Chapter Thirteen "Okay, Vi. Here y'go." Heather handed her Violet a bottle full of warm milk, and tussled her long, curly black hair. She had been put in charge of watching her three toddler siblings, while Amanda was out shopping, Raymond was having a bubble bath, and Rose had gone off to who-knows-where. A usual.
Sometimes I hate being the oldest. Heather thought, walking over to the blocks table to check on the twins. She found them shooting death glares at each other. Groaning, she headed over to them.
"Alright, what's going on
this time?" she snapped. Daisy and Lily had been unable to get along for the entire morning, and were driving Heather and Rose nuts. Daisy jabbed an accusing finger at Lily.
"It's
her fault! I had a really tall block tower, and she took a block off the bottom, and I lost all of it!"
"You guys have been fighting all day. Lily, use your own blocks. Daisy, it's not that big of a deal, just rebuild it. Both of you, if I have to scold you abput something as trivial as this again, you won't be able to use blocks at
all today, got it?" Heather was sick and tired of her sisters bickering, and not letting her do anything but scold them. Over and over. Satisfied that her sisters would get along now, she walked over to the bookshelf near her bed, and pulled out "Special Snowflake", a romance novel, and crawled onto her bed. She hadn't read this book before, because her parents always stopped her from doing it for some reason. Well, they were occupied right now, and she wanted to finish it before they found her. She opened it up, and was absorbed into the words and story. For half an hour she read on a sort of autopilot, only reading the words and figure out the story, not pausing to think about what connection and resemblance the sory and characters had to her life. Or
didn't have, for that matter. She lived in a basement. A jail, from which there was no escape. She couldn't meet new people, she couldn't fall in love. She would never see the outside world, she would be trapped forever. With trembling hands, Heather turned the page to keep reading.
Right now, the main characters Rachel and Dylan were on a snow covered hill, with snow falling heavily around and on them. Because Rachel's family had moved to another town, she and Dylan couldn't see each other anymore. Her parents had tried to get her to stop moping, to forget about Dylan and make new friends, but Rachel didn't want to. She wanted Dylan, and only Dylan. So, on the midnight of Valentines day, she snuck away, as she had arranged with him. She'd had to ride the train for hours, but finally they had met once again on the snow covered hill. That part, Heather could handle.
The next part, however, she couldn't. In this part, Dylan took Rachel in his arms, and whispered, "Every snowflake is different, and all of them are beautiful. But no snowflake's beauty could compare to yours. You're my special snowflake, baby, and I love you." That part was too much. With tears rolling down her cheeks, she dropped the book on the cold, stone floor. She didn't want to read anymore. She didn't want these characters taunting her with a life she couldn't have. Heather pulled her knees up to her chest, and put her head down, crying.
I want to fall in love. I want someone to love me back. I want to see snow, to be outside. I want to be part of the world. I want to live a normal life! "You want out, don't you?" A quiet voice in front of her made Heather jump. She looked up to see Rose, gazing at her with sad, blue eyes.
"W-what do you mean?" Heather asked, trying to contain her sadness. There was no need to depress her sister, as well. "I'm happy here. This is the only life I've ever known, and I'm happy with it." Rose shook her head.
"I read that book. I knew what it would do to you, that's why I tried to stop you from reading it. I would always ask you too come help me with something, or that Mom needed you. Once I even asked Daisy and Lily to start fighting to stop you from opening that book." Rose spoke calmly and sadly, which was very unusual for her. "We all want to escape, Heather. Daisy and Lily talk about what they think the world above us looks like, and what they would do if they could be outside. I'm sure even mom and dad aren't completely happy with the life they've made for themselves down here. And I know I want to escape." She laid her hand on Heather's, and smiled up at her. "So cheer up, my sister. I don't like to see you cry." With that, she slipped off the bed, and walked over to the blocks table.
Rose's words had touched Heather but they hadn't managed to lift the dull sorrow inside her. Then she noticed Amanda appearing in a flash of light. She noticed Rose walk over to her, carrying Daisy, and speak quietly to her. Suddenly, anger burned in her gut.
This is her
fault. She could have taught martial arts to dad so that he could escape! Not leave him and her kids behind while she can leave an enjoy the outside world! I hate
her, I hate
her, I HATE
her! Raymond had come out of the bathroom, and had started talking to Amanda and Rose as well. After a few minutes, Rose headed back to the blocks table, and started a game of peek-a-boo with Violet, while Raymond started making dinner. Amanda walked over to Heather.
"Sweetie? Are you okay?" Amanda asked sounding worried.
"I'm fine." Heather said numbly, keeping her back turned so her mother wouldn't see her tears.
"Honey, I understand if you're upset because you've never seen outside, but-"
Heather spun around, enraged. "UNDERSTAND?! HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND?! IT'S BECAUSE OF
YOU I FEEL THIS WAY! IT'S BECAUSE OF
YOU I'VE LIVED MY WHOLE LIFE IN THIS HOLE LIKE A PRISONER!"
Her mother looked shocked. "Heather what do you mean? This isn't-"
"YES IT IS!" Heather interrupted her mother, tears streaming down her cheeks. "BECAUSE YOU'RE SO
SELFISH, YOU LEAVE DAD AND YOUR OWN
KIDS TO
ROT DOWN HERE IN THIS INFERNAL HOLE, WHILE YOU CAN ESCAPE ANYTIME YOU WANT, AND BE AS FREE AS I'VE WISHED TO BE MY WHOLE LIFE!"
