Hmm... Can I migrate a character over from another RP? Here she is:
Name: Valentina Vetrov
Age: 10 (And a half)
Occupation: Grade School Student / Child Actress
Family life: Valentina was born to a Russian immigrant father and an American mother. She was by no means the only child of the family however, being the third to be born. First came an elder brother then an elder sister. Her short life before the outbreak was, by all means, ideal. Upon settling in, his father became a successful owner of a small-medium business using his experiences in Russia, allowing her mother to raise and accompany Valentina without difficulty. Her parents never argued, never fought beyond the occasional minor incidences that only served to further reinforce their marriage. Although the children were never as close to one another as their parents, they were there for each other whenever they were needed most.
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Silver
Height: 4 feet 8
Weight: 65 pounds
Blood type: B+
Immune: No
Gear:
Purple Hello Kitty bag (A little frayed and torn but usable)
Barbie sleeping bag
Vertov's tactical torchlight
x1 Spare AA battery (unfortunately, the torchlight needs 2)
Assorted kid's clothes (some new, some old and some torn)
Lieutenant Hugh's water canteen (normally fastened to her belt or bag)
Lieutenant Hugh's Combat Knife
Steak Knife (which she found to be just right for her)
Improvised knife (normally hiding somewhere in her clothes)
Valerie's Taurus Model 85 .38 Snub-Nosed Revolver
x1 .38 cartridge loaded in her revolver (It had become a thing for her to just save a bullet)
x30 Assorted random ammunition (mismatched bullets that she found but couldn't put into her revolver)
Normally wears a pink but dulled jacket over a yellow singlet. A pair of blue jeans and boots. An eyepatch she found somewhere but couldn't remember (all the better to cover her right eye). Lieutenant Hugh's ID Tags.
x1 Sealed bag of cashew nuts
x1 Can of corn beef (which she couldn't open yet)
Daddy's First Aid Kit (By now half-full with a bottle of antiseptics, a few rolls of bandages and band-aid)
Mommy's 'Little Red Riding Hood' (Which she no longer reads but couldn't get rid of)
Picture of herself and family (At the bottom of her bag, forgotten)
Note: This is a photo of her dating to before The Rising that lies forgotten at the bottom of her Hello Kitty bag
Bio: Once upon a time in a hospital ward, a girl was born. It took her parents and even two children months to decide upon a name, and she was christened Valentina. Valentina was born slightly premature, and sickly ever since, but with the nurture of her parents, she grew to catch up with her siblings and other kids just in time for Kindergarten. Life had never been down for her ever since. She met many friends each time she entered a new class. She loves to learn, and her parents encouraged her so.
She wanted to be like her mom and dad at the same time. Life at home and out was happy, and she rarely cried. She was bullied the first year she was in gradeschool, but her brother, Vertov, chased the bully away, and she was happy again. In school, she enjoyed stage acting, and got pretty good in it. With a strong father and a mother who was herself an actress of a few years, it was only natural that Valentina had never had much trouble in school, and became an actress herself because she thought it was fun. She was able to audition and land a few roles in a few television commercials featuring cereals, and a supporting role after that in a 2016 summer thriller movie 'Sharks Below The Line', which did well in its opening weeks.
Life was good. Valentina was so happy. Then it happened.
14 February 2017 was her 10th Birthday. Little Valentina and neither her family would know that the day she was born would be the day the entire world would be cursed.
27 February 2017 was the day she lost the sight in her right eye. While travelling with her father to the nearest gas station to purchase supplies, a gas tanker truck collided with it. She did not die as her father was able to get them both to a safe distance. "Cover your eyes, Valentina!" Her father warned her, but she did not listen, but was instead mesmerised by the explosion. It reminded her of her time on the set of her first movie, it did. A small shard of glass flew into her right eye. While it caused no permanent scar, Valentina could barely bring herself to look into a mirror anymore, for her right eye was no longer silver but milky white like the dead eye of a walking corpse.
7 March 2017 was the day she lost her elder sister to a horde of ravenous reanimates that assaulted their home. Valerie was trying to hold the front door closed and shooting out the front window with a revolver when one of them broke half the door down and bit down on her neck. It became obvious to the family that they could not hold their family suburban home. While the others were busy nearby reinforcing windows and were spared the sight but not the sound of her fate, Valentina was there at the stairs, afraid and helpless, and with her one good eye she saw it happen. Valeries was able to buy the family time to take what they can and escape by pushing through the relatively thin herd at the front door to distract the reanimates.
