Out of Darkness

As Brandon drove himself and Tori home he explained to her that Yumiko’s neighbors are illegal drug dealers, and after getting into a fight with her Yumiko called the police on them. He knew that Yumiko also had some illegal drugs hidden in the house, and though it was a safe place to stay, if they were there when the police came they would be found guilty of possession as well should Yumiko’s drugs be found.

Tori didn’t want to go home, and pleaded for another plan. However he refused any other ideas and promised her that it would be all right at home. She could even stay in his room if things got bad again.

As soon as they got home their mother was out the front door and moving to Tori’s side of the car.

“Oh baby I’m so sorry!” she cried as soon as she opened the door and saw her daughter. Her eye was quite bruised, worse than it was after the robbery attempt, and her chin was scabbed over from being cut, and to know that her husband had done something like that to her, his own daughter, broke her heart.

“Brandon called and told me everything. I had a long talk with your father about it, and if he ever raises a hand against you again, I want you to call the police right away! He’s turned into a drunken fool that can’t see what he is losing!” she explained, pulling her frustrated daughter into her arms and cradling her, “I love you so much, Tori, I don’t want you ever to be hurt.”

“Then let me live like a normal adult,” she muttered, rolling her eyes before pulling out of her mother’s grasp and pulling her cane out of the car, “When I was sent to my room, and stayed there for days without eating, what did you do? Nothing! What did I get when I came home from staying with new friends? Barred windows, no phone, and you screened the mail to remove anything they had sent me! YOU don’t want me to be hurt? Then STOP hurting me!” she ranted and left them for her room while Brandon got Achilles and the small bags he had grabbed from the house for them out of the car.

“All I’ve done is take care of her, Brandon. Why can’t she see that I’m only trying to protect her? What is wrong with her?!”

“I don’t know, mom. You and dad have been fighting, dad is drinking, he hit her, she does have friends that care a lot about her, and she is grounded from seeing them, she has no freedom in the house, and is banned from leaving the house… maybe she’s PMS-ing.” He shrugged and followed his sister.

He found her in her room, lying across her bed and staring ahead of her. There were tears in her eyes but he knew that was because she was tired. Achilles jumped onto the bed with her and put his head on her chest, licking her chin and neck a few times before snuggling down and falling asleep on her.

“Listen, Tori, our family is jacked all to hell right now. We both know that. Give mom a break, okay? We know she doesn’t really get things that well, but her husband was just caught fucking another woman; she’s going to be out of it for a while.”

“When I went blind everything changed with her. She used to be a lot of fun!”

“Well yeah everything changed! Her daughter, her first born, and musically gifted child, went blind! We got a call at home saying that you were in the hospital, and we needed to get there right away. They didn’t tell us what happened, they just said that it was a serious emergency! We were scared, and then when you woke up from surgery, you couldn’t see us! Your eyes were cloudy and red, and you couldn’t see the flowers I brought you, or the card I made for you! And you just cried, and screamed because you were scared too, and we didn’t know what to do! You scared us, Tori, and we are still scared, because we don’t want to lose you!” he explained, struggling not to cry as he recounted the moments when she first opened her blind eyes.

“But I’ve learned to live with them.” She sighed, “And look where they have gotten us. You got to meet Dir En Grey.” She laughed.

“Yeah, well you tried to take Shinya out in a train station for it; you’re lucky there weren’t charges made.”

“It was an accident, and if you ask him, he tripped over my stick; I had nothing to do with it!” she giggled and yawned.

“Goodnight, Tori.”

“Night, Brandon. Thank you.”

“For?”

“New glasses, new pants, a really fun night at a concert, and a chance to get out of the house?”

“The night would have been standing in the back listening to people cheer over the band, and us being pushed around if you didn’t have connections.” He smirked, “YOU got us that awesome fun night.”

She just laughed as he walked out of the room, and quickly fell asleep to dream of something she wished she could forget.

She and three of her best friends were driving down the road at an unusually high speed as a storm raged around them. They had all agreed to sneak out and attend a party that none of them were permitted to go to. At sixteen, seventeen, and fifteen, they damn sure weren’t old enough to drink, but of course all four of them had ignored that law.

“Shane! Slow down!” Tori laughed, watching the lightening flash across the sky.

“SPARKY!” they all shouted together as soon as they saw it.

