whispered.
“Come on,” he said, “it'll be an adventure.”
“It's not safe!” I protested.
“I've been down there hundreds of times, never had any problems.”
I hesitated, but started down the rung ladder. It didn't smell as bad as I thought it would.
“There's a flashlight on your right, hanging on the wall,” he called down to me as he descended. I flicked it on, and saw that we were standing in the middle of a long tunnel. There was a sidewalk, and a sort of loud river of wastewater. With every step we took, I could hear an echo.
We walked a little ways to the right, and he stopped, holding his hand out in front of me.
“Hear something?” I asked nervously.
He whistled, and all of a sudden a swarm of large, gray rats came bustling forward, swimming across the river and hopping in front of us on the pavement.
“Hey, little guys!” he said, as one ran up his leg, perching itself instantaneously on his left arm.
I screamed. I'd never seen so many rats.
“What's the matter?” he asked.
“What's the matter?! There are... rats. Everywhere!”
“These are my friends,” he said, “they're harmless. They hide out here all day because the people of Omelas banished them to the sewers long ago.”
One of them came up to my shoes and sniffed my feet. I was about to kick it into the sewage river, but he calmed me, and held me in his arms. The rat climbed onto my shoe and wrapped around the trunk of my leg, curling up like a kitten. I must admit, it was one of the most bizarrely cute moments of my life.
“Do you have names for them?” I asked.
“Do you have a name for me?”
“No.”
“Would you like to know my name?”
I thought a moment.
“No, I'd like to name you.”
He smiled, and said, “As you wish.”
I looked at him, and said, “I'll call you... Shitface.”
He laughed, and said, “If that's really the best thing you can come up with.”
Standing there, silence sort of fell on us, and the roaring of the sewage river became more apparent. In that moment, for whatever reason, I wanted to humiliate him one more time. I pushed him into the river, out of the blue. He looked so surprised, and I laughed my ass off. His naked skin was soaked in that toilet water.
After a minute or so, I offered him my hand to get out of the river. He grinned slyly and pulled me into the river too. I couldn't believe it. My dress was completely sodden by that shameful stream, and I yelled at him. I pushed his head under the current, and tried to keep it there. I think I would have drowned the Child, Shitface, if... I don't know. Maybe I wasn't strong enough. But his head popped out, and he actually laughed in my face.
It was there, in the grayish wastewater of the sewer of Omelas, that I had my first kiss.
It was there that everything changed.


Thanks for the feedback guys, I'd really like to hear what people think about the story. Interpretations? Questions?

[kmacroxs]

What a twist

I didn't expect that to happen. But it's very good. You could very well be one of the greats of getDare.

[Officelover]

Sorry for taking so long to update! Hopefully more soon! Please comment, I love hearing what people have to say!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tungar Square is the center of Omelas. It is the largest marketplace of our city; things are bought, sold, and given away. (After all, charity is a value Omelas has always emphasized, though there are very few poor people to donate to.) Omelas never was a materialistic community—the people of Omelas weren’t acquisitive. Tungar Square was less of a place for things to be bought and sold than a forum for ideas to be exchanged. Poets would jot down things for you for a penny. The elderly would sit and play senet while discussing philosophy. Teenagers meet their friends at Tungar for lunch, and children too young for school learn about faraway places from the foods and exotic merchandise merchants imported.

And in the middle of it all, at the center of the center of Omelas, I was in the stocks. Two librarians woke me up well before dawn and dragged me through the streets as the sun yawned. I was still naked, and the morning air chapped my skin. They didn’t touch me once; all they had to do was order me to walk in front of them. I was too afraid to run off anyways.

When we got to Tungar, the first thing I saw that looked different was a wooden structure. I think I’d seen it once in a textbook once; it was called the stocks. Between two wooden boards, there were three holes for a person to put their head and two hands. They used it in other cities to punish people. One of the librarians, a man in his thirties, lifted up the top piece of the stocks. He told me to put my head and hands in its holes.

I hesitantly walked toward the structure. I put my head and hands in the little semi-circles. Quickly—as if he expected me to jump out—he thrust the top part down, and locked the unhinged end. I felt completely trapped. It was already such a vulnerable position. The stock was only as high as my waist. I was bent over, so my ass was completely exposed.

