[stylist] Releasing The Demons: Prologue

[Amber R. Herrin]

I'm a couple days behind, but I'd like to say that I was completely taken in
by these few short paragraphs.

You definitely should continue with this!

Amber
-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Samara Raine
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2012 2:02 PM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: [stylist] Releasing The Demons: Prologue

Hey there, everyone. It's Samara again, back with a revamped prologue of
Releasing The Demons. Naturally, as time goes by, I'll tweak it here and
there, but for now, let me know what you guys think. I've tried to add a bit
more to it, offering a tiny glimpse into her present while setting up the
stage to explain why she shares her past.

So, without further adue!

Oh, all formatting has been stripped, as this copying and pasting thing only
works well if I paste it into notepad before copying it here. Originally,
the story is being written in MSWord, so there is formatting where their
aught to be.


>>>>>>>

Releasing The Demons
By
Samara Raine

Prologue

Saturday, October 16, 2021
7:54 PM

It was a coffin, with its solid gray exterior and heavy lock. Entombed
inside were the secrets of my youth, the demons of my childhood. I'd locked
them away the moment I'd been freed, desperate to keep a part of myself
caged.

I've always been an intelligent person. When I was five, I was reading at a
fourth grade level. My parents were given the option to let me skip sixth
grade, one I didn't allow them to take. I didn't want to be different. It's
amusing how none of that matters now, amusing in a way that isn't at all
funny. I am different, have been different from the moment his arrow claimed
my freedom.

As an intelligent person, I should be rejoicing at my release, comforted in
the knowledge that I survived everything he put me through. But I'm not.
Ever since I woke in the glaring brightness of Martin Memorial hospital, I
have been floundering. My structured world of complete obedience has been
torn from me. I no longer remember how to exist outside Camp. Where
obedience and pleasure were my only goals, life was simple. Here, where
every choice from what to eat to the clothing I wear is mine, I spend
ninety-five percent of my time in a state of overwhelmed indecision.

My fingers trembled as I lifted the key toward the lock. It glinted in the
light from the fire in the hearth behind me, reminding me of the flash of
his knife. My heart beat wildly and my palms were slick with sweat.

The key slid into the lock far too easily, in my opinion. When it was fully
seated, I hesitated, terrified to take the next step. By unlocking the safe,
I would be unearthing a part of my past I'd vowed to keep hidden forever.
There were too many emotions tied to the contents within; shame, fear,
pleasure. There was acceptance, fury, confusion and hurt. They were my
personal demons and here I was, about to share them with the world.

My name is Madeleine Tamlin. When I was sixteen-years-old, I was abducted by
a stranger and forced into a world of debauchery that I could not
understand. Life was simpler in Camp, the name of the large estate that was
my prison. It was a place where only the pleasing survived.

Obedience was rewarded while any infractions were dealt with swiftly and
mercilessly. It was a world in which I didn't think I could thrive. But I
did. Survival was my only option. Survival or death, and I could not give
up.

It didn't take long before I learned what was expected of me. Even as I fell
further and further into the emotional trap my captor had laid, I could
never puzzle out his reasons for doing what he did. He was not a troubled
man. By this, I mean he appeared mentally sound. In ten years, I never heard
him attempt to explain away his actions. Whenever I asked him why he'd taken
me, he'd answer quite plainly.

"Because you are mine," he would say.

He never offered any other explanation, and it wasn't long before his
declaration began to resonate in my very blood. I was his. I always would
be.

Everything he did was premeditated, from abduction to training to
discipline. He had a knack for taming the fighters (like me,) without
crushing our spirits. He broke my will and shattered my resistance, but
never once did he obliterate all that made me who I was.

I didn't see it like this at the time. In the last ten years, I've lost my
dignity, feared for my life, had my innocence torn away and watched a dear
friend die. but I've had many months to reflect on my captivity. During
these reflections, I've come to some startling conclusions; the most
disturbing of which is the realization that I still wish I were there.

After my release, my mind was a swirling mass of confusion and betrayal. The
real world was too fast and too bright. I also found it to be too demanding,
a funny notion since the real world, in fact, asked very little of me.

I was sent to a counselor, a kind woman named Tanna Farren. I could never
bring myself to confide in her, despite her many efferts. She could never
understand. No one could ever understand the world I'd left unless they'd
been a part of it. If they had never felt the smooth restraint of a leather
cuff about their wrist, the cool steel of a collar encircling their throat
or the fiery bite of a whip against their flesh, their comprehension would
be superficial at best. I refused to invalidate my experience by attempting
to force an unconditioned mind to accept the existence I now preferred.

