By Ariel
Rating: R
Warnings: reference to past NCS, violence, dark, Ariel-POV.
Disclaimers: Ariel, Midnight, and any character related to the orphanage or that I have already introduced are mine. Anyone else… is being borrowed (such as the man who pops up ^_^). Nothing is being made from this. I’m just using them for my own writing pleasure and that writing is being shared with some of my family and friends.
Notes: This chapter – is a mix of different things as you will see. It also is one chapter that I feel is very important because a few major things happen. Some are subtle, some are obvious. If you’re unsure, ask and I shall explain. ^_^
Dedicated to my inspiration... you should know who you are.
Voices.
I kept hearing voices. Many different kinds of voices. Voices that terrified me. Voices that taunted me. Voices that yelled at me. Voices that comforted me. Voices that soothed me. Voices that were concerned about me. A voice… that spoke to me?
I tried desperately to figure out just whose voice it was as I slowly came out of my exhaustion-induced slumber but all I was able to determine was that it belonged to a male. A male that was not Midnight. A male that was in the same room as I was. A male that I did not know.
A whimper escaped my lips as I felt a wave of fear wash over me. I needed to escape. I needed to be safe again. I needed Midnight to help me like he did once before. But… where was he? I couldn’t sense him. Had he abandoned me? Had he felt I wasn’t worth any more of his effort to keep me safe and to continue loving me? Had I done something so wrong that he couldn’t answer my silent calls? Dread began to fill me and I realized that I wasn’t worth anything – to anyone. The truth of that hit me very hard.
My thoughts were rapidly changing from one thing to another. It wasn’t until the bed I was in sunk down beside me that I felt fear once again. I struggled to open my eyes but I just couldn’t. My body did not want to cooperate willingly and it made me panic even more. I somehow managed to pull my arms free from the warm blankets and fought off the hands that tried to catch me. I felt tears fall from my eyes as I shook my head, my feet trying to kick away the blankets so I could try to run.
That same voice kept talking – still sounding soft and soothing but at the moment, that did not matter to me. I wanted to get away from him. I wanted to get away from wherever I was. I wanted to feel safe once again. I wanted to…
The thought left me as I felt a set of very strong hands grab my arms and hold me down. The familiarity of it was agonizing. I couldn’t let another man do to me what some have already done. I gasped as I felt the weight from the man not exactly on top of me but to my side. That in of itself freaked me out to no end.
I managed to toss off the blanket from my legs and struggle against the man who would not stop talking in that soft voice. I think I kicked him because I heard him wince a little despite his attempt to remain sooth-sounding. That itself was quite odd. Why would he still speak that way if he only wanted me for the same reason the others had? Why hadn’t he already done his deed and left me alone much like the doctor had? It didn’t make much sense to me.
Those thoughts soon left me. When he released one of my shoulders and placed his hand on my hip in attempt to still my kicking legs, I lost it completely. I screamed at the top of my lungs and I found myself able to push him off of me with strength I had not felt in a long while; my eyes snapped open – large and wild with fear. He landed with a loud “Thump!” and a groan but I didn’t care.
I felt my magical energy level surge deep inside of me as I sat up, scooting as far back on the bed as I could. I moved far enough away from him before I stared at the man on the floor. He looked oddly familiar but I couldn’t put a name to his face. He looked quite startled as he turned his eyes up to me. As he carefully stood up, I flicked my eyes wildly around me – trying to figure out what I should do. The wall was to my right and there was a little table to my left with a plastic cup filled with water, a small radio and a stand-up mirror.
I looked over to him again and I saw him coming towards me. His mouth was moving, saying words that I couldn’t decipher. Panic filled me and all I could think of was getting away – somehow. When he moved his hand towards me, I gasped and reached out, spilling the cup of water and knocking down the radio, managing to smash the mirror into several pieces.
One of those pieces was easily about four-inches long and I grabbed it, wincing as the sides of the glass cut through my fingers but I didn’t care. I turned my head just as he shook his and reached out towards me. Once again, I panicked and shifted the long shard to my other hand, slashing it over my left wrist and up the inside of my forearm a few inches, crying out and wincing as the pain consumed me.
I thought it would make me feel better. I thought it would help me overcome this… feeling of disgust. I thought it would end things for me so I didn’t have to remember everything that has happened to me since I came to America. But it didn’t. Instead it numbed me. It numbed me so much that I couldn’t feel the pain anymore. I couldn’t feel that strong, yet soothing magical energy from before either – it was as if something had changed within me and I couldn’t put my finger on it.
