Young Writers Society

Having my knives with me was not nearly as comforting as I'd hoped. Annie ignored me, for the most part, and I'm not used to socializing with five-year-olds. Or six. Whatever. I've never really been a young-people-person.
I think it began when a little boy threatened me with a spoon. I was very young and enjoyed my time in the sandbox. His name was Riley and he had a spoon. At first I let him play with me, then he put a bunch of sand in his spoon and hit me with it.
The first time he did it I yelled at him to stop. His face contorted into a grimacing leer and he waited until I had my back turned before hitting me with the sand again.
As the faintly damp grains took up residence in my hair, I began screaming for my mom. She was right there on a park bench, reading. She paused in her book, looked up at me pointing at Riley, then she quirked a smile, said, "You're OK, Ella. Play nice Riley."
In that moment I realized that my mom did not have a clue.
I was not OK, I was having a traumatic experience and she was reading her new Harlequin Romance. Ignoring me.
Riley threw some more sand on me and my pouting rage built. The world was closing in on me and I had no help. I could not rely on my mom. I could not rely on anyone but myself.
So, taking the matter into my own hands, I punched him real hard in the stomach.
He giggled, rolled over on me and kissed me full on the lips. Right there in the sandbox. It was horrible; practically the worst day of my life.
It took me a little while to notice that my hand was bleeding all over my kukri. It must have slipped while I was cleaning it.
I remembered vaguely that I had cut my hand on glass before, but I dismissed this memory as part of a dream.
"When's Jeremy getting back?" Annie asked.
"Why do you expect me to know?" I shot back.
"I just thought you might know where the mall is from here."
"Nope. Never go to the mall."
"Do you know where we are?"
"Hey, kid, I didn't come here voluntarily. I don't have any idea where we are."
We waited in silence for a few minutes, then a few more. I started to miss hearing Annie's voice, as annoying as it was that she was asking me something I really didn't know. I also started wondering where Jeremy was.
Shit.
"Annie, do you know how to get to the mall?"
"No. Why do you think I asked you?"
"I..." I thought it was just to piss me off. Well then.
"Do you think Jeremy's okay?"
I thought about Jeremy; his quiet demeanor, his hesitancy, his shyness..."You know what? I think he might be just fine, but we should go check on him. And by we I do mean we, but you're gonna have to hide if you see anyone. Anyone. Understand?"
Annie nodded, her hair flopping all over the place. "You think he's dead, don't you."
"Yep. You're really perceptive, aren't you?"
She looked at me. "I have to be."
I gave her a dagger and we started off.
Riley moved away shortly after violating me. I have no idea where he lives now or if he's even still alive. I like to think he's rotting in a jail cell for his crimes against me, but likely he's just fine, married, has lots of kids, etc.
After Riley left, I had the sandbox all to myself. I liked this just fine, as I was a very antisocial child, and I relished my personal time shoving sand around and building little mound-castles.
Then one day Finn came along. I was about seven or eight at the time and had thus recovered sufficiently from Riley's advances. Finn was polite, for the most part, and refrained from throwing sand at me when I told him to stop. He did it the next day, of course, but by then I'd discovered he was fun to be around and it no longer mattered and he stopped when he failed to provoke a suitable response.
My mom thought it was cute.
We grew up and somewhere in there my aunt gave me my knives and my parents began teaching me tactics and martial arts. I naturally thought I was in love with Finn, so I told him all about the knives. I even showed them to him, and he almost cut his hand off, succeeding merely in going about halfway through it and spattering my bed with blood.
Annie interrupted my thoughts by asking me a question. I pulled myself from the recesses of reminiscence and said, "What? Sorry, I wasn't listening."
"Should I hide?" she repeated, pointing down the road a ways.
There, in the middle of the street, was a postwoman. She wasn't my postwoman, which was slightly depressing, but she was a woman with post just the same. For a moment, her quiet, calm demeanor threw me off-guard and I forgot that the town was beset by demons.
Then she turned to me and I saw that half of her face was melted off, exposing a marred, caved-in skull that no living human could survive with.
Startled, I froze in fear, remembering the house of endless rooms and how I'd gotten there in the first place.
"Annie," I gasped after a short pause, "go hide."