The other librarian said to me, “Today would be a good day for you to get used to being shaved.” She pulled out a razor, and said as she left my field of vision, “Besides, nobody wants to see your ugly cunt hair.” It was a bizarre feeling, having my pussy shaved so roughly, and not doing it myself. I didn’t think the hair was that thick… I had trimmed it regularly, not keeping it very thick. Granted, I hadn’t had access to a razor since the day they’d announced that I was the Child.

While she shaved my pussy, the other librarian went to go talk to some of the shopkeepers who were setting up. He casually returned with a group of them, saying, “I understand that you all lead very busy lives gentlemen, but I hope you’ll be able to volunteer with us.”

“Look, before I even think about spending time with that… thing,” one of them said, looking at me, “I need to know if it’s safe.”

“Yes, quite safe. But we need people to keep it down. Even if you could just spend a few minutes after work with it—I think you’ll find it very rewarding volunteer work. You can do whatever you like with it. That’s why I wanted to let you gentlemen be the first to use it today, before all of your customers arrive. We’ll be keeping it here the whole day, maybe longer. You can each do whatever you like to it until you have to attend to your shops. Sound good?”

They all seemed to think it was a pretty good idea. There were three of them. They sort of circled around me, like vultures, inspecting my body. All four of them had smiles on their faces. As if inspecting new wares, they prodded different parts of me. One of them cupped both of my breasts in his hand, squeezed them. One grappled both sides of my mouth and fish-hooked me. A third stuck his index finger up my freshly shaved pussy.

They seemed to know what they wanted to do with me. I can’t blame them. The first thing you want to do when you’re given free range with a person is have sex with them. Only after raping them do you get to the really fucked up stuff.

It was convenient, for them, that there were only three of them. It’s pretty easy to split a woman up for three people. For four people, you usually have one guy waiting on the sidelines to step in, which they generally find unpleasant. Three holes for three men.

The first one broke the ice by taking out his cock, and stroking it in front of my face. It was big, uncircumcised, and ugly. It tasted awful. I’ve gotten to know the different flavors of cock, and that was the bad one. I tried all three of their cocks, and the other two tasted considerably better. I think each one of them tried out each one of my holes. I have no way of knowing whether or not that’s true. I know that I felt each cock differently. They were bigger. In general, these three were better rapists than the police officers. It wasn’t that they knew what they were doing better, they just had more energy, or something. Perhaps they felt like it was less their job and more of an act of charity.

All three of them seemed to get satisfaction out of it, in of that they came.

[DrWhoFan77]

This is really great, please continue!

[Officelover]

Most of them may not have been raping me for fun, but there were a few for whom I got the distinct impression that they enjoyed my ‘company’ a little too much. These, who the librarians referred to as ‘the passionate ones’, came to me on an almost daily basis. Most of the passionate ones came for a month or two at a time; I never had more than three people passionate about me at once.

Yes, during the time I spent with the former Child, I would have been called a passionate one. The paradox about anyone so eager to destroy the Child, who takes so much pleasure in causing the Child pain, is that they seem to realize the Child is human. To take pleasure in someone’s dehumanization, you have to first accept that they are a person, to start with at least.

Near the end of the first year of my Childhood, I met a woman that would prove herself to be more devoted to me than all the others. She began a relationship with me that clearly was more important to her than any other in her life. I guess that’s how these things happen; when you feel alone in Omelas, when you can’t find people to love you, you turn to the only person you’re allowed to hate.

She seemed to be a bit of a loner the first time she raped me. She came alone, which was slightly uncommon for first-time women. She seemed nervous, as though she wasn’t used to talking to strangers. As if she would be talking to me long. She actually looked at me more sympathetically than most people did—I’m guessing she knew what it was like to be utterly friendless. I actually recognized a bit of myself, back when I was in her position, in her.

That sympathy was what scared me. When I saw that she recognized me as a human being, even if it was only at a subconscious level, I knew she would be working extra hard to make me as inhuman as possible.

She was clumsy, the first time she tried on the strap-on. She had me tied to the slab the library provided for such trysts, and seemed to run out of energy. She looked weak—she was extremely slender, a little shorter than average. Not particularly pretty, very small breasts, brown hair to her shoulders. The only thing distinctive about her with these beautiful greenish gray eyes she looked down at you with that belied her nervous demeanor. No matter how shyly she talked, those eyes showed how ruthless she secretly could be.