I stilled, sitting and watching as the blood flowed freely from my left wrist, not really paying attention to anything anymore as the shard was removed from my right hand – which was already covered with my blood. Tears flowed from my eyes as I felt the bed shift again and the man sat on the bed beside me. He had a few supplies with him – I guess he had gotten them from somewhere in the room we were in because he never once left since I had woken up.
I sniffled as I watched his hands work with a kind of grace I’ve never seen before as he gently took my left wrist in his hands and rinsed it off with water from a jar he had nearby, then with some kind of antiseptic which I heard him say it would sting a lot. He had kept applying pressure to it the entire time but it didn’t matter anymore to me. I couldn’t feel the pain, the sting, anything at all. Nothing. Nothing mattered anymore. I watched him as he somehow managed to rub some ointment on the deep cut and then grab some bandages and wrap them securely around my arm. Once finished, he rinsed off, disinfected, and applied ointment to my other hand which just had some cuts from the glass before he bandaged it as well.
I stared at the bandages for a long time, trying to keep the sounds of my sobs as quiet as possible. My mind was a mess. Thoughts were in a whirlwind as I tried to figure out what went wrong. The pain I wanted, the end I wanted didn’t happen. I didn’t succeed. Why? Why wasn’t I allowed to die? Why was I being put through all of this? Nothing made sense to me anymore. I didn’t understand… I couldn’t…I wanted…
“Ariel?” The man’s voice spoke softly and I looked up, tears streaming down my face. He shifted on the bed and sat in front of me, giving me a chance to take a better look at him. He had been tall – I knew that from when I had seen him stand. He was quite tan with very short black hair. His eyes were brown – full of warmth and concern. He wore a black tank top, exposing his muscled arms but what got me was the tattoo on his right bicep. It was of a bull’s head – the same bull’s head as the one in a book I had once read somewhere.
I shifted my eyes up to meet his face which was full of concern. I licked my lips, blinking back my tears as I whispered, “You’re him, aren’t you?” He raised his right eyebrow, looking a bit puzzled but he didn’t speak. “You’re that man from a book I read once. They called him…” I bit my lower lip in thought, sniffling a little, not realizing my tears were stopping. “The called him ‘The Rock,’ I think. You’re him, aren’t you?” I sniffled again, staring up at him – my eyes wide and cautious yet I was not panicking.
He nodded slowly at me but I didn’t give him a chance to speak. I jumped up, wrapping my arms around his neck and sobbing. Broken whispers escaped my lips but I knew he understood them. “Thank… you... saving… from… Haine…others…you… hero… thank you…”
I didn’t even tense when he brought his hands up and gently rubbed my back. I no longer felt that same fear from when the mad man had raped me back at the warehouse shortly after I first arrived in New York. I did feel the same fear from when the other man chased me through the Park and I met Midnight. Nor did I feel the same way I felt when Ms. Haine abandoned me at the clinic. I was lucky. I was lucky now that this man – wanted to care for me. I felt it deep within me and nothing else mattered.
“Ariel?” I heard his voice again and pulled away, looking up at him as I sat on his lap, a pout on my face. He studied my face for a long while, gently wiping away the last few tears that fell from my eyes with his thumb before he nodded to himself. Something in his warm brown eyes flickered – it was as if he was beginning to understand something and that confused me a bit. He shook his head at me and gave me a charming smile. “It’s nothing, Ariel. To you, I’m Dwayne. Dwayne Johnson.”
I smiled up at him, still sniffling before I yawned, blushing a little after I did so. “Gomen,” I whispered, watching him carefully for any signs of being angered by me. There weren’t any. Instead, he gave me a half smile and ran his fingers through my hair, catching my eyes with his.
“It’s alright, Ariel. I’ve got you. You’re safe now and I will do everything… and anything… I can to make sure you stay that way. ” The sureness in his voice warmed me and I relaxed a bit, allowing him to lift me up and shift in order to lay me back down on the bed. He stepped away for a moment to pick up the blanket that had fallen on the floor, tucking it up and around me before he sat down next to me. “You’re going to grow up to be a beautiful woman, Ariel. And I have a new role to play other than ‘The Rock.’”
I nodded a bit, carefully turning to my side and curling up. He leaned over and brushed the long strands of my bangs out of my face before he bent down and kissed my forehead. I felt him get up as I closed my eyes. Right before he flicked off the light, I spoke softly to him, “Oyasuminasai… oniisan.”
