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The Gauntlet of Life
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authored and scribed by Hadrian

Mother listened when I told her to stop. She didn't usually listen - once she'd
started she'd be hard-pressed to stop. But this time my plea was muted by the
blood sliding back into my throat, and I guess the prospect of me choking in my
own blood was too much for her. She stomped out and brushed her hand against the
door to close it. The door, shutting me off from the rest of the world once
more, sounded more comforting than any lullaby and more prophetic than any dark
verse.

I slithered over to the night stand, knowing the way by heart, and pulled the
rag out of a drawer. It felt firm and crunchy, having absorbed many pints of
blood over the... years. Dizziness overtook me for a second as I tried to wipe
myself clean so I wouldn't stain anything else. It had been this way for a long
time, but I could never get my mind around mother's reasons. She always said, or
yelled, or whispered, I was the origin of all her problems, but I never believed
her. How could I have made her so miserable?

I bit into the rag to get some blood off my teeth and felt a strong sting as a
broken tooth stabbed my gums. My hand shaking, I pulled it out and threw it into
the small pot, hearing it clink against the others. Suddenly, my eyes teared and
I sneezed loudly. Reflexively, my limbs jumped like spider legs and carried me
to the corner as soon as the door creaked open once more.

"What was that?" she asked.

"I sneezed. I'm sorry."

She let out a lame sigh and closed the door again. I gulped down this mixture
of saliva and blood that was still present in my mouth and held my nose closed
as I felt another surge coming. I'd had enough for today.

I returned the rag and folded it neatly. I slumped even lower near the
nightstand and started breathing slowly. My mind was awhirl with thoughts, all
very old and very familiar, thoughts I'd thought thousands of times already.
Why? Could I escape? Did I want to escape? Did they love me? Was I to blame?
Surely there had to be some reason behind it all. I had seen nothing of the
world... but I knew, I felt there was a reason for everything. If I escaped... I
felt it impossible and, strangely, undesirable. Here, I suffered. But outside,
maybe I would suffer more. Father told me of the horrible world outside. People
killing each other daily, enmity ruling the land and serving as the very basis
of the lives of many... Many out there, who would kill me solely for living
here.

Here? I didn't even know where here was. Sometimes, mother and father would
seem to talk in their heads, and over time, observing the events that came to
pass after such displays, I figured there must be some kind of web of many
people who could all communicate this way. When I realized it, I wanted
desperately to be part of the group... But no matter how hard I tried, I could
only ever hear my own thoughts. Mother saw me try once, while she was beating
me, and laughed hellishly. I thought then, hearing the malice in her cackle,
that she was the reason I wasn't be like them. But, over time, I came to think
that, maybe, the fact that I wasn't like them itself was what enraged her so...

My thoughts jumped to my father. He was always special - he would knock. And
his touch, when he punched me... it was always warm. My mother's firm hands were
cold, so cold they seared my neck when she choked me, but father was different,
somehow. His brown eyes would tear on occasion. I always dismissed it as cold
air or dust, but, deep down, I knew he was struggling to cry - but couldn't. And
that one time, a week ago...

One time, he blinked in genuine emotion - in astonishment. That one time when,
throwing me against the wall, my locket snapped open to reveal the beautiful
star inside. I had no recollection of when or how I'd obtained that locket. For
all I knew, it was with me from birth. It was very strange, in many ways. It
would, for example, always slide towards my heart, regardless of whether I was
sitting, standing, or lying on my right side. I grew incredibly fond of it
because of that. I felt like it would break if my heart ever stopped beating...
At times, I dismissed these thoughts as silly fantasies of a silly child, but
most of the time, that locket was my only friend here. And that time, when it
opened - I'd never seen it open before, for it was sealed shut - my father
blinked at it, widened his eyes, and left the room. Then, I thought... my friend
had saved me.

As I thought of it, my hand had unconsciously grasped the locket. I started
playing with it, tugging at it, hiding it in one hand and then pretending the
other one would find it, swinging it between the nightstand and the wall so it
made fun rhythmic noises, twirling it and imagining it could create a whirlwind
that would take me away to some distant land...

