beginnings~~ because i KNOW what youre working on - it's me brig btw, dont want to sign in, dont be like me kids
In the late summer of 1988-- --Three months before she turned eight-- --Her parents were Stolen by the German State...
It's still something that haunts her, if she's being honest. It keeps the spite and fury fed. That she still sees it in her dreams is simply enough to keep putting fuel on the fire.
She counts other Orphans lucky, that their families were whisked away while they were out of the house, usually at the peak hours of a day, when older children are attending school. Many Orphans she knows in Berlin and Stuttgart are siblings. Many more use that status in the past tense, having been the eldest while a much younger sibling was being raised at home. It's rare that an Orphan is the youngest sibling.
There are a surprising few who were actually still in the family home when it happened, left in the ravage that followed and afraid to come out, knowing no one was legally allowed to help you.
Wulf makes a depressing joke sometimes. About how when she was eight, she was made unwillingly illegal by the State. 'I have been illegal since I was eight...' she says, and although it was seven (not eight), it still reminds those in her midst that the 'Stag is such a corruptible force that it labels children as illegal and forces its citizenry to not engage with them.
Not like Wulf listens to them, though. Not like she ever did. Running with a pack of them around Dresden for a few years gave her especial insight to how Orphan rings work, and the nuance for who you follow and how is surprisingly detailed for a forcefully-unseen pack of nearly feral children.
She counts herself lucky. She was pulled from the entire structure by a good man with little care for the 'Stag and their harmfully shameful rules. A solid human being -and a stalker at the time- who would hold her at night when the warped terror of her mother's blazing eyes and tooth-lined roaring face would wake her, screaming in the middle of the night.
Even though he barely knew her at the time.
ADELAIDE and STEFAN HEINRICHT: 07/23/1988
She remembers that day in stained shattered glass. The way it flew into the room accompanying something Papa was yelling, silhouetted against the morning sun in the shattered window with glass like sparks falling around him. She doesn't remember what he said, not even the tempo of the syllables. Only the noise of his voice, strange and harsh when usually it was so quiet and bright. Mama's grip on her arm in a panic so tight, it left bruises of her fingerprints marred into the flesh for weeks after. The rest of the short hall into the bedroom at the back, as far from the entry carnage as possible, was a blur of drab dirty colors and the pap of socks against carpet. She remembers the feeling of the metal bedframe, scrapping along her back when she was told to crawl into the deepest darkest recesses under it, and to not make a sound until Mama said so. She made herself small, her hands over her mouth and tears welling in her eyes when the door into the room splintered apart. Mama fought. She fought back when they grabbed her with the power of BLOOD and THUNDER, a fury that should strike fear into even the most menacing of men. From the sounds of recoil, she did some damage. It was not enough. The floor shook when Mama was pushed into it, and she could see the effects of whatever feral monster had possessed her. The pale eyes fiery, gnashing teeth amid a cloud of hair of the golden sun, and the Devil roaring curses from her throat and passed her parted maw. A battlecry not of this world, nor was it of the next one. She had never seen her mother like this, but she kept silent despite the want to cry out. Stayed in her ball to stay small, kept her hands tight over her mouth. She couldn't even feel the tears anymore, didn't register the blurred vision. She could only watch. She could only watch while hands wrapped in black grabbed her mother forcefully, holding tight limbs and buried in her hair, like they were holding a wild animal by the ruff of its neck. And Mama was dragged away. Still frothing, still cursing, in the wake of shadows of men built specifically for such purposes, above the muffled sound of thudding boots on the carpet. Silence. The silence was deafening, permeated by the creaks and groans of wood and plaster settling. Settling like a house ravaged by a cyclone. Silence is not silent. She was unsure how long she hid for, be it minutes or maybe hours. Her back itched a little, a few scratches from the frame of the bed, but outside of a mild irritation at first, it became forgotten. The channels were still in the carpet, fibers pulled to be darker against it. The turmoil of boots, the turmoil of Mama, where she pulled a hand loose halfway down the hall and left fingermarks in it. She jumped over them as though afraid to disturb them, afraid they might alert someone maybe. Where Papa stood was barely smudged. There wasn't much conflict to see, it looked more like a dance than a fight. But the carpet still glittered with shards of glass. Specks of blood. Papa fought, it wasn't enough. He was gone first, dragged into the kitchen where he lost his glasses. Where they were stepped on without ceremony and lay broken next to the shattered door and bent tin kitchen table, the remains of a coffee cup and its dark smokey contents nearby. She remembers the day with broken glass, broken screaming, and the weight of being left alone.
@throwtheminthebrig