“Damn it! I’m going to end up naked!” a blue-eyed-blonde girl pouted, taking off her top and tossing it into the floor with a few other discarded articles of clothing. The object of the game was to yell “Sparky” whenever the lightening flashed, and the last to say it had to take off an article of clothing. The last one naked, or to drop out, wins.

“Jenna chill! You have the best body out of any of us.” Tori laughed, turning in the seat to pinch her cheek.

“So… how great is it going to be to go to the concerts next week?! I’m going to get backstage with the bands.” A dark haired punk-rocker chick named Jesse giggled.

“SPARKY!”

“FUCK!” Tori snapped and untied her bandana, “Hey, it’s clothes. It isn’t my fault you went straight for the goodies Jenna.” She added before her friend could protest, “And aren’t you a virgin, Jesse? You’re going to lose it as a groupie?”

“Hey, why not let the pro teach?” she smirked, drinking one of the beers she had brought with her.

Everyone else burst into laughter as Shane turned the radio up, blasting the Ramones as they all sang along with it, not caring that they sounded terrible. It was all laughter and bad singing, and more drinks as the car sped down the road with the occasional shouting of “sparky” and then loss of clothing here and there.

And then it all stopped. Tori didn’t know what happened, but suddenly there was a loud crash and she was thrown forward against the dashboard. Her lungs hurt, her face was already pouring blood, her eyes were burning as she began screaming in agony. The radio continued blasting their favorite song as Jesse came to, looking around in a confused daze, wondering why Tori was screaming. She could hear her moving behind Shane’s driver’s seat.

“Shiloh,” she muttered, taking a shaken and bruised hand and nudging the girl beside her as Tori continued to scream and cry over the music, “Sh-Shiloh… Shiloh! SHILOH! WAKE UP SHY! S-SHILOH!!” she began screaming, shaking her friend violently in her panic only to cause her lifeless body to flop around, bouncing her head in unnatural ways as blood ran down her face.

“J-JESSE!” Tori screamed through her sobs.

“SHE’S DEAD!” she screamed before climbing across her lifeless friend to grab her blonde friend’s shoulder, “J-Jenna? Are you okay?! JENNA!”

“What happened?” Jenna whispered weakly, slowly opening her eyes as Jesse took her hand tightly and began sobbing more in pain and fear.

Tori continued screaming, clenching her eyes tightly as the pain worsened when she tried to open them. She forced herself to move to feel for her boyfriend, afraid for his life since she didn’t hear him saying anything.

His head was resting against the steering wheel, and his arms were limp, but she found his hand, squeezing it tightly and screaming his name as a whole new panic washed over her. He wasn’t moving, and when she felt for his mouth and nose she found that he wasn’t breathing.

Sirens sounded in the distance, growing closer over the thunder, rain, and screams. All around the girls was the smell of blood and sight of death in the twisted remains of the car. Jesse held Jenna, sobbing and pleading for her to stay with her, but Jenna died in her arms as rescue teams tried to cut them out of the car.

It didn’t matter how hard the paramedics and firemen tried to calm the girls down. Tori could only scream. She was scared, and in horrible pain, and heartbroken, and wanted to die. There was nothing left for her anymore worth surviving this pain.

With a sharp gasp she sat up in her bed and burst into tears, pulling her knees close to her chest and sobbing as hard as she had that night. Very few times had she had nightmares of that night over the last few years, but when they decided to remind her of that night, they did so with a vengeance.

“Tori what’s wrong?” Brandon muttered, wiping the sleep from his eyes before shuffling from the doorway to sit beside her and pull her into a hug. When she sat up from her nightmare she knocked something off of the nightstand and the thud against his wall woke him up.

“I don’t know. I guess, when you were talking about the day I went blind, you reminded me about the crash.” She explained after her hushed sobs slowed enough for her to breath an explanation.

“And you had a nightmare about it.” he finished for her, sighing while holding her tighter.

She just nodded silently and clung to him tighter, burying her face in his shoulder as he held onto her, and Achilles tried to get into the middle, whining and nosing his way between them.

“Attention hog knock it off.” She laughed, sniffling back the last of hear tears as the beastly dog achieved his goal of being in the center of their embrace, even if it was just the end of his nose between them. His tail wagged happily as she scratched his ears and he licked Brandon’s bare stomach, making him cringe and push the dog away from him.

“Be nice, Brandon, he only loves you.” She sighed as Achilles crawled farther into her lap now that the brother had moved.

“Whatever.” He sighed and retreated back to his bedroom to sleep until it was time for him to head back to Yumiko’s.