Two rapid knocks on the door pulled me out from my daydream. It pushed open
silently, the creaking somehow gone, and he came in. I lowered my head and let
the locket rest. His steps sounded foreboding and I suddenly felt he was not
himself today. The little things... his breathing, usually fast and shallow, now
completely silent... his steps, usually resounding and heavy, now mere
pit-pats... He was different today. I raised my head and looked at him, and he
was indeed changed. Not here to punish me. Hard to imagine... but not today.
Suddenly I had a strange feeling, that feeling you have when routine is broken,
when you know something important is about to come by, but you have no idea
why... or how.

He was squeezing something in his right hand. I couldn't make out what it was,
but he was rhythmically squeezing it and staring at it, head bowed. He walked
closer to me with his new steps, the pitter-patter which almost... almost made
me smile, as if I'd recognized a long forgotten endearing characteristic. I
thought this scene would probably look creepy to an outsider, but I somehow knew
it for what it was. There was an undefined air about him. There used to be no
'air' at all.

He knelt before me and raised his head, slowly, like out of some absurd fear
that his joints would creak too loudly... that someone would hear and know he
was here, like this. Crying. Because he was... crying, I mean. His face was
horribly contorted, red and dry, save for the trails of tears. He'd been crying
for hours. He gasped for air as he laid his eyes upon my face, as if he hadn't
seen me in years. And somehow, I thought he probably hadn't...

"Mala," he whispered, his voice shaking. "Mala... Mala..."

He kept repeating my name. At first, I didn't even realize he was saying it. I
hadn't heard it in such a long time, I'd almost forgotten it. Mother always
called me names or called me a wench, never... Mala. My name.

"Daughter... What has happened to y-"

A cough cracked violently through his words and made me jump. His hand flew
reflexively to my shoulder and held me down. When he stopped coughing, he just
looked at that hand, touching me. Feeling his touch, so warm, unfamiliar yet
friendly...

"Papa... What's happened to you?"

Astonished, he roared with laughter. The fear from before, that stealth, was
gone. He laughed and laughed and pulled me up off the floor, into his arms and
spun around and around, laughing all the while. At first, I thought he was
acting like a child who'd just found a new toy. Then I got a look at his face
and my mind changed completely. He was genuinely happy to have found me.
Moreover, he seemed happy to have found me... alive. The spinning stopped and he
gently let me down. He noticed the sore look on my face, but we both ignored it.
It was trivial to the scene at hand.

"Tell me everything!" I gasped. "I knew... I knew there was something!"

"Oh, daughter... Your mother has gone shopping, we are alone for now... Oh,
daughter..."

And he told me.

He and mother got married two years before I was born. It was a marriage in the
heat of young love. Sadly, he said, as it usually goes, the heat died down two
years in. He found mother a wholly cold and unforgiving person. She found him
not the knight in shining armor she had pictured. They would have divorced, but
each felt it was the wrong thing to do for various reasons. And so they stayed,
him miserable because he could do nothing right, her because she had nothing to
do at all.

Eight years ago, when I was about six, he was working as a shopkeeper for a
famous alchemist who had since passed away. The alchemist saw father's ardent
work at the shop and wanted to take him as a pupil. Father was dazzled with
prospects of a great career. Mother was dazzled with prospects of great wealth.
When she learned that alchemy didn't pay as well as it used to in her day, she
flipped. She ordered father to seek out a more lucrative career.

He refused.

"She... prepared a dinner one day. I thought she wanted to make up. Make it all
up with one romantic dinner. And I was willing to try... Because even though
your mother wasn't what I'd thought she was, she was still your mother, and I
wanted a normal life for you. I realize my mistake now... Normal is not
necessarily best."

He took a deep breath, and whispered, "From the moment I drank the wine from my
glass, our passion was revived."

Mother had apparently spiked it with love potion. She made father take up
apprenticeship with a rich enchanter, whom she then seduced. The enchanter died
in love with her and left her all his wealth. Father thought, he remembers, that
she would be happy now. That she would let him go. Falsely enamored, he forgot
how unforgiving she was. And there was one other thing he'd given her, which she
didn't want. Me.

