Chapter 01 - Cat Eyes

I had barely laid down when the muffled sound of shouts woke me up. I turned in bed and saw that Yvonne had also awakened in the adjacent bed.

We didn't say anything to each other, but our looks spoke volumes. Being awakened in the middle of the night by fights and breaking objects downstairs was a common occurrence for both of us.

More insults and curses filled the air. My parents, the Veilhearts, were almost always too drunk to care about our sleep or what the neighbors thought. The Veilhearts were the most disliked in the neighborhood due to the constant fights and drunkenness that everyone witnessed with disapproval.

"Thalassaaa!" Edith's voice sounded slurred in the shrill shout at the foot of the stairs. "Come on, you lazy one! Come down here!"

I sighed. For Edith and Simon, we were just like maids. Lying face down, I wondered how my life would be if my mother hadn't died. Edith was actually my stepmother. I had no memories of my mother, who passed away when I was 3 years old. Life was already complicated with Simon, but after he and Edith got married and Yvonne was born, everything got worse.

"Thalaaassaaa!" Edith continued to shout downstairs.

I got up, grabbed a coat, and went down the stairs. Edith and Simon were sprawled on the couch, their eyes red. They could barely balance their heads to look at me.

"Your father needs coffee! I think he drank a bit too much."

"For his entire life," I thought, but I knew it was better not to say anything. My parents became even more violent when they were drunk.

"Go there, Cat Eyes." My father mocked. "You have alley cat eyes." Simon and Edith started laughing uncontrollably.

They mocked me for having eyes of different colors. My right eye is green, but the left one is blue. The family had been making jokes about it since I was a child. One day, Yvonne brought home a stray cat with eyes of different colors. The poor thing was thin and sick. When my father noticed the cat's eyes, he decided to name him Thalassa.

I grabbed a kettle and put water for coffee on the stove. I lit the fire and waited for it to boil.

When I was little, I pretended that my mother wasn't dead and that she would come back for me soon. But now, at 23, I knew that wouldn't happen. When I turned 18, I decided I would leave. But no matter how hard I tried, I was always brought back. No matter where I went, Simon could find me and always convinced people around that he was a concerned father with his troubled daughter. After seeing him, no one else agreed to help me.

Yvonne and I could barely read and write; we had never attended school. The little we knew had been taught by our neighbor. When we were little, an old lady named Ava, who lived next door, taught us many things, including how to make bread and how to read and write. As incredible as it sounds, my father was never able to find me when I was at Ava's house. That's where we hid to avoid the beatings we took when our parents were drunk.

But one day, old Ava left, and it was the greatest pain I felt in my life. Since then, hope began to fade in the Veilheart house. After countless escapes and always being found and forced to return, I wonder if at some point I will be free from my family.

"This coffee is taking too long!" The stepmother appeared in the kitchen door. The very red hair was messy. The heavy makeup was all smudged. "You're so slow and lazy."

"I should be sleeping, Edith," I replied without looking at her. "It's 2 a.m. You should be sleeping too."

"Who are you to tell me what to do?!" Edith staggered. "You know what you need? You need a lesson!"

Edith grabbed the kettle on the stove and came toward me. When I realized what she intended, I grabbed her hand, and we both struggled, the hot steam from the kettle dissipating into the air. She fought to pour the hot liquid on me. I was determined not to give in this time. I knew I couldn't allow her to hurt me again.

"Enough, Edith! Enough of violence!" I finally shouted, my mismatched eyes fixed on her furious eyes.

Yvonne appeared at the kitchen door, watching the scene with wide eyes. The tense atmosphere fell silent for a moment as Edith, surprised by the resistance, stepped back.

"You're nothing, Thalassa! Nothing but a burden to us!" Edith spat the words with hatred, but something inside me seemed to explode. It was as if the almost-extinguished flame of determination ignited in me again.

"Maybe it's time for me to be something more, something different." I spoke with a calmness that surprised everyone in the room. Releasing Edith's hand, I took a few steps back.

"You're not going anywhere, insolent girl!" Simon, my father, intervened, getting up from the couch with difficulty due to alcohol. "You're our responsibility."

But I had already made a decision. I looked at Yvonne and said firmly:

"Let's go, Yvonne. We deserve more than this. We're not obliged to live like this."

My sister followed me out of the kitchen, leaving behind the chaos of that tumultuous night. The path ahead was uncertain, but I knew I had to try, not just for myself, but also for Yvonne. Together, we would face the unknown, hoping to find a different life, away from the suffering and humiliation that marked us as different in that house full of pain and bitterness.

I slammed the back door much harder than I intended. Anger took over my body. The cold night wind made Yvonne shrink as she sat on the old kitchen steps.

"You know we can't go, right?" She spoke quietly so our parents wouldn't hear. "Simon would bring us back faster than we can say 'freedom.'"

I ran my hands over my face. There was a single thought in my head now. Simon couldn't follow them if he were dead. I believed that jail was less bad than the house where I had lived.

This is so unfair!

A noise on the street caught our attention. I tried to understand the figure approaching the low wall of our house. It seemed to be a very large and strong man. Yvonne got up and tried to open the door for us to go back in. However, the damn door seemed jammed.

Silently, we tried to hide in the darkness. This wasn't a very safe neighborhood for two women at 3 a.m. But to our surprise, the figure simply jumped over the wall and came toward us.

"Good evening, girls." The deep voice had a mocking tone. "Don't be so nervous. I won't hurt you. I just need... well, have a little chat with Simon."

In the semi-darkness, I could see that the man had black, straight hair, and his features were interesting. But most importantly, that stranger seemed to have business to settle with Simon.

We heard a dull thud, and another figure came closer to us. Thalassa felt that Simon might be in trouble. And that seemed great. Maybe they could escape while that happened.

The sound of breaking glass inside the house made Yvonne shudder and cling to me. The first man put a finger to his lips in a request for silence.

"Come on, Gavin, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this fairy." The man kicked the door, which gave way immediately. The two men entered the house.

Thalassa didn't understand what that sentence meant, but there was no time to lose. Hand in hand with Yvonne, we started running toward the street and jumped over the low wall.

The dark and cold night embraced both of us as we left, but there was a spark of determination in my eyes. I didn't know what the future held, but I was willing to find out, refusing to be just a toy in the cruel hands of the Veilhearts.The sound of screams reached us as we moved away. Yvonne began to slow down, but I tightened my grip on her hand, and she resumed running. And then things got even stranger.

A man appeared in front of us, seemingly out of nowhere. We couldn't even slow down before colliding with him with full force. We fell backward onto the hard ground of dirt and dust.

In the lamplight, I noticed something else that had escaped me. That man, like the other two, was dressed in strange clothes. They looked like Viking warrior cosplays or something similar. There was leather, animal skins, and a large sword. All were equally large and strong. And that one definitely wasn't there a few minutes ago. It seemed to have come out of the ground.

"Where do you think you're going, Chimera?" His voice sounded like thunder, and he looked directly at me.

It seems it wasn't just my father who was in trouble.