22 March 2017 was the day she lost her elder brother, Vertov, in a firefight against scavengers who found them taking refuge in a suburban home on the fringes of their own neighbourhood. Valentina knew one of the scavengers who was her neighbor and at one point, her babysitter. She was shocked as she saw her fire a rifle at Vertov and slew him. While her family was able to fight them off, the damage was already done. Valentina learnt that day that people could turn bad, really bad.
13 April 2017 was the day Valentina and her family was overrun and taken captive by a large group of bandits. Upon being bound and brought to their hideout, a few bandits, out of boredom, decided to toy with them, with vengeance for the many bandits the father managed to take out being a secondary goal. Despite her parents' pleas, one of the bandits took out a combat knife and carved a half-frown scar down the left side of Valentina's cheek and forced her parents to watch. The physical trauma was excruciating, but the sight of her parents breaking down and tortured was far worse. Had it not been for the timely intervention of a national guard detachment still loyal to the federal government, the results would have been far worse.
5 May 2017 was the day Valentina lost her mother to the Reanimates. Her parents were drafted for service by the national guards who saved them after they were brought to camp. "The monsters surrounded us, honey, when we were trying to save a girl about your age trapped under a rubble. I'm sorry." The lieutenant responsible for Valentina's mother had said. When Valentina reacted little instead of bursting into tears like how the lieutenant expected, the battle-hardened soldier knew: The girl was scarred not just in body, but in spirits as well, and no amount of stitches and therapy with the camp medical officer could save her completely.
20 May 2017 was the day the national guards camp was overrun. She saw her father play the hero in holding back the waves of reanimates with the M4A1 handed to him, then a Beretta, then a bayonet, and finally his fists. She saw his knuckles rip again as they pounded rotting flesh, and his father slowly torn apart as he fought with all his strength. He succumbed after giving Valentina a final look and mouthing for her to run. Valentina did not want to. She'd had enough. She'd never really smiled like she used to for months, not since her elder sister was devoured. Had it not been for the timely intervention of the same national guard lieutenant who lead her mother into battle, her story would have ended here and now.
11 June 2017 was the day she fell under the hands of a biker gang. Before then, she'd been adopted and protected by Lieutenant Hugh, but they were alone. His unit was scattered by the horde of Reanimates. The soldier was once a father himself, a really good one, and against all odds, he would somehow manage to coax a smile or two from Valentina with a cunning but kind-hearted web of talking to her about her lost family, talking to her about his lost family, and some stories of hope and a future to make her feel better. The soldier taught her a few tricks to survive on her own - how to use a knife, how to fire a revolver or pistol, and what to do behind enemy lines, though there were no more enemy lines but a whole globe. However, while travelling to a supposed safezone, Lieutenant Hugh was gunned down and killed instantly even as he was holding Valentina's hand and guiding her along gently. The leader of the biker gang forced a brand on her stomach and took her to his tent, but little did he knew that she had a shiv hiding in her jeans all along, courtesy of Lieutenant Hugh. With fiery rage erupting for the first time in Valentina, she avenged her last and final friend by thrusting it into his throat. When the deed was done, she managed to sneak away from camp.
Ever since Lieutenant Hugh's death and her vengeance, Valentina wandered on her own, indescribable tormenting pain lying like a swelling ocean beneath her tattered body. Blaming it on the world, she took to surviving by stealing supplies and even in some cases killing in the process without remorse. She'd learnt what would have been the worse lessons to learn had it been the 'wrong time', but it was the right time where murder, deceit and selfishness was the norm. Her acting skills came in handy at times to this purpose. Having been done so much wrong, she could no longer feel as much anymore, with rage and sadness becoming her new happiness, and the happiness of yesteryear, the new pain and sadness.
Overtime, as she wandered the ruins, she had managed to find several of what she called 'sleep spots', safe places that only she could access due to her size and knowledge, as most of them were located in ventilation shafts or blocked off rooms. Driven by the basest instinct to survive that she herself would not understand nor care about, she would hide caches of supplies - normally things she already carried, things that were too big and impossible to use because of her size, or even useless trinkets she saw and liked, that ultimately sated her existence for mere moments. There was very little food, however - there was never enough. But what was in even greater short supply was her family... For although she could be considered successful in this new environment, it was an empty existence without Vertov, Valeries... Her Dad and Mom...