"She was always proud of her beauty. She was once crowned Miss Igasho of the
neighborhood. Being pregnant... And lazy and careless as she was, she ruined it
all. And never being one to admit a mistake, she blamed it on you. And me, for
giving you to her. We had dinners, then... every week."

When he got to how she would order him to punish me, he broke down in tears and
gasped for air. He laughed through the tears, though. I began to think he wasn't
just laughing out of happiness. I heard traces of a kind of relief... a sinister
kind. He looked at me, smiled and pulled me into an embrace.

"I am so sorry. There is no way to repay you..."

I looked at him in horror.

"You don't have to repay anything! NOTHING needs to be repaid, papa! Just stay,
stay here with me, don't leave me alone!"

He smiled at my screams of protest and looked me up and down. His eyes stopped
on my locket.

"May I see that for a..."

He smiled as I gave it to him. Looking it over and caressing it, nostalgia
adorned his aged face.

"I gave this to you. When you were one. Do you remember what I told you? No,
you couldn't, could you..."

I watched him stumble and mumble around the room, never breaking his gaze from
the locket.

"I received this from a very close friend a long time ago. Seeing it a week ago
snapped me out of my delusions temporarily - but enough to realize just what was
going on. I secretly spit out the wine last time... Hold the locket close to you
at all times, Mala."

"Alright, but I still don't-"

"If you are in danger, have faith and show it the respect and love you would
show me, and it will honor you."

"Stop, why are you telling me all-"

"When the time comes, promise me you will remember this."

"But papa, why-"

"PROMISE ME!"

His bellow scared me and I screamed a bit. He gave me a firm, forgiving look.

"You have always been an incredible child, Mala. You have run the gauntlet of
life without taking a step outside these walls. I hope you find happiness out
there..."

"I will find happiness here with you!"

He smiled with finality and raised the thing he was squeezing all this time to
his mouth. Gulping down the contents of the small vial, his moment came about as
swift and unnoticed as an elusive shadow in a thick forest. I flinched as his
body fell to the dusty ground.

I had a feeling from the very moment I saw the thing in his hand. The cold,
descending feeling in my stomach... which I ignored. Because he was there, for
the first time in ages, he was there. And I loved every moment of it. Even the
final one.

I took the locket from him and opened it to look at the inside once more. A
beautiful golden star with seven points was etched into a substantially black
surface, radiating a bright cyan glow. I snapped it shut because my eyes pained
me suddenly. And the very next moment, my brain pained me too with a sudden
realization - if my father was kept intoxicated by mother... if he was that way
due to someone else's influence... perhaps even mother...

Yes, it would seem obvious. She was a very weak person, judging by father's
words. A materialist at heart, easily impressed upon. Maybe she could be saved
too. I glanced at the locket. Father said the sight of it snapped him out, but
would it work for mother? The locket meant a lot to father, after all, that's
why it worked. I would need to find something close to her heart.

... Something close to her gold-digging, vindictive heart.

No, I mustn't think like this! Surely she is that way because of the influence
she's under. Father said mother's gone shopping, and he left the door open, the
usual lock on it removed. I could search the house... Search for something
meaningful.

I stepped over father's body, gifting him with one final look, and walked
through the door. After a long circular staircase (I wasn't aware I'd been this
deep!), I entered the house proper. It smelled of cookies. I don't know how I'd
recognized the smell, but it definitely smelled of cookies. The house was
entirely circular and wholly made of a dark, lustrous wood. I stood at the very
center of what I supposed was the ground floor, the door to the basement right
beside me. Minutes slid by as I dashed, room to room, surprisingly uninterested
in what my own house looked like, knowing I was here on a mission of sorts...
and a clock was ticking.

The house, apart from the smell of cookies, had the distinct feel of my mother
pervading it. It was filled with materially priceless things which the solemn
heart would find entirely useless. I could find nothing special, nothing similar
to the personal aura of my locket, and just as I despaired, just as thoughts of
a miracle finding started crossing my mind, the front door opened and the
discordant voice of my mother froze the air in the house.

"Yes, I'll be sure to tell him. Yes, the weather is nice today. Yes, of course.
I must be going now, bye bye!"

