The Prophecy Of The Three Doubts

****TRIGGER WARNING****

(Warning, The following article contains a topic that could be triggering to some. I try to handle this key story element in a way that effectively shows the trauma to the character but isn't overly vulgar or offensive.) I heard her voice, it was sweet and soft yet cut through the horror of the world churning around me. Craig grunted as he thrust his naked hips against me. He cursed long streams of ranting profanity. I was sobbing as the unspeakable events played out. I felt the palm of his hand settle onto the back of my head. His fingers closed around my skull and his nails dug into the soft flesh behind my ear. He shoved my face down into the outcropping of granite that he had used to bend me to his will. I knew that I was crying out for it to end but the sound of the world had faded and all I could hear was a soft female voice calling me. Craig pummeled the small of my shirtless back yelling at me to shut up, to just "Shut the fuck up". His voice was so low. His voice seemed a whisper despite he was yelling, "If you tell your mother I will kill your brother." The world grew bright. The last sounds slipped away. I seemed to float toward the voice like cartoon characters do when they smell food cooling through an open window. The light went black and I tumbled into The Lost Place for the first time. When I say tumbled I mean it literally. It felt like I fell from our world into a dark hole. On the inside, there was a dirt path lined on both sides with knee-high grass, and beautiful flowers growing on vines that appeared alive yet moved like snakes. The path wound down a hill. I rolled all the way to the bottom scraping my knees and elbows on the way down. I slid to the bottom of the hill kicking up a cloud of dust. "Well, that was a bit of a fall wasn't it?" It was the voice that called me. The dust cleared. I was in some type of jungle. I could hear the sounds of my attacker behind me, so I looked back over my shoulder. I could see the gaping circular hole above the hill that I had just rolled down. Light poured in from the opening. I could also see the treeline from the world I had just left behind. "Hello, let's leave those unpleasantries to stay up there, shall we?" I turned away from the hole. Sitting in front of me on a moss-covered log was a silver and white tabby cat. I sat up and looked around. "Where are you?" "Did you hit your head? Are you unable to see? I am right here," the cat said. "But you're a cat?" "You might think that." "You're not a cat?" "Maybe I am. I don't know what a cat is." "Oh okay," as if it all suddenly made sense, and maybe it did to my child's brain. "I am a friend. My name is Blair. Some call me Blair the Wise. You seemed to need a friend so I called you." I started to look back over my shoulder again and Blair hissed and spit at me the way that cats do. "No, we are here now. Just leave that mess over there." I looked back at Blair. She was a cat; maybe more. She didn't have cat's eyes, you know yellow with a black slit. Instead, she had the caring brown eyes of a person that understands hardships and just wants to offer aid. Also, she wore a pair of thin-framed glasses with slightly purple-tinted lenses. Blair purred. "We need to talk. Walk with me." I walked with the cat, Blair the Wise, along the dirt path. From time to time I would notice the glowing eyes peer from the darkness of the jungle growth that lined the trail. "I know that today was..." She paused searching for the right words. Her tail jerked side to side showing her agitation of the lack of words, yet none seemed to come or fit. Her kind eyes settled on me. I didn't look away when normally I would. Usually, I just can't look people in the eyes. I know that she wasn't a person, but even as a child, I knew she was more than just a cat. Those kind eyes were closer to human than the cruel animalistic thing that my mother had allowed to take me into the woods. "Today has just been a day." She closed the gap between us and nuzzled me the way only cats do. She purred and I was taken aback. With my father in prison and my mother, a mess all the time, always drunk or high; it had been a long time since I had been shown affection. Tears pierced through the filth and dried blood caked on my cheeks. "Go ahead child let it out. It is better to let it out than keep it in. Terrible things fester and grow when you hold it in." So I wept like a spring downpour. All the strength left my eight-year-old body. I leaned into Blair the Wise. I put my arm around her and she nuzzled my cheek again to comfort me. I went on this way until I had no more tears to cry. "You okay?" Blair the Wise asked. "I dunno." I raked snot away from my dripping nose. "Oh, you will be, But we need to get started. There are things that I need to tell you but I don't know how much time we have left. Time passes differently here than it does over there. He will be finished soon." I nodded my understanding and touched the swelling knot over my eyes where Craig The Abuser had pushed my face into the stone. "Thomas, you will face three terrible hardships. The first one you have just been encountered. The other two will come in time. You will doubt yourself but you must push forward and face them. If you do you will help heal The Lost Place and then heal yourself." Part of me wanted to ask her how she knew my name but it seemed insignificant considering all that had transpired since I had strapped my feet into my hiking boots that morning. "But...but what can I do? I am just a kid?" "Oh you are far more than that and in time you will see just that, but for now you have him." "Him?" I was alone with Blair as far as I knew. For a brief moment, I thought maybe Craig had followed me through the rip. "Isn't that your bear?" she asked matter of factly. "My bear? You mean Teddy?" Teddy went with me everywhere. He had been with me on the hike and he had watched what had happened to me at the top of the mountain with his black button eyes. "Well if that is what you want to call him. He has been with us this whole time just behind you." She delivered a sly cat smile and used one claw jutting out to point past me over my shoulder. Before she pointed him out, I hadn't heard him. Now I did. There was a low rumbling growl behind me. Then I felt him too. Hot breath ruffled my hair in powerful puffs of air. I felt course fur brush the exposed flesh of my back where Greg had torn my shirt off of me. I turned and looked behind me. I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming in fright. There was a mountain of fur-covered muscles. His eyes were triangular red glowing slits in his black furry face. Two sharp drool-covered canines protruded from his lower lip and shimmered in the pale plum light of The Purple Queen. "He is my bear?" I asked shocked. "He is your bear, he is loyal. He is safe. Let him bare his teeth. Let him show his mighty claws. Let him roar if you need him to!" I looked back at the cat that was as much a cat as I was a king. She was talking again. She had more to say but suddenly her words seemed to be coming from across an overpacked school bus on the last day of class. The world was full of light again. The jungle was gone - along with the cat and The Bear. I was lying face down on the granite again. My body was trembling. I know now that I must have been in a state of shock. The fall North Carolina mountain air was cool on the parts of my body that were still exposed. "Pull up your damn pants unless you want more you fucking 'tard. You prolly liked it didn't ya. Ya little sissy," Craig growled, pausing long enough to light one of the foul smelling cigarettes he rolled himself. Then he added, "We have to get back down the mountain before dark." He walked over to me. I was trying to buckle my belt with shaking hands. He knelt down to look me in the face and took a drag on the cigarette. Craig plucked the butt from the corner of his mouth and grabbed my chin as I tried to turn my eyes away from his. "Listen to me you lil sissy. If you breathe a word of this to that skank of a mom of yorn I will kill you all." He exhaled the smoke past his yellow and brown pegs of teeth and blew it into my face. I fought back the overwhelming need to vomit as the scent of smoke and his breath washed over me. He stunk of sweat from his deed. I stood frozen to afraid to move. "I'll skin that brother of yorn alive and make you watch. You hear me you sissy 'tard?" I nodded again. Then he laughed and kicked me in the seat of my pants. I knew he would do it. I knew he would kill my brother, skin him alive just like he said he would. I also knew what Blair the Wise had told me. Craig laughed again as we started back down the trail. Somewhere I heard The Bear growl.