Hally757 1.14

And I smell mom pudding baking in the oven. The fire was crackling and it lit up the room making it warm and welcome. At first I can’t see out the snow-covered window. Then I see him- Dad and friends coming closer, long legs moving fast. I immediately back away fear creeping down my spine.
Dad calls something and I hear the laughing jeers of his friends… in the distance Dad chants my name in a fake sweet voice… bang… bang…
…Bang… a machine gun! I cover my eyes when I realize it’s the harsh pounding on the door…two knocks…and then the awful silence in between them. Moms smiled slowly faded away. I ran back to my mom and cling fearfully to her.
The strange voice again spoke this time it was racked with anger…. Tears from someone’s face slowly slide down.
Mom looked down to me at her legs a worried look sketched all over her face transforming her from the playful mother I always knew, to a sad and unloving person. I saw it right before my eyes and it would be the last time she would be happy and carefree. Since that day mom’s heart turned cold and she shut out the world forever. Sometimes I wish she would be like she used always laughing and happy, but she just pushes me away. Every day slowly, little by little, our family breaks farther away. The tears-Cold and bitter tasting… they’re mine… I knew whom this forbidden strange, angry, frightening and to me powerful monster was. For someone as small as me his every move was magnified 100 times so he seemed like a monster to an almost 4-year old girl like me. My head was spinning when everything went blurry I ran and cowered in the corner …my small world was falling apart… spinning round and round in an endless frenzy
…. More footsteps and I hunched even further more poundings on the door with unimaginable things going on behind it. Movements…too much moving makes it blurry…it’s mom… slowly crawling on her knees to get away from the door not making a sound… Thump…thump! …Mom winces stopping in her tracks- why don’t they just go away and leave her and her frightened daughters alone Bradley was never like this when they were together- crack! … Mom winces again still crawling across the floor like a baby, thinking angry thoughts of what she would do to her bully husband Bradley if she got out alive. He was practically bringing the house down.
Hours later its nighttime and they are still going strong. Mom and I sat in the dark, listening to each other breath. She brought out some games and we played for a while then I climbed into her lap and stuck my thumb into my mouth. In her lap, we played pat-a cake and sang old Mac Donald whispering the farm noises I laughed and mom put her finger to her mouth. “oops!” I said and quickly covered my mine “Shhhhhh!” I repeated putting a chubby finger to my mouth, giggling softly. Then we did counting games using my fingers and mom using my stuffed animal acted out a story. Using a different voice for each character. It was a long day and every now and then I dozed off and I awoke frightened and scared, but mom snuggled me closer to her and rocked me back to sleep giving some crackers and cheese to nibble on. Then silence…nothing at all… was this it? The end to all the terrible noise? Was this actually happening anyway? We both listened carefully then mom crawling went up to the door and looked out the peephole. Then we heard something. Unexpectedly with an angry grunt and deafening shout there is a lone single bang signifying defeat. Noises… and then the crunching of footsteps walking away… we sat clutching other and 10 minutes later sitting clutching each
other there’s footsteps… crunch…crunch at first soft but getting louder every second. We strained to hear what was going on outside in the blistering cold where dad must be close to freezing to death. Then we heard it… click…click