I'd been in full run mode as soon as I'd heard the door open, and as she
slammed it shut I was closing the basement door from the inside. I crawled into
a corner and, shivering, listened on. I had completely forgotten the terror I
would feel with her around, and now it came back in full swing.

Moments passed in complete silence as I imagined her moving around the house,
surely finding something I'd accidentally knocked over or changed in some way.
She would then surely come stomping down the stairs. She would kick the door
open and find father dead on the floor. She would blame it on me and surely...
surely...

And surely enough...

I heard her mighty footsteps as she rumbled her now overweight form down to me.
The door flew off its hinges this time - she knew the lock had already been
lifted. As her bulbous eyes fixated on my father's corpse and her mouth began to
open in a shout of protest, she stopped and looked straight at me. She had bad
eyesight and I was in a dark corner, but she knew I was there.

"You! Wretched h'lf-breed!! Wh't h've you done?!" she rasped.

"Nothing! It wasn't me!"

"Everything... your f'ult! Your doing! Little WENCH!"

She came at me with inexpressible force, pulled me up and slammed me against
the wall. I screamed violently as I felt a rib break and puncture my skin. I was
struck by the sudden realization and fear that another may break and fly into
something more vital than my skin... She threw me to the opposite end of the
room and I immediately tried to run through the door and up the stairs. No
sooner than I reached the fifth step, I felt a tug on my leg and stumbled back
down, hitting my chin on each of the steps I'd climbed. My mother had been
bellowing trivial insults all the while, trying to catch her breath as she was
terribly out of shape.

"You..." she gasped again. "All your f'ult!"

I shook my head but stopped as I felt a minor burst in my head. I didn't know
what it was, but it certainly didn't feel good. I would have only one shot at
this...

"He g've me everything before you c'me! His time w's my time! His love... MY
love! You ruined me from the inside... 'nd then I w's UGLY! 'nd no one wants an
UGLY-"

I launched myself up at her with only one thought in my head. Love would end
this all. Only a small burst of pain in exchange for peace. And as I planted a
kiss on her cheek and fell back down to the floor in excruciating pain, I closed
my eyes as I imagined the evil spirit leave my mother. A rapturous voice in my
head tolled joy and happiness and sunny days outside and a world all to
myself... All the music of the world came together, all the colors fused into a
royal backdrop and I lay on a velvety bed... in peace.

"Wh't did you just do, you little breed?!"

My eyes shot open. My mother was standing above me. She was not the beautiful
mother I remembered. She was still the monster, glaring at me, ready to kill. I
started pulling back, but the pain overwhelmed me and I simply collapsed. Gray
started filling my view and I felt myself slipping away.

"... 'll your f'ult... killed your f'ther... wench..."

A new warmth filled me upon hearing her still muttering those blasphemous
words. A raging heat spread through every inch of my body. There was no evil
spirit. She was under no influence. It was her, all her, all HER fault. And as a
righteous wrath filled my inadequate frame, I thought back to something my
father said. He was always my protector, until she pulled him into her claws.
There was one last thing I could do that I had faith in, that he said I should
have faith in.

I tugged at the locket around my neck and snapped it open with the one last bit
of strength left in my fingers. The star seemed to have a stronger glow, but the
darkness behind it was what surprised me. It was moving, more substantial than
ever, like it was tired of being just the backdrop and the time had come for it
to... shine. Tired of thinking, wishing it all to end whichever way, I lowered
the locket to my bloody lips and closed my eyes as I planted on it a kiss imbued
with all my dreams, and the hope that my time would come, that I would get a
chance to run the true gauntlet of life in all its splendor and cruelty.

I was instantly blinded by a burst of effervescent blue light and didn't know
if it was real or if it was just my brain quitting and giving me a nice
off-you-go to death. I found myself full of life again and rose to my feet
within the apparently persisting blue light. Just as I'd realized I was standing
in an endless expanse of blue, it all sizzled away and I was in front of my
mother again. The room was different, though. Taller, somehow. Or maybe it was
just this new feeling inside me that made me think everything accordingly grand.
Whatever the case, mother definitely didn't look herself anymore. She was
glancing left and right with surprising horror in her eyes, as if looking for a
direction to escape in. I followed her eyes and noticed that the room was, in
fact, expanding. The darkness in the corners was moving and looked somehow
darker and more palpable, and it was pulling the walls away from me. Seconds
later, it grew to the size of a mansion. I couldn't see the walls because of the
darkness blanketing all around me, but I simply felt the room grow larger and
larger. And suddenly, mother and I were pulled from it and we shot up (or down?
I'd lost sense of direction in the darkness) to find ourselves in a new
environment.