Silence. Ever since much of the fighting between the living and the dead died down, bringing with it the hideous cacophony of gunshots, desperate screams and moans, silence ruled Missouri. From the streets of the big cities to one particular room... At least until something broke. Out of the entrance into a ventilation shaft, a curious form crawled out and stood not very high, putting on its childish backpack again. It was Valentina. Looking quickly around the room, she realised she was alone - which had, weeks ago, became the best blessing she could ever wish for, and even better, that the door was blocked amply by several furniture: A huge king-sized bed with a cabinet and table stacked on top of it. The only light that allowed her to see was coming from her flashlight, which she tried not to think came from her elder brother, Vertov.
The air was cold. Being indoors did little to keep Valentina warm. The room was dark, and she could never get used to it, to being afraid whenever she did such a thing. Footsteps stomped in the ceiling, and there was a crash below the floor. The apartment building was haunted by the dead. "Ugh..." She could barely shrug the thought of sharing an apartment building with a horde of biters (as she calls them) just a few doors away, even if she was well barricaded from them.
Sweeping her flashlight around the room, she found stacks of some stuff in a corner. Quite faintly, she thought someone might have tried living in the room, and there was a door leading to another. Pulling her revolver out of its holster, she tried not to think that it came from her elder sister, and pointed it at the door. There was banging inside. Valentina could not help but to breathe heavily. Crossing her arms at the wrists to support her gun arm like how Lieutenant Hugh taught her to do, the act relieved the ache in her arms quickly, having been exhausted from crawling and climbing the vents. There was banging inside, methodical banging. Something was howling and wailing inside ceaselessly. The girl tried not to wish that Daddy was with her.
Gripping the knob and twisting it with her left hand left her defenseless - months before she had learnt to switch to shooting with her left hand because of her blind right eye - but she had no choice. It was either be defenseless or completely blind, and the fear that she would lose her only working eye would leave her paralysed with fright. After pushing it open, letting the door swing open noiselessly, she brought her revolver up quickly, only to discover an empty toilet. The window was open, and the wind was strong. The medicine cabinet was slamming shut and opening again as a result. It angered Valentina. She hates being frightened like that. Marching up to the window, she shut it tight, making sure to lock it tight. The last time she didn't do it had costed her a safe place to sleep, forcing her to wander in the night without sleep and with a mind horribly flayed by sleep deprivation, fear and stress by morning.
It was the first time she had ever dared to enter an apartment building, and she did so out of desperation, not that she had ever stopped being desperate ever since her last friend, Lieutenant Hugh, was killed by a Biker gang. She tried not to remember. For weeks she had been running and hiding, stealing and even killing. She thought it would all go away when she dared to enter the dark places where even the Biker gang that killed her strong soldier friend would not dare to go. In the months that follow she would be proven wrong. There would never be enough food, as every room where vast stores of it could be found were occupied by too many of 'them' to be raided. Again, she wished for her family to be with her again, but sensing tears starting to form in both her good and bad eyes, she stopped - she never knew she could stop thinking about something until she had to, ever since Valerie sacrificed herself for the family.
With the room seemingly safe, Valentina thought about moving her 'secret places' into the vents and the room, which she wanted to become her new 'sleeping place' or sleep spot. Hiding things, Valentina thought, was like setting up a game of treasure hunt, and even better, without ever giving the hunters any clues. It became something she was good at, as it turns out, from all those games she would help to make possible whenever the relatives came to visit from Russia. She knew that it would be an exhausting task, having already tired herself after exploring the vents for half a day with nothing to pull or push around. Her closest secret place had big guns - guns bigger than pistols that she could not yet use, even one that was alot heavier than her Hello Kity backpack - not to mention many replacements for her equipment whenever she needed them. There were cans of food that she could not yet open - somehow, for the life of her, she could never find a can opener, and her knives won't cut them open. She couldn't help but to feel too weak or dumb to get those things open.
After clearing the toilet, she wanted to look through the piles of things at the corner of the room, where the bed used to be. Coming out, she saw that they were by the mattress, which looked a little filthy, and when she crosses the room, she thought she saw someone, or something, walk by her. It felt as though someone was gripping her heart and lungs when she realised and pointed her flashlight and revolver at it... Only to discover a dressing table with an oval mirror.
