Finding Contentus

Chapter 57: Six (2)

∆∆∆∆∆∆

For the next 66 minutes, Xantris let 666 children sing her sorrowful life for Minaleese to hear and see. The red blood and red clouds around them morphed into different shapes, sizes and bodies from the beginning until the end to tell the tale.

At the starting stage, Minaleese saw a young child, who she knew to be a young Xantris. A child who was constantly screaming in pain every time someone removed her hands from her ears. A child who could only hear scary things that the imagination could fill to formulate an infinite amount of horrendous sounds.

During her whole childhood, everyone in her life branded her as an unwanted illness, a freak, a devil, an inhumane creature that should have died. When in reality, all she wanted was to be helped. To be cured. To be healed. To feel normal. To hear what everyone else heard so that she didn't have to constantly suffer. All she received was beatings and burns that didn't appear on her skin on the outside.

Her parents burned her with a type of fire that could not be seen externally. Hatred — in never loving their own daughter and always cursing her to the point that she had no given name.

"I should have stabbed you when you were in my womb!" Her mother slapped her.

"I cannot believe this is what my hard work has brought me. Because of you, no one in our tribe will bless us with anything! They fear our family. You have brought shame to our blood! You are not my seed, you are the spawn of the devil!" Her father hit her.

So one day, she killed them. By accident. Disastrous winds of brown Amandla came out from her body when her parents tried forcing her to listen to them when all she wanted was to keep her ears closed to protect her damaged hearing.

But then — when she killed them, she heard... music. Liberating and pleasurable music. She was six years of age. Her parents did not die quickly. They died slowly, screaming and wailing for forgiveness, for being wrong, for letting their anger control their lives and only wishing to cure their daughter but not knowing how to.

The child did not hear them. She went into her element for the first time and crafted fiery webs on her hands. In the same way her parents burnt her body daily from the inside with hate, she paid them back by burning their bodies on the outside with love like they were insects.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Sing for me utata! Sing for me umama! Sing your love for me! Yes! Yes! Yes! I forgive you! I love you!"

The love of their child lasted for exactly 66 minutes, as their love echoed to where the whole tribe heard their cursed affection.

-------

The only name the cursed child received was Xantris, for "Cursed Witch" in the tongue of her Xoxo tribe in Membus.

Afterwards, she was alone. Left to fend for herself wherever she went. Her hearing improved a little. Not in the sense that her ears weren't always assaulted with pain from how the normal world screeched at her. It was more like... her getting used to the nightmarish noises as a crazed normality.

All the children bullied her whenever she wanted to play. All the children spat at her. They peed on her. They insulted her. They beat her. They threw stones and rocks at her. They laughed at her. They cursed her.

"Nyo Kanyoko!" Your Mother's Vagina! That got tossed around frequently.

"Witch!"

"Curse!"

The more Xantris was cursed, the more she developed a rather interesting way of coping with her life. She believed it was normal for her to feel cursed pain. She believed that only she should have cursed evil done upon her for no reason other than how special she was.