Levitating twenty feet above the ground, encased in that palpable darkness, I
had only a few seconds to look around at a gloomily beautiful forest before all
the darkness of the starry night suddenly coalesced into an imposingly dark form
in front of me. I was filled with the same feeling of rejuvenation as I had been
in that blue expanse earlier as I saw his unspeakably comforting eyes staring at
me. He turned unexpectedly, his royally dark hair and cloak following
obediently, and flew a bit higher. I saw my mother stare at him joyously as she
muttered some words I couldn't make out. All of a sudden, she was there no more,
hoisted up to the dark form by streaks of shadows that wrapped themselves like
shackles around her wrists and ankles.

"My Lord," she said with a smile up there, in front of him, apparently thinking
she was to receive some great honor.

Looking down for a moment I saw a large crowd standing perfectly still and
looking up at the dark one I now knew I could call a savior, for here I was...
outside... no matter what happened next...

The air started vibrating and I looked at the scene above again. The shadows
surrounding the dark one were performing a chaotic dance as tendrils of the
palpable darkness shot towards mother and surrounded her, provoking screams of
anguish as she finally understood there was nothing joyful about this situation.
The tendrils pulsated closer and closer to mother and she started writhing
desperately, but I had a feeling the dark one's piercing gaze was holding her in
place and there was nothing in the whole world that could save her now. The air
screeched as what could only be his voice slithered through every corner of the
forest.

"Glomdoring, behold this pernicious cancer which dwelt within You for many a
year and fed off you like the parasite it is. It was born of You and raised by
You, but went horribly astray. On the path it trod, minor obstacles presented
themselves and it was too weak to overcome them. It then submitted to the basest
pastimes of its narrow mind and wasted away all potential. It is the very worst
specimen of Your kind and sadness overcomes me when I see such a faulty splinter
of an Elder. It is My opinion that this blot does not deserve to walk Your paths
anymore, and as her offspring witnessed, does not deserve a second chance at
anything. This is My opinion. Glomdoring, what is yours?"

The crowd shuffled for a bit, but then unanimously started chanting something.
I couldn't quite make it out, but it got louder and louder, and the darkness
surrounding my mother, whose face was contorted in fear, slowly closed in. The
night dimmed as the stars went out one by one and a voice whispered to me what
everyone was so fervently chanting.

"F'ai glomdoring."

The air pulsed with the concord of the forest - the dark tendrils shot straight
through mother one by one, spawning unspeakable screams which slowly faltered
with each new tendril. As the chanting continued, another darkness rose from the
forest and wrapped mother's corpse in a black cloth. Seven lights appeared
around it and formed the recognizable heptagram from the locket and, with a
final, powerful pulse, the corpse and the star shattered into streaks of shadow.
The chanting subsided as the dark one descended and turned to me.

"You are alright?"

I nodded weakly, indeed feeling completely restored from my near-death status
from (how strange it seemed) just a few minutes ago.

"You have been through a lot, mortal, but you have survived, emotionally
unscathed, though you might not know it at present. That is a most cherishable
quality."

As he spoke, his shadows surrounded me and I soon found myself in their
embrace.

"You seem lost, little one. You are wondering what will happen next, perhaps?
You have learned lessons, yes?"

"Yes..."

"You have, though you aren't aware of your newfound wisdom yet. The moral in
all this, as you will come to see, is that, for those few oddities in life that
love does not conquer, a certain amount of brawn comes in handy. You will learn
and grow and outgrow anything you imagined as a child. Come along... I will take
you on a trip which will heal your memory of these cankerous sores, and you will
be reborn. Destiny awaits."

With those last, prophetic words which instilled in me a great new faith, he
snapped shut the shadows around me and the world went black - black with hope.