The seasons

[Tussa]

OOC: This is a story of Lilles early years, of what happened to her and maybe a little explanation on why she hates drugs so much, for those of you who has talked to her about that. She doesn't remember much of those days, and still don't know the truth. I'd like to keep it that way until later on

[Tussa]

It was summer. The sizzling twin suns was very hot on the skin and the landscape was scorched and twisted in it's lack of water. Life was lazy days and thrill-seeking actions, always pushing on for the next boost.

In the soft light of a day turning evening, the young girl walked towards the gates of Athen. Her eyes were restless and dark, but no soul in them. She stopped once, by a puddle, to wash the dust off her hands and arms, and then continued towards the city. The city of Dreams. The city of Rush. Where her friends lived. Where money could be spent easily.

The guards gave her a disapproving look, but let her through. They knew her well. The daughter of the junkyard worker. She had been going through these gates her whole life, and one of the guards had held this position for years, seeing her grow up. She had been a shy little girl, grown into a bursting flower, but now...fading to a shadow. He thought to himself what a shame it was...young people losing their lives like this. Before they had even begun. The blasted stims! But...he couldn't do anything, so he just simply nodded to her and gave a small smile as she passed. She didn't acknowledge him.

Once through the gates, she turned left, to the lowly parts of the city. She waved weakly to some other young people huddled together. One of them, a handsome young boy, taller than her, grinned as she joined them.

The boy asked if she got hold of the creds. He was no more than 15 years, but tall and burly for his age. His voice had changed years before, and if it wasn't for his eyes, people would have thought he was much older. She nodded and smiled to him. With fumbling hands, she linked up the creditchip to the reader he held out. Just milliseconds later the reader beeped a happy tune, to confirm the transaction.

She took the creditchip, the stims the boy gave her and kissed him on the cheek. Then she left the group of youngsters, to explore the inner sanctums of her mind again, with these lovely stims.

[Tussa]

It was autumn. The wind began to sting in its chilly bursts. The nights were cold and brought promise of a harsh winter. Life was a continuous struggle to get the next fix, a race between the kids on the street on who could get the most creds to buy stims for.

She lay awake in the gutter in the bad parts of the city. Her hair was dirty and looked like a chirops nest. Her skin was dry and without glow. The lips were cracked and pale. Dark rings under her eyes gave witness of a rough life. She was 14 years old.

Her thoughts hurt. They were physically painful, and stabbed her head like a thousand tango dirks. Better to not think, she concluded. Not think about the people she hurt, the people she had beat up, robbed the sound, the smells....it was too real. A roaring wind torturing her ears. Hazy figures moving in and out of view. Walking and walking on, unable to orient herself. She woke up in the middle of the night and felt a nausea build up. Trying to stand up was futile, she wasn't even able to sit up, so she just vomited where she lay, then crawled a bit away after she was done. Her head was booming, spinning...and she didn't remember much from the day before. All she knew was that she had gotten hold of a few stims of the heavy kind.

She hadn't spent the night at home for a few days. She used to always go home, no matter the hour. Taking care of her father, tending his bruises and massaging his aching muscles after a long day at work. Making food for him, and pretending it was luxurious meals made for the rich and famous. Then her older brother would come home and the three of them would sit together and just chat. She loved her tiny family, and even if their home was nothing more than a shack, she felt safe there.

When morning broke she felt a little better, and staggered through the gates to go home and make her dad some breakfast and massage his feet before he had to go to work. The poor man was probably worried about her, but she knew he would be happy when she came home. A quick stim, and everything was looking much brighter and better. A faint smile escaped her as she thought about her bed and some food to eat.

As she approached the shack her family lovingly called home, she could see strangers, bots and even a hover-pad with some big lump on it. Warily, she closed in. Who were these people, and what were they doing in her home? One of the guards saw her and started walking towards her. He quickly ran some sort of challenger program, as if trying to use his body as a shield for some reason, making himself bigger and broader, huffing and puffing. Why? Was he hiding something from her?

The hover-pad attracted her attention. Even in the influenced mind, the horrible thoughts came sneaking. The lump. Big. Shaped like...like her dad. She darted out from behind the corner she had been standing at, and rushed towards the pad. The man who was walking towards her was too slow and couldn't stop her. Neither could the rest. The body-sized floater gave in a little as she bumped against it, not being able to stop her own speed herself. Without a word she tore off the blanket that covered the lump...

[Tussa]

It was winter. The days were gloomy and cold, only ever followed by even colder nights. She had no home any longer. Life was begging for food, robbing people, killing those who strayed too far into the slums of Athen. All for the sake of credits to buy drugs.

She had been alone for a week now. Her father dead, murdered, their house robbed, their credchips stolen, everything in ruins - she had nothing left. Nobody cared for her, she was only filth in other peoples eyes. His body had been so pale, and his once so round and happy cheeks were dead and grey. His chest was bloody, the murderer had cut in the letters O and T on it. The side of his head had a bump. A big bump inwards, like if he was made of clay and someone had just pushed their finger through his head.