Whether he heard me and understood me or not did not matter. The “rest well, little one,” was enough for me at the moment.
~~~~ Three Days Later ~~~~
I had ended up sleeping a lot during the past few days. My recent activities had worn me out quite a bit. Being abandoned at a clinic by my former headmistress, Ms. Haine, had me despising hospitals and everything to do with them, including doctors – for some odd reason that I did not understand. Hearing the word made me freak out and Dwayne quickly learned not to mention them or the dreaded building. He even figured out that a simple phrase such as “check-up” sent me into a panic and he learned to avoid saying anything remotely medical.
I didn’t understand it. Neither did Midnight when he came to my bedside the night before. He had been quite concerned about me – not having heard from me for nearly two weeks. He was quite content to learn that I no longer was at the Orphanage – despite having been abandoned by the hideous headmistress and was quite curious about the man I had learned to trust the same day I had awoken.
However, Midnight was worried about the bandages wrapped around my left forearm and wrist as well as the band-aids on my right hand. He had giving me a dark glare when I told him I had accidentally knocked over a radio and had broken a mirror. I had explained that in my worry about making sure I left a good impression on Dwayne, I had reached over to pick up the pieces and ended up cutting myself badly. The magical steed snorted and muttered something about having a klutzy princess but he then nickered and nuzzled my face. I knew he was happy that I was safe and out of that orphanage. We both shared a long look and I knew we were both hoping that I had no other incidents with lunatics trying to hurt me.
This morning was different though. I felt well enough to get out of bed for a little while. I got up shakily, closing my eyes as I felt a wave of dizziness wash over me. Once that settled, I walked over to the chair Dwayne usually sat in and grabbed the red sweatshirt he lent me, slipping it on over my gray pajamas. I giggled slightly as I looked at myself in the mirror behind the door. The sweatshirt was so big on me that it reached down to my knees but it was warm and I liked it.
I went to the doorway and looked outside. I frowned, not knowing where Dwayne could be and I didn’t want to call out to him. Instead, I started walking to my left down the hallway, stopping when I heard music playing. I followed the soft sounds of a piano and I found myself at the doorway of a large living room. I didn’t really pay attention to the room itself, just the piano. It was playing a soft melody by itself and I found myself quite intrigued by it.
I walked over to it and watched as it played. The music sheets for the tune were spread out on the small stand and I immediately looked them over. For some odd reason, it felt quite normal to me and I seemed to understand them. I picked up one of the pages and started following along with the piano as it played. I sat down on the bench and swayed a little listening, reading, and memorizing the sounds.
When the piano had stopped playing, I looked down at the keyboard and rested my fingers lightly above some of them. I sighed softly as I pressed down on one of the keys and moved the rest of my fingers, slowly mimicking the tune that just played as I read the music sheet. I realized it had no name but it was a soft sound and it had made me smile. I continued playing slowly – not sure how I knew how to play the piano but feeling oddly at-ease with doing so.
I giggled softly as I got into it, not realizing that Dwayne had walked into the room and was now leaning against the wall beside the piano. I gasped as I looked up and saw him watching me. I must have expected him to get mad and yell at me but instead he shifted off the wall and sat beside me.
“Mind if I join you, Ar?” He asked, turning his head towards me and raising his right eyebrow.
I blinked at him and nodded before I returned my fingers to the keyboard and began to make up my own little tune with him mimicking my melody.
It was different to actually feel someone care for you a great deal. I knew Dwayne felt that way and for the first time, in a long time, I felt a spark of life light up inside of me.
Things had not been easy. Losing my parents. Losing my memory. Living at a horrible orphanage. Getting raped once. Nearly getting raped again. Learning I was not just a normal person but a princess with powers. And then being abandoned by my former headmistress. Now I was sitting here on a piano bench, my left arm still wrapped up and my right hand covered in band-aids because I was a klutz, and I was playing a tune with a man who decided to take me in.
Perhaps someday he may not want me anymore. Perhaps someday I will remember my parents and remember those things I haven’t for a long time. But for now… things were different.
And it was a good kind of different.
Dwayne was helping me make a memory – a good one at that – I couldn’t wait until tomorrow. I sense that I can really trust him to help me find out just who I am and how I can start becoming a better person.
Things are going to be different from now on.
I can’t wait just to see how.
TBC...
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