Her first rape wasn’t very impressive. As I said, she tired out quickly. She didn’t know what she was doing. But she came back, and kept at it. She raped me every Friday, for a couple of months, until she got good at it. I watched her grow through my pain; over the course of three years I watched her mature into a charismatic sadist. At four months in, she became the woman I feared most with the strap-on, and you could tell she was proud of her success. She was just as good at violating me as any man; she actually had an advantage over them, by not being to orgasm through the strap-on. She could last hours and hours.

She was unsettlingly quiet during the rape. She never made any sounds of lust, she never squealed or moaned. Sometimes I would yell myself breathless, or she’d put an especially thick gag in my mouth, and I would hear nothing but the flaps of my vaginal folds. She got me in many different positions, tightly bound in all of them. I was surprised that she didn’t try to get me to eat her out; almost all my female rapists did. For the first four months, while she mastered the strap-on, she didn’t orgasm once while raping me. For those first four months, I didn’t pay much attention to her. She was still just another weekly rapist. As good, maybe, as a normal man, but not much better, and not devoted enough to make me singularly miserable.

Her name was Morigana. I didn’t find out much about her, until much later. I gathered that she was in high school, not doing particularly well. It’s not that she wasn’t bright, or that she was lazy; she just had other interests. She was an excellent dancer, supposedly one of the best in Omelas. In my former life, before I was the Child, I remember passing her in the halls. I never said anything to her then—she was two years older than me—and I never said anything to her now.

Then one day, she asked me a question.

“Did you sleep with my father?” she spat.

I didn’t know whether or not to answer. I never talked to the people using me. It was a bad idea. It tended to provoke them more. She punched me, hard, in the face, and said, “I asked you—did you, or did you not, sleep with my father?”

I didn’t know. “I don’t know, ma’am,” I said, “I… I sleep with a lot of people.”

Her father, I would later learn, did indeed ‘sleep with me’, only a couple of days before. Her mother didn’t mind at all when he brought it up at the dinner table, as there’s nothing wrong with violating a cunt like me. But Morigana knew better. She was shocked that her father would commit, in her eyes, adultery. She knew I was human, she new it was a sin to rape me (if you’re married). And now, for my degradation of her father, she explained, she was going to degrade me.

[jcogginsa]

I like the introduction of Morigana. hopefully we get some good scenes of her, the summarizations aren't as good

[Officelover]

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, life is kind of crazy. I'll publish a great new installment soon!

[Officelover]

I don't know if it was fate. I don't know if a certain librarian held a grudge against me for getting the Child to leave in the first place. But for a moment I blinked and tried to process what had just happened. During this whole process I had been a little skeptical. I felt like I knew the old Child so well, better than anyone... how could someone else be the Child? How could I be the Child? That librarian must have lied about me! I would be punished in vain!

A million seamless thoughts spindled through my mind.

Someone in the crowd looked at me, quietly, as everyone shouted, “Find it!”
The instinct to run came through me. I tried not to draw attention to myself as I walked through the crowd, shouting to blend in. Once I was a street away, I made a run for it. I made my way back to the sewer, went down the ladder, and put my head down to sob.

“It isn't fair!” I shouted, “I'm not evil. Why me?” I didn't understand. It went against everything I was taught. I was taught to love myself and to realize that all of my evil was bundled up in the Child. How did all that evil find itself in me?

Maybe the Chile has corrupted me, maybe that’s why the librarian was so upset when I kissed it. Maybe I had made a subconscious decision to let it corrupt me, let it trick me all along. When I kissed the Child… maybe it spit all its curses into my mouth. I was furious, and I kicked the nearest rat I saw into the river.

I stayed down there what felt like three days in the dark. (It was only a little more than one.) I was trying to make sense of what had happened. I only got more confused. For a while, I hated myself. I thought that I should have stayed away from that Child and that it was my own fault; I really did deserve to be the Child, because I had let evil infiltrate me. But... no. I strengthened my resolve to put such thoughts out of my mind. Shitface, my Shitface, was not evil. He was the most fascinating person I knew, and I could talk to him more than I could talk to anyone.

