Chapter Text
The first time you woke up in the arms of a stranger, you were understandably very confused. The last thing you remembered was walking home from school, the metallic echo of the last bell still ringing in your mind. Everything after was indecipherable between fiction and reality. A heavy cloth against your mouth, cold shuddering in your lungs, the lingering sound of screaming, raw skin chafing against your– you realised with a jolt that you were not alone.
There was a hand at the edge of your vision, lightly stroking your hair. Her voice followed.
“Shhh, don’t worry, don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you, pretty, pretty princess,” a stranger babbled beside your ear, sounding delirious. You became abruptly aware of heavy ivory blankets weighing you down and tangling your limbs. Disorientated, you made a noise of protest and tried to fumble out, but a thick haze hung in your mind. At the slight movement, sweaty arms tightened around the underside of your breasts. A distinctly feminine voice curved around the shell of your ear and hoarsely whispered nonsensical compliments. “You’re so beautiful, the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen-”
Finally awake, you kicked away from the stranger frantically, fighting through the haze. Soft silken fabric rubbed against your thighs, and you were horrified to find that you were no longer in your school uniform. Instead, the stranger had undressed and clothed you in a ratty grey nightgown. Falling from the bed, the duvet still tangled around your calves, you were too jittery and terrified to even register the pain.
Your captor, an adult woman, fixed bloodshot eyes on you. Her hair hung around her sharpened face in clumps of black, messy and knotted. Her hands twitched at your absence, slowly reaching up to wring at her stringy hair obsessively. With chapped lips, unfocused irises, shuddering breaths, you watched with horror as she slowly registered that you were gone.
If you were just a little bit more awake, you probably would’ve searched for a weapon to defend yourself, but only questions filled your mind.
“Who are you? What, what the hell did you do to me?” Your words fumbled over each other despite your attempt to sound demanding and strong.
“Where did you go, I need you! ” she nearly screamed, wrapping her own arms around herself and rocking back and forth. Dragging her jagged dirty nails down her cheek, hot tears began to bloom. “Please please please please I love you I love you I love you Iloveyou IloveyouIloveyouIlove- ”
With all the force in her shrivelled body, the woman began to violently slam her head on the mattress. You rose to your feet, using the nightstand to stabilise your drunken movement. The woman stayed where she was, surrounded by a nest of blankets and raggedy pillows, rocking back and forth all the while. She made no move towards you, only pausing from her self inflicted harm to watch with trembling pupils as you grabbed your discarded school bag and left.
You lurched through the paper thin wooden door, fingertips white from using the powdery walls to help you walk. The cold night air helped you expel the last traces of whatever drug infused haze the woman had put you under. Your pace picked up from a fast walk into a sprint. Even until you were a good mile away, you could still hear the sound of her psychotic self-proclaimed love and the dull thumps of her head against the bed.
You wouldn’t stop hearing it for years after.
The police. I have to report her. But you had left much too quickly to take note of the address, and her appearance was too generic to be distinguishable. ( “Yes officer, she had brown eyes, black hair and clammy skin. I think she was Asian.”)
The sun was beginning to rise. Your kidnapper had kept you since yesterday afternoon.
That was the very first indication that you were cursed.