Amanda put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Heather, that's not true. I wish as much as you do that you could live in a real house, and be free, but-"
Fury pulsing through her whole body, Heather slapped Amanda's hand away violently. "THIS IS TOO YOUR FAULT! IF YOU REALLY WISHED I COULD BE FREE, AND IF YOU REALLY
WANTED ME TO BE FREE, YOU WOULD HAVE FOUND AWAY TO GET DAD OUT OF THERE, SO I COULD BE BORN IN A HOUSE AND LIVE A NORMAL LIFE!"
"Heather-"
"DON'T TALK TO ME ANY MORE! I
HATE YOU!" She tore across the basement, and ran into the bathroom, the only other separate room in the basement. Heather slammed her hand down the button that locked the door, and collapsed on the bathroom's cold stone floor, crying and shaking violently. She cried for hours, and when her sobs finally died away, the whole basement was silent. Heather figured they must have already gone to sleep, but she didn't care. She pulled herself up off the floor, and sat against the wall. She remembered a quote she had read in "The Four Corners of the Earth", a crumbly, centuries old book her mother- no
Amanda, since no mother would leave her daughter trapped beneath the ground, had bought at the consignment shop:
Every living being has their own destiny, that will always be played out in the end. What some may believe to be their destiny could change at any moment, and revel their true path. Some people's destinies may be to fall in love, have children and a family, or to never love or marry, or to change history in ways people never would have imagined.
-King Nayr
Yeah, and some people's destinies are to spend their lives locked up in a basement. Heather though bitterly. Still, she wondered if her destiny might change, like King Nayr had said.
Now you're just being stupid, it's not like destiny exists. She told herself. Then, she though back to when she was still a child, and Amanda had taught her a song in Chinese. A long time ago, before Heather had been born, or even before she'd met Raymond, Amanda had travelled to Shang Simla, China, an ancient village shrouded in mist, to learn the art of Sim-Fu. She had purchased a book about it, as well as a training dummy and a board breaker. Because she was on a three-day trip, and that had taken less than a day, she'd gone off to meet some locals. One of them had taught her a song in Chinese, called Ping and his Checkers which Amanda had much later taught to her. She had never sung it after that, because she didn't have her own room, and didn't like to sing around other people, but she wanted to sing it now, hoping in would make her feel better. She still remembered every word of the song, so she closed her eyes, and sung it softly into the silence and darkness of the basement.
"Bandinei ta wa zo hei, Banda glarn fel chum chow wei." The words echoed off the cold stone walls of the room. Heather sung it over and over again, trying to lift her sadness. She didn't know what any of those words meant, but they soothed her.
Finally, she let the last few words trail away, and fell silent again. She looked up, wishing with all her heart that she could see through the basement celling, the ground, and the house above the ground, and see the night stars, twinkling with all the beauty in the world. Two fresh rivers of tears trickled silently down her cheeks. And, in the darkness and cold of the stone room, four quiet words escaped her lips.
"What is my destiny?"
----
W00t, finally done with this chapter! ^^
...
HOLY COWPLANTS, THIS CHAPTER IS
LONG! I guess this makes up for the lack of second chapter yesterday? Anyway...
Chapter Notes:
* None of this, of course, happened in the actual game. This is just how I would react if I had been locked in a basement for fourteen years. In many ways, the Heather in writing is based off me.
* This isn't the end of the story, but...
* This puts me in kind of a tight spot, because this is where I've played up to in the actual game, so I don't know what to do in chapter fourteen. I also don't know what to do with Heather. This particular issue will be brought into detail in a post directly after this one.
* You may have noticed that Rose's personality is a lot different in this chapter. This is because in my mind, Rose isn't a completely hyper, naive nine year old. She's got a quiet, sort of hollow, side to her as well. I'll probably bring this side of her back in a later chapter. For some reason I'm good at writing these sort of hollow, empty, broken personalities. One of the main characters in another one of my stories was like that.
* Now, onto some useless facts:
* You may also have noticed that Heather talks in a sort of slang. This is another way she's similar to me, because she's sort of a reflection of how I talk.
* Yes, I've skipped the babyhood of all the Churchill babies. That's because babies are boring in TS3.
* I made up the plot and characters of Special Snowflake, beacause I've got no way of knowing what it's
really about.
* Also, that excerpt from Special Snowflake was really terrible, I know. Like I said before, I'm bad at romance scenes.
* The quote about destiny was made up by me. King Nayr may or may not have been made up by EA, and may or may not be a real person. I don't know, and I'm to lazy to look it up.
* However, I am not too lazy to have my good singer sim sing Ping and His Checkers ten times while I try to write down the words.
* Neither Amanda nor Heather actually know Ping and His Checkers. ^^;;
* Amanda did go to China to buy a board breaker and a dummy, bud only talked to the merchant. She was sent home right after buying the objects. The reason she had to get Martial Arts stuff at China was because I was too stupid to think to buydebug at the time.
* And by the way, The Roommates household (Jenna and the Churchills. Yes, Jenna is still alive and is in the same household as them. And by the way, I called it Roommates because it started off with just Amanda and Jenna.) has around 30,000 dollars in household funds. This is so I don't have to worry about bills. I like to think Jenna got her money in a corrupt way.
* Okay, I'm done rambling now. Please read the post after this one, and COMMENT, COMMENT, COMMENT! This is the longest, most time consuming chapter in this whole story, and possibly my favorite! So one that note:
* Tell me what you think of this chapter? Pwease?~ :3