Mirrors are bad. It was what Valentina believed in. But it had been months, many months, since she looked into one. She had nearly forgotten how she looked like, willfully trying to forget. She was mesmerised by the dressing table, but afraid of it. She kept the flashlight away, afraid to see. Yet she was curious. She wanted to see. It had been too long. The feeling was welling up in her. She inched closer, and finally gave in. After sighing in submission, she inched closer to the dressing table, and sat down on a stool beside it. After another moment of hesitation, she noticed a grip where a lightbulb used to be, just large enough, and set Vertov's Tactical Torchlight there.
Before Valentina looked, she closed her eyes. She remembered stories that Mother used to tell, stories that she would repeat in her head to herself every day so that she would remember with crystal clarity. Cinderella and The Ugly Duckling. Chicken Soup stories. Removing the pirate eye patch thing she managed to scrounge up from somewhere, she took a deep breath and looked.
Nothing changed. There was no princess or swan in the mirror, no miracles that used to happen in the church she went to what seemed like forever ago. A milky white right eye. The frowning scar down her left cheek. Tears fell, and the utter sadness that was stuck in Valentina, forbidden from coming out by the constant need to run, hide and fight came back overwhelming. No longer caring about the reanimated stomping above the ceiling and below the floor, she cried and screamed, and with her revolver, smashed the mirror, producing a rippling crack. She cried into her own arm, and could only be more sad when she realised it was her own arm, and not Daddy's, nor Mommy's, not even that of Lieutenant Hugh. There, she cried herself to sleep.
Valentina woke up where she fell asleep - behind a dressing table with a tell tale smashed oval mirror. Not even sleep would deliver her from her misery, as in her ceaseless nightmares, everything that happened that brought her to this state of things happened all over again, mercilessly, drowning and choking. She woke up feeling clammy and hot and rotten, and faint memories of better mornings only made it worst. She woke from her nightmares, only to return to another, the memories of her unfortunately close unfortunate past disguised as nightmares still fresh on her mind.
Despite smashing the oval mirror, Valentina accidentally caught a look of her blind right eye on a shard, and quickly turned away, the instinct having long became a knee-jerk response. Angry, she swept the shards away, not caring that she had cut herself slightly - she had suffered worst things, such as being branded by a Biker gang leader, and a cut was a small price to pay for not looking at her milky white iris again.
The damage, however, was already done. Getting up, Valentina did not make it very far. Aching from sleeping on a stool and table, she slumped down on the filthy mattress by the pile of things she found yesterday night. It actually felt comfortable, having never slept in a proper bed for weeks. With only misery for company to snuggle with, Valentina could not help but to descend into her memories once again as it had, like a disgustingly beautiful parasite, wormed itself into her head...
"But Daddy, why are we going to the gas station?" Valentina queried, curious as to why they were driving an extra distance to shop for groceries. Though it meant an extra half hour travelling time, Valentina did not actually mind - it meant seeing something different outside the car windows, different people, different buildings, different dogs, cats, cars. Things seemed different however. Everyone was in a rush, and everyone was doing a lot of shopping lately. It seemed odd to Valentina, as it wasn't even the 4th of July, nor Thanksgiving nor Christmas yet, "Why aren't we going down to Sa'at's Mart anymore?"
"Things are changing, Lapushka." Valentina's father replied curtly, his eyes watching the road sternly, as if he was afraid he might actually hit something. Valentina was puzzled by her father's reaction. He would normally smile, and he would normally look... lively and radiant despite the strands of grey hair on his beard and scalp. Valentina loves it Whenever he called her Lapushka or Solnyshko or Dochenka. This time, however, there were lines all over his face, and he was constantly rubbing his temples. It was different this time. Valentina rarely saw her father doing that, and only when he was in his office at home, making phonecalls and scribbling a lot of stuff on his notepads, "Mr Sa'at is no longer around."
"Is he in Turkey to visit his family?" Valentina asked - Salman Sa'at, as she knew the family's favorite shopkeeper, was always flying back to his home country, just like how she and her family would every year. To this question, her father did not reply, but was still busy concentrating on the road, rubbing his forehead. There were even more lines on his face, as if her question had added them there. "Why aren't we buying the groceries as a family?"
"Mama had to buy other groceries from elsewhere with Vertov and Valerie, Doch..." To Valentina's other question, the father replied. The girl, however, noticed an odd look on his face, as if her father had lost concentration of the road for a moment. His eyes were peering elsewhere, somewhere far away, but when Valentina looked where he was looking at, she saw nothing. For a moment, she found her own gesture stupid, however, as the car was going rather fast. Silence reigned again as soon as her question was answered, and Valentina returned her gaze to the left of the car. She loved riding shotgun as it was the best place to look out. Which was when she saw a whole bunch of people, and the way they walk she thought was funny and weird. They looked like they hadn't eaten for days, she thought as her car whipped past, and soon the bunch of people was gone.