After that maddening time in the dark, I knew I needed food, drinking water... light. So, I made my way up the ladder, and tried to remain hidden in the spots he'd shown me. I stole food, for the first time, where the Child ha taken it before. I nearly swallowed the bread whole, eating while standing up. I had to ask myself, “Is this what I've already become? A thief? Maybe I am evil, after all.”

But I knew I wouldn't have stolen if I thought someone would have given me food.
I didn't know where to go. The safest place to go would be home; my parents wouldn't turn me in. Not after all they had done for me.

So, I waited in the shadows for the sun to fall. A few hours later, and it was dark enough to go. I walked quickly, through the twists that the Child had taught me. The Other Child.

When I got home, the kitchen light was on. I went around back, careful not to be seen by the neighbors, and knocked on the back door softly. After a minute or two, I saw my mother pull the curtain to see who it was, and immediately she opened the door, nearly pulling me in. The first thing she asked was, “Did anyone see you? Where have you been?”

“The Sewers,” I answered honestly.

“The Sewers!” she said, with disgust, as we walked into our darkened living room. She stared at me a while, and said, “Then, it must be true. You must be the Child.”

“What do you mean? Mom?”

“To think, I’ve spent sixteen years of my life raising a monster.”

“Mom! I’m not a monster, I’m your daughter. Why do you say I’m a monster?”

“Only a wretched soul could live in those sewers. All this time, Yalda, that you spent with the Child. I was so proud of you. I thought you were saving us, one blow at a time. I shouldn’t have let you spend so much time with that fucker, he brought the evil out of you. Did he show you the sewers?”

I didn’t want to answer, but I felt honesty was the best choice here, so I nodded. “I thought so, “ she said, “I just can’t believe it. I can’t understand it.”

“Mom,” I pleaded, “you know me. I’m not the embodiment of evil, am I? Obviously, that librarian, conspired against me—”

“Don’t spread your lies! I can’t believe you.”

“When exactly, mother, did I become the child? When I was still your daughter? The moment the Child ran away?”

“I don’t know.”

“But, Mom, you know I’m not really—”

“I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know what I know.” She started crying. She collapsed into a chair. Evidently, the sound must have awakened my father, who came downstairs, turned on the light, and saw me.

“You’re back!” he said, shocked. “What did you do to my wife?”

“Your wife?” I retorted, “She’s my mother.”

“Well, you’re no child of mine,” he answered, “you’re The Child. Do you have any idea how much damage you’ve done to this family? We used to be respected, just as respected as any family. People won’t talk to us now. When I set up the bakery yesterday, not a soul came in to buy from me. Why did you do this to us, Yalda, after all we’ve done for you?”

“But, I haven’t done anything—”

“Haven’t done anything?” My father roared, “Then what do you call your mother’s tears?!” My mother only sobbed harder. “What did you come here for? What do you want to take from us? We’ve already lost our friends, my business. Have you come to take our lives?”

“Dad, I never meant to hurt you.”

“Well,” he said, approaching me, “I never meant to hurt you either.” He punched me, right in the eye. He pushed me up against a wall, and started kicking me hard. By this time, my mother seemed like she wanted to intervene, but she sank back down in her chair, too traumatized to speak. She was calm, as he pulled me out the door, into his car, and sped toward the library.

I don’t think I ever saw my mother again, after that night. I saw my father again, many times. But words couldn’t describe the animosity he felt toward me, the brokenness within me, as we drove together for the last time. When we got to the library, that temple of knowledge, we parked out front and he realized that the librarians would not be inside. It was too late in the evening. So, he drove to the police department—a tiny establishment, really, they hardly ever needed to be called upon—and barged in the door with me in his clutch.

“What’s the problem, sir?” One of the officers said, nervously.

“I have The Child here. She was hiding out from us.”

The policemen looked at each other, and smiled at me. “Where did you find her?”

“She was my daughter,” he said, “and she came to our house.”

“You did the right thing, bringing her here,” their leader said. “We’ll bring her to the proper authorities in the morning. In the meantime, Chapa, can you bring her to the cell?”

[ASlaveKindaGuy]

Woah! I definitely didnt expect that! Your story is amazing! Could you read my story and give me some tips? http://www.getdare.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=137366