Disgrace

I was running. Just like in the dream. But this running was more desperate. This running was the difference between life and death. I dare not look back, scared I would lose my footing and everything I had done so far be for nothing. I just kept running as my lungs screamed for air and my legs pained for rest. I could hear the terrible thing behind me crashing through the foliage, not slowing down but in fact, speeding up. Silent tears were spilling down my face as I heard it growl, gaining inches on me. I begged my legs to speed up, to go on for just a little bit longer. But they refused as they gave out from under me. I realized that this was it. I fell to the ground and felt the claws enter my back as I blacked out from fear and exhaustion.
* *
When I was born, everyone knew I was different. I didn’t come out crying like most babies. No, I came out calm and still, as if I weren’t even alive. I understood the world around me already and I smiled as the doctor held me, deciding what was wrong. My mother cried when she found out I wasn’t the little girl she had thought and dreamed about.

I really can’t blame my mother for what she did. She had tried to accept what I was. She tried rubbing the horrible marking off my arm by scrubbing it till I bled and cried. She cut off that same part of skin to get rid of it but it always came back, brighter than before. She tried burning it off but it just would never go away or fade. She would hit me if I tried to go outside to play with other kids because she was afraid I wouldn’t return home to her.

As I said, I can’t blame her for what she did but it doesn’t mean it was right. Home is supposed to feel safe. Home is where you learn the meaning of family and love. I didn’t know those things. My mother didn’t allow it. I was thirteen before I ever left my own home and that was by running away. I never saw my mother again and I doubt she missed me that much. I was just a Schande. Someone that was discriminated against and killed for doing nothing wrong. I didn’t know much about what I was. Mother kept it all from me. It wasn’t like I heard it from other kids either. All I knew was that there were only a few known Schande’s as most were kept from the world. The ones that were known were wanted by the police, dead. I didn’t know why those few would let what they were be known, especially if they were wanted dead. But I didn’t really know what being a Schande meant. At least, not when I ran away from home. What I did know was being a Schande meant I couldn’t trust anyone, I would remain secluded and that I could only travel by dark. If my presence in this city ever be known, I would be dead on the spot by the thousands of archers the Queen has around the city. This was how my life was for five years. Me running from something I didn’t understand and from death itself.

On my eighteenth birthday is when everything changed. I was finally going to interact with people. It took everything I had to get the courage to leave my safe abode. I grabbed a shirt and put it on so that it covered my birthmark from the rest of the world. I exited my home which was an abandoned watch tower of the Queen’s, and I went outside and decided to interact with the people I have watched go by so many times. As quickly as I exited the tower I saw a man, who looked older than me, stop and look at me for a minute. I pretended not to see him until he began walking towards me.

“Young lady, I don’t think I have seen you around these parts before. I would remember a face like yours. I am terribly sorry for my curiosity but I must ask where you are from?”

I looked at him, dumbfounded that someone would talk to me. But after he gave me a suspicious once over, I said the first thing that came to my mind. “Yes, I am from out of town. I am from the East visiting my grandparents in Queens City. I seem to be a bit lost at the moment. My Grandparents have asked me to go to the market and get bread but I cannot seem to find the market. Would you be a kind sir and help me?” The man’s eyes lit up for a moment and he was happy to help. I knew where the market was but I couldn’t back out from my story now. He led me down an alley way to what I thought was a short cut. But before I could ask this man about anything, he turned around and shoved me into an open door.

I tried to scream but he already had his hand over my mouth. I panicked and bit him. He yelped in pain and I tried to make a run for it. He stepped in front of me though with a knife to my throat. “If you scream or try to run again, I am afraid I will have to put my knife through that perfect little neck of yours. Now sit down for a moment and get ready to pleasure me.”

I sat as he told me. A million things ran through my mind. I had to distract this man so I could make a run for it. He could hold a knife but I doubt he could throw it. I looked around the dusty room I was in only to discover that the only other thing in the room besides the chair I was sitting in was a bed fit for two. My mind raced, trying to find a way out. The man returned to me a minute later.

“Go lay down on that bed over there my precious. And take off your clothes slowly,” he said, smiling to himself for thinking of the last part. I threw up in my mouth a little but I did what he said. I started to take off my shirt, ready to punch him and run if he came near. I got my arm out as I heard him gasp. I looked up and saw pure fear in the man’s eyes. “How are you alive?! Please, oh please don’t hurt me! I didn’t know! I won’t ever do this again but please let me live!”
I looked at the man for a moment, trying to figure out what he was so afraid of. I looked down to see my birthmark. He knew that I was a Schande and instead of killing me on the spot, this man was afraid. What could I do that would strike fear into a man? I looked at the man and hoped he felt pain for what he had done to possibly many women and what he was going to do for me.

Then an image flashed through my mind for only a second.

He looked up at me and started screaming. It was as if someone was ripping out his insides. I covered my ears until the screaming stopped. I looked up at him not to find a man anymore, but a bloody corpse that looked like someone had twisted his insides and threw them out like a broken toy. That was how I found out why my mother did what she did. She wasn’t protecting me from the other children or the outside world. She was protecting the outside world from the horrible curse that I was born with.

After that incident, I knew of what I was capable of. I knew why the Queen ordered that all Schande be dead for they could kill her if they wanted to. But the Queen was so kind-hearted that I don’t know of anyone who would want to kill her. She made sure that everyone in her kingdom could read and got a proper education. She let anyone be what they wanted as long as they paid their debts to her. She never once killed a man out of spite or in revenge. The Queen is perfect in everyone’s eyes. She can do no wrong but I am sure that that is a hard thing to do.