When they reached the gas station, it was so difficult to find a place to park that Valentina's father had resorted to parking partly on the sidewalk at the carpark. Even the girl knew it was a little off and wrong, but she didn't want to argue. After they got out of the car, they held hands and began walking. The girl found it hard to keep up with her father, as he was walking briskly, faster than his usual pace. "Valentina, you must listen to me." Her father said quite out of the blue, "I vant you to take everything, everything, you understand? It doesn't matter vhat you take, just take them." Valentina was puzzled by her father's strange instructions. On every other grocery days, she knew her father to be more meticulous with the spending, and would normally provide a list of things to buy. "Do you understand?"
"Yes, Daddy-" Which was when the father stopped all of a sudden, pulling on Valentina to make sure she followed. On the horizon of the street, something huge was coming closer, fast. There seemed to be explosions in the distance, and seconds later, Valentina realised that it was a huge truck, smashing past cars and lorries and even people. The crimson hue of blood paralysed her. All of a sudden, she felt weak and cold, faint. It was coming closer, quickly. The violence. She had never really seen such a thing before. Her father had to carry her and run back to where they came from. Vaulting over a stone fence seperating the carpark from the street outside, her father laid her down and hid. Bangings, louder each time.
"Don't look, my Lapushka!" Her father said as he ducked and covered his ears, anticipating an explosion. He had seen was the truck was carrying. It was an oil tanker truck, and it was smashing its way towards the gas station.
Valentina was dazed, her ears singing. She felt faint. Could not think. She had seen people smashed against the bumper and grill of the truck, falling to pieces, screaming in the distance. She wondered if it was over, and decided to peek over the stone fence they were hiding behind, her father's instructions barely registering, and even then her brain was at a standstill.
A huge explosion. A tiny, miniscule glass shard, once a part of a window made in a far away factory to be mounted on the gas station window, freed itself from its place along with millions of its brothers. Propelled by the explosion that resulted from the violent crash, it flew yards, across the street, sidewalks and over the stone fence, and finally into Valentina's right eye.
Half the return journey was spent in burning, hellish pain, crying both blood and tears, unlike anything she had ever felt before in her short life. Not even the warmth of her father's caring embrace could mitigate, even slightly, the insanity raging through her nerves. His words fell on ears that listened only inwards before becoming faint as nothing outside the crucible that was her eye and the glass shard within it mattered in the moment. She spent the other half of her return journey (and the rest of the day) unconscious and unable to savour the last few rays of light registering in her right eye. It was a message that did not require her surgeon to tell her.
Most of the supplies Valentina had scrounged up here and there were moved into the vents of her new sleep spot, everything except the one thing that was huge. Looking left and right and keeping her revolver, which wasn't even fully loaded, Valentina snuck across the street and into the thick bushes of a park. The air was cold; it was early morning. Spending her entire existence trying to eke out a low-profiled, meagre existence was exhausting. No matter how young and energetic she was, she would feel sleepy not long after the sun was down. The various aches and bruises were easy motivations to sleep. Between nightmares and the risen dead outside waiting for her, there was simply nothing that could motivate her to sleep.
Switching on Vertov's tactical flashlight, Valentina began navigating between the stems of the bushes. There were various potholes threatening to sprain her ankle, which she avoided just barely. It was a forest within a forest. Then she saw it, slightly dull from dirt. It was something bigger and much heavier than even Lieutenant Hugh's rifle. Heaving it out of the biggest pothole where it was stashed with both her hands, Valentina nearly fell over, but after positioning herself better, managed to stand the humongous gun on its butt. Looking at it again, the girl was still in awe of its size. It wasn't much shorter than her - had she been a few years younger, she would have been dwarfed by it. It was far too big for her to be used, and far too complex. However, she had naively decided to keep it for when she grew up.
After spending some time sitting in the cosy confines of the bushes, an activity which she enjoyed even better than her memories of playgrounds, Valentina tore through the bushes and back out into the street, hugging her giant gun. Looking left and right again, not for incoming cars but the reawakened, she believed herself to be alone and started jogging towards the 'entrance' to her new sleep spot. Weaving past abandoned cars and trash, however, something snagged her foot and sent her tumbling. In her fall, she could feel something sharp, perhaps the jagged edge of a car wreck, slicing through her cheek, and immediately, worrying numbness where she was hurt.