Two months after my visits with Tanna began, I stopped going. She could not
help me, and I refused to waste my family's hard-earned money on a hopeless
cause.

Instead, I turned to a method of release that had never before failed me. I
began writing. At first, the tales were full of bitter resentment and dark
themes. But I found that once I purged myself of the negative emotions, I
could focus on other genres that didn't cause me so much pain.

Quite unintentionally, I began a story meant for children. I thought back to
before, when I was still possessed of my innocence; back to the days of
fairies and princes, castles and kings. I thought I had found my outlet, my
release from the darkness that plagued me.

The innocence never lasted. Before long, my fairies were stripped of their
virtue, castles became cages and kings turned into Masters of a sort no
child should ever know. My demons were back to haunt my new haven. My agent,
Sarah, cringed at the twisted tales I sent her, though she always remained
supportive.

After my last manuscript flopped, Sarah showed up at my apartment with a
bottle of Pepsi and some sound advice.

"Madeleine, you need to write something real."

I glanced up from the bottle in my hands. Master had never permitted me to
drink such beverages and I felt wrong doing it now.

"I don't understand," I said, though I had an idea where she was going with
this.

Sarah leant forward, her long, red nails tapping out a rhythm on the leather
arm of the sofa.

"You've just been through something unthinkable. I'm not going to pretend to
understand, nor am I asking you to confide in me. But you need to stop
trying to hide behind what you feel is acceptable. A writer's job, Madeleine
is to shock her readers. So shock them. Write what's real, raw and close to
your heart."

I glanced toward the window, breaking her fierce gaze. The intensity and
conviction in her eyes made me uncomfortable. The things that were real to
me were also so private, I wasn't certain if I could ever make them known.
Even in a fictional setting, they would resonate with truth and experience,
thus giving me away.

"You could always use a pseudonym," Sarah said gently.

I smiled wistfully. I had. For ten years, I had been someone other than
Madeleine Elise Tamlin. In fact, my given name still felt foreign to me, a
title bestowed upon another girl, long, long ago.

"Will you at least think about it?"

I looked back at Sarah and smiled.

"I'll think about it," I conceded.

That was how I ended up here, kneeling before the gray safe that held the
memories of nearly half my life. My entire body flashed hot, then cold as I
reached toward it.

The key was cool against my fingers, the click of the lock loud in the
silence of the room. As the door sprang open, a flood of emotion I'd been
unprepared for swept through me.

Through a sudden haze of tears, I saw them. Each marble-bound notebook
stood, ordered from oldest to newest, black spines facing me like an army of
silent soldiers.

Resting atop them was the single pink diary of my youth. The flimsy locks
and lacey frills were almost painful to behold. This small book had been
before the truck, before the collar, before the brand that had seared away
my freedom forever. They had been before him and the life he'd taught me to
crave.

Reaching out, I removed the pink journal from the safe. I turned it over in
my hands, gazing fondly at the childish scrawl of my name along the spine.

READ THIS AND DIE.

The bold inscription on the cover made me smile with longing. This Madeleine
was like a lost little sister, a spector of the child I had once been.

I shivered in fear as I recalled the terrifying hallucinations that had
haunted me after my deflowering. A little girl, covered in blood and burning
with vengence. She had been my innocence and I had failed her.

I shook my head at the diary in my hand. This Madeleine wasn't lost. She was
dead.

A single tear streaked fast and hot down my cheek as I turned toward the
fire. It was time to let the soul of my innocence rest, and it could never
do so while entombed with my darkest demons.

Something inside me seized up as I tossed the book toward the hearth. It
landed in the coals, distressingly pink against the dangerous hues of the
fire. I felt, somehow, that I was betraying my inner child all over again.
Part of me wanted to reach out and rescue the journal before it could be
harmed.

It felt like hours for the first spark to lick the edge of the tiny book.
I'd even half risen, ready to grab the poker and knock the diary out of
harm's way. I was, of course, too late.

As if sensing my intentions, a tongue of flame shot forward. I watched as,
in a matter of moments, the last vestiges of my innocence was ignited. I
could do nothing but watch it burn, as I had watched so much of my purity
burn.

When nothing but ashes remained, I turned back to the safe, ignoring the
tears on my cheeks. Extending my hand, I touched the notebook on the far
left. It was the one I'd found in my slave box, the first of many such books
into which I had poured my soul.


Lightheaded and weeping softly, I withdrew the book from its spot. It seemed
to burn in my hands, much as my pink diary had mere moments before. Tilting
the book slightly to the left, I allowed the well-worn cover to fall open,
exposing my demons to the air once more.

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