We thought it was over. Everything seemed fine - perfect, almost. Our abusive father was gone, our injuries were fully healed, our mother had a stable job, and all of our bills were fully paid. Little did we know just how wrong we were.
It was about a year after our father was indicted for both domestic and substance abuse, and our lives were running smoothly. Our grandparents fully supported us, and we hadn’t seen any sign of our father’s gang since last fall. The men in his gang were all forced to be there, and had neither controlled nor supported our father’s actions against us. Many of them actually stood up in our support during the (mostly symbolic) trial. Afterwards, they offered both monetary and emotional support, put us in contact with our grandparents, and promised to keep any other gangs away from us. The lack of contact from them was comforting - when we turned down the offer of monetary support, they promised to stay out of our affairs unless we were being threatened.
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As such, it was a surprise the other day when one of the gang’s youngest members ran up to our home and started banging on the door. We weren’t expecting any trouble anymore. He brought news of his gang’s defeat in a fight with a larger gang in defense of our family, and warned us to run. As fast as we could, preferably. He was hoping he had come soon enough for us to escape safely.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough. About an hour after he left, just after sundown, we were accosted by a large gang, many times larger than the one who had protected us. For some reason, they were trying to capture my little sister. They lit our house on fire to try to smoke us out. Mom was the first to go down, protecting us with her life, before my older brother also died in our defense. I threw myself over my little sister, the baby of the family, in a last-chance attempt to save her, both of my split personalities in perfect agreement for the first time in years. It didn’t work. I died draped over the youngest of us even as the smoke stole her breath.