"Ow!" Crying in pain, she hastily groped for her tactical light and waved it about, only to find herself surrounded by the reanimated and panicking. To her, they might as well have appeared out of nowhere, though in truth she had spent long enough a time dawdling in the bushes for several to wander by. Pulling out her revolver even as she could feel hands on her ankles, anticipating unpleasantly something to bite down soon, her hands shaking in pain and shock, she pointed it at the monster which had snagged her, set the hammer and pulled the trigger - where the conscious failed, her reflexes, 'trained' by trial and error, took over. Then, turning, she fired her revolver a few more times, until she had but one left. Out of four Mr. Biteys, three fell, but it had carved a way out for her.
Without wasting time, without even holstering flashlight nor revolver, Valentina hugged her giant gun again and made a dash for it, encountering more on the way, but dodging them with practiced skill. A fast biter, however, gave chase unrelentingly, forcing Valentina into a panicked sprint. Panting hard, she flew right into the ventilation shafts and disappeared from the streets.
Inside in the vents, she lay to rest, but as she calmed down, the adrenaline in her blood faded away. Her cut cheek no longer felt numb, but instead felt like the last time when her face was cut... Trying not to think, Valentina began pushing the huge gun in the direction she wanted to go.
By the time she was done, she was sweating and aching all over again, and extra dirty - ever since losing her last bathtub at the national guards camp, it could only be between dirty, extra dirty or downright filthy. There was no longer such a thing as being clean anymore.
The work she had to put into the giant gun had distracted her from her new wound (if her various bruises weren't counted), but with everything put in order, the throbbing pain had returned again with renewed strength. While she couldn't see the wound, her imagination filled the gap. The girl could imagine a giant, gaping chasm down her face, and she could feel it lying down next to her frown scar. Valentina couldn't help but to feel miserable over the prospect of having another scar on her face - ironically, it was her old frown scar that stopped it from crippling her emotionally.
Valentina remembered her parents' assurances - that no matter what she would always be beautiful. When they were gone, and when Lieutenant Hugh followed them, she found it harder and harder to believe it. In fact, in the pit of her stomach, she could feel an uncomfortable but empowering feeling, a strong feeling welling up that made her mad, but no matter what she could not think of the words to express it.
Sitting behind the dressing table again, the girl sighed at the prospect of looking at her face and went ahead. Assessing her own wound was an ardous process owing to her scars, but it was made bearable only by the cracked oval mirror, which had turned the reflection of her face into a defective jigsaw puzzle.
Catching a glimpse of her left cheek, where she could feel the wound acutely, Valentina realised that it was very close to her frown scar, and so could not avoid looking at it. While she had learnt that the new wound was not as bad as it felt, the sight of her old frown scar disturbed her. It was far more damaging than her new wound ever could be, for it reminded the traumatised little girl of what had caused it...
Muddy Lawn Outside Suburban Home, Southwest Missouri, 13 April 2017
A smelly, rough ogre-like man threw Valentina to the muddy ground. She gasped in fear and pain as she hit the floot. Her hands and feet were bound. Her parents were forced to kneel before her by other bad men. As it turns out, the ogre was the leader of a bandit group that attacked the girl's family, and he wasn't very happy with the outcome of their latest raid. Valentina's Daddy had single-handedly taken out a whole squad of his bandits, and he was going to make him pay for them, every single one of them.
Pulling Valentina by her shirt, the bandit leader pulled the little girl to her knees before grabbing a huge clump of her blonde hair, pulled it hard, making poor Valentina scream.
"Don't you hurt her, you piece of-!" Before the father could finish his sentence, one of the bandit leader's lackeys threw a fully wounded punch. It threw the strong but helpless man off his knees, but that was soon corrected by the bandits standing beside him.
The bandit leader pulled out a mean looking knife that was bigger than any that Valentina had seen before, and jabbed it at the girl's cheek, threatening to cut her, but instead of doing that, he pressed his face against the hair of the little girl, taking in her scent, rubbing his own unwashed cheek against hers as he planted kisses down the the cheek and neck of the little girl. Valentina cried as the rough and broken skin of the ogre's skin rubbed against her silky face. "I'll kill you, you dog!" The father howled uselessly as the mother was wailing without stopping.
"If it hadn't occurred to you yet, you fuck, you can't do shit to me!" The bandit leader. He pressed the sharp tip of his huge combat knife against Valentina's left cheek to make his point. A trickle of bright red blood came out, "I want you to beg! Beg for her life!"