That was what had killed him, she was told later. A severe blow to the back of the head, crushing his skull and doing irreparable damage to his brain. He had probably slipped during the fight with his attackers and hit his head on the corner of his workbench. They were poor, and they had no insurance. He was dead forever...never to return to her again.

Her brother was missing. The investigators thought he had killed their father and taken everything of value with him, but she refused to believe it. Felix would never do such a thing. She feared he was killed too. By the monsters that had taken her fathers life. People from Omni-Tek. Rogues, robbers, thieves, murderers. She hated them, whoever they were. One day she would find and kill them.

The next day a friend of hers came rushing up to her. She was in a horrible mood, feeling the abstinence with full force - she had to get hold of credits! Feelings of despair and hopelessness won her over, and she started crying when she saw her friend. He tilted his head and asked her if she wasn't happy to see him, now that he had fixed the chip.

She didn't fully understand him, not until he extended his arm, opened his palm and unveiled a small creditchip. He told her that all the blood had close to destroyed the circuits, and that it had taken him a very long time to fix it after she gave it to him, all messy and breathless, at least it was usable now, but wouldn't her dad be su****ious by now, with the chip missing?

She looked at the chip in her hand, then at her friend. Through a fog she thanked him, kissed him on the cheek and stumbled away from him. The chip was clean, but to her eyes it was covered in her fathers blood. It hit her with full force as she remembered - she had been the one who killed her father. After weeks...months of endless, heavy stim abuse, she had walked home, looking for things of value, rummaging around. Her father had walked in the door, and they had started an argument. He had slipped, and the next second he was dead.

She panicked. Carved OT on his chest, messing up their home, crushing, breaking, destroying, grabbing a few items...all to make it look like a robbery. Nobody would care, she thought, and she had been right. Investigation was closed down only one week later. Afterall, he was merely a junkyard worker, mugged and killed. Nothing to spend much time on. No one would suspect his 14 year old daughter.

She had returned to the city, sold the few things she had taken with her, and gotten hold of a friend to fix the credchip. Desperation was her only drive, and finally she had gotten her hands on stims. Quickly, swiftly...hurry now...ahh....the soothing feeling of the drug rushing through her veins, the blankness in her eyes as she had slid down along a wall, covered by a dirty, bloody coat.

She had forgotten what had happened, expelled it from her mind. It was too much. She fell to her knees and let out a long painful wail.

[Tussa]

It was spring. The twin suns were warming up the lands again, and life blossomed. The birds sang concertos of joy and virility...leets were breeding like mad outside the city walls. Life was beginning another cycle, both for animals and mankind.

In the bright sunlight a young girl sat rocking back and forth on a wall in the city of Athen. Her hands were clutched around a small credit chip. Small and broken. She was muttering words only she could hear. They were telling about how omni robbers killed her father. How she was left orphaned. How she was alone in life. How she one day would find her lost brother and they would find the murderers together. Over and over and over again. She believed her own words, had pushed the memories of what she had done far, far away, to a place she couldn't dig in knowingly.

Acceptance had been very hard, and in the end, on the tip of a cliff, wanting to end her own life, a mix of drugs and grief had worded a fantasy she was to live on for long years after this. She didn't kill her father, of course she didn't. He was murdered by omni affiliated thieves, scum who loitered in the vast area of Aegan...intercepting people and breaking into homes. Yes...that was the truth.

She had tried to stop the drug abuse, well aware that it was the road of death for her. Her body was still growing, changing...she was too young to scan for insurance, and ultimately, drugs would kill her before she could, unless she was able to get on the right track. In her mind she used the murder of her father as motivation, never knowing it was a hunt for ghosts, never suspecting she herself had anything to do with it.

During the spring she cleaned up, with only a few setbacks. During the spring she met a person, a young man, a few years older than her. She didn't know she would marry him 14 years later, she didn't know he would lead her to the road she would walk, the hand she would hold, the lips she would kiss or the man she would love more than anything. His name was Damon, and they became friends. Talked about how they would go to school, about their past, about the future.

Life was brightening up again. After meeting Damon she never robbed people again, never used drugs again. But inside her a hatred flared still, for the people who had taken her family away, and a longing for her lost brother, who she missed so horribly much. But for now, the young girl laughed again for the first time in a long time. Life was looking a little better, and she slowly blossomed again. Seasons had passed, life had changed and finally, she was on the right track.

[Demenzia]

(("More than meets the eye", huh, nee-chan? *smiles*))

[Tussa]

[Shhh... ]

[Demenzia]

((You're SO mean to me again, nee-chan. I HAVEN'T said anything. And by the way, this ISN'T a shameless bump ))