Looking down, as if to consider his options, the father then threw the bandit leader a defiant look, deciding that Valentina could not afford to lose any confidence in him, that he couldn't afford to let her see him in a compromising state. For his bravery, the bandit leader placed the barbed tip of his combat knife in the left tip of Valentina's tips, and yanked his blade left, carving a downward line. Valentina screamed, and screamed, with each little inch of her cheek violated, she screamed like never before as blood was spurting out, dripping from the downward line carved into her left cheek. Her parents screamed with her, incoherent, unintelligable, like animals to be slaughtered for meat.
"Ooh! Look how unhappy you've made your daughter now!" The Bandit Leader said sarcastically, and his lackeys laughed without remorse nor mercy, "Beg, you stupid! Or you'd make her more unhappy!" The ogre placed his now bloodied knife on the other tip of Valentina's lips. Valentina shivered in pain, tears mingling with copious amounts of blood. "If you won't make her happy, then I will, and I know exactly what would put a smile on any gal's face..." The dreaded knife went lower, seemingly getting caught on Valentina's buttons, the ones just below her neck. With an artful swing, several buttons fell off, revealing more of Valentina's pale, untouched flesh. Then something worse happened.
Her father begged.
Valentina could not sleep. She had tried for what felt like forever, and she couldn't even close her eyes - but in truth, she didn't dare. She remembered stories about witches. Hansel and Gretel. She felt like Gretel, except she had no Hansel for company. Or rather, her Hansel had died a long time ago. The snub-nosed revolver and knife sitting between her stomach and lap weighed heavily on her, as if calling out to her to be used.
Back in one of her sleep spots in an apartment building, she had cans of beer to help her with such a problem. Valentina remembered what her father had said about beer, but he was no longer around. She furrowed her brows. The thought of Daddy brought her back to the time of his slow demise, when he held back a whole ocean of the dead with the help of only a few soldiers. Valentina loved him, so, so much, yet she couldn't help but to hate him for leaving her, and yet she felt so confused about herself, about how it was possible to love and hate her own father at the same time when all she knew before was to either love or hate. Valentina's Daddy would have slapped her for it, but her cans of beer was helpful when it comes to sleeping.
In truth, it had only been 20 minutes, and by the half hour mark, Valentina fell asleep regardless, against all odds. In the faint thoughts that followed before sweet, sweet darkness came, Valentina wondered how it was possible that she could feel sleepy around the witch outside the door, especially one who could kill her no matter how much she struggled and screamed and kicked...
"What's making love?" Valentina asked, the words she had just heard did not make sense at all. There were too many questions, and no answers: How could love be made? How do you make love? Valentina thought the woman and her friend, who had just returned from somewhere, were just kidding. Valentina had not heard a joke ever since... he died, but she could not bring herself to laugh at all, as both curiosity and wariness was filling her mind.
"That's what she said before." The woman, who said her name was Marilyn, said light-heartedly to her friend, throwing her arms comically as she smiled. Valentina thought her smile was a little... scary for some reason, but she thought she was just tired - it had been a long day, trying to find food and then finding little. All she had found were more biters and bad-looking people. Marilyn and her friend were the first people who weren't trying to hurt her after spotting her. Instead, when Marilyn was alone, she had invited Valentina into the house even when she had tried to break into it.
"Is that so?" The man, who said his name was Manson, said. There was a look on his face that Valentina could not understand. It looked like he was smiling and happy, but at the same time he didn't, "How about we show you? It's a fun little something, you know."
"O...Okay..." Valentina stammered, suddenly afraid, like when she knew that a practical joke was going to be played on her by a boy and was still going to fall for it anyway. The smiles that her two new friends were wearing unnerved her a little. After agreeing to what she thought would be a fun game, or something like what a family would do, Manson lead her into a room where there was a huge bed, something that Valentina remembered her father would call 'Emperor-sized' jokingly. There, Manson carried her by the waist and laid her down on her back, "What am I supposed to do?" Looking up, she saw that the woman was behind Manson, smiling in a not-so-smiling way.
"Just lie down, baby and... Close your eyes." Marilyn said, thrilled at getting to play the 'game'. Valentina felt confused, but did as she was told, closing her eyes and waiting for the practical joke. On the other hand, she thought that they were about to give her a surprise. For a crazy moment, she thought that they were friends with Lieutenant Hugh, or her father, and was about to bring either one of them into the room for a surprise. Valentina held onto that thought, hoping that it would come true. For the first time in a long while, the young girl actually smiled. Marilyn seemed to like that very much: "Good girl! You'll do more than smiling next, sugar."
As Valentina waited, she could feel something heavy climbing into bed next to her, and that heavy thing coming, lying down on top of her, pressing down on her. The young girl could hardly breathe, yet she could smell that it was Manson - she could smell sweat, and something else that she could not name. In fact, both Marilyn and Manson smelt that way. As Manson slipped his arms around Valentina's back, the girl thought that it was just a family tradition that they had to do for her to be accepted into the family. She remembered about family traditions - every family had one. It was what Daddy told her. Valentina had all kinds of festivals and celebrations in the family that few other families had, and they would always visit Russia... 'Maybe this is their family tradition...' Valentina thought.
Valentina liked it. She had never been hugged before, not for a long time. She felt warmth and love, and thought this was what they meant by making love. The girl hugged back, and liked it... Until she could feel something moist and disgusting down her neck before feeling it shoved on her lips. Opening her eyes, she saw Manson, up close... Kissing her in the lips. Wide-eyed from surprise, Valentina was beginning to doubt herself and everything, and when she could feel the man's fingers digging into her back, and saw his face withdrawing and pressing itself against her chest, she began to shiver, and feel fear. Her back was beginning to flare with pain.
"Ow! You're hurting me!" Valentina protested, but it was as if Manson was deaf. Instead, the man was lifting her shirt up. Looking around at Marilyn, hoping to find help in her, all she saw was the woman putting a finger on her lips and then coming closer, and closer, looming over her. Marilyn was taking off her belt for some reason and Valentina could not understand, but more so, the fear in her was becoming terror. The man on top of her continued to pull at her shirt, managing to lift it up to her chest even when Valentina was trying to pull it back down, "No!"
"C'mon, you lil' cunt, give me some sugar!" The man said, and all of a sudden, Valentina found that she hated him, "You wanted it, remember baby?" He became rough, and soon Valentina could hear something ripping, and found that it was her shirt. Somewhere and somehow along the line, her pirate eyepatch had disappeared.
Valentina screamed as her shirt was torn down the middle...
Valentina screamed as she could feel the man on her bare chest...
She screamed as she remembered what to do, and started groping...
She screamed as she groped against the barrier of no hope...
As the man was trying to undo her belt...
Valentina screamed, but as she found the solid handle of Lieutenant Hugh's combat knife, her lighthouse in a sea of hopelessness, she unsheathed her weapon and brought it sideways into Manson's tickle zone desperately. It went all the way in, sinking down to the guard. Manson's scream was far louder than anything Valentina could muster. "Son of a bitch!!!" He cried as he writhed in pain. Valentina stabbed and stabbed again, the blood flowing in huge amounts onto her jeans and the 'Emperor-sized' bed. Into the lung, into his stomach, until Manson, in his effort to get away, accidentally fell off the bed.
Marilyn was staring, just staring, as it all happened, her own jeans loose as her belt was off and the zippers were undone. As soon as the woman made a move for her pistol, Valentina did the same thing with her revolver. Gunshots rang out, two almost in unison. Both of them froze, gun in hand, both believing themselves to have won... Before the woman whom Valentina thought was a friend fell over, coughing out blood from both her mouth and a hole in her throat.
Valentina cried, cried hard as she tried to sit up, and barely could not as she could feel pain all over her body - It wasn't long before she realised that she had been shot as well, and it was a long, nasty-looking thing on her shoulder - a graze wound. Had the woman fired her pistol a little more to her left, she would have been lying down next to her and Manson.
The girl tried to get off the bed, and tumbled down instead, finding it hard to move as her body felt used and bruised, as pain was all over her, not to mention her jeans had dropped as she tried to slip off the tall bed. Getting up, she found that she could barely stand up, much less bend down to pull her pants up. She had stopped crying, but couldn't help but to start again. "Dad..." She cried, suddenly missing him, really, really missing him, wishing that he was with her, wishing for his huge, powerful arms to be around her, only to feel the cold air of night and darkness, of two new ghosts watching her.
"Dad..." Valentina mumbled in her sleep as newly produced tears slipped out of her closed eyelids, wetting her pillow.
Life has just gotten a bit tougher for me even if it means financial betterment. I need something to look forward to other than my Advanced RP (which hasn't moved for weeks, at least in my perspective)
