Alley Pit

(Hi! A story I'm writing!

Very dark themes warning. Some moments possibly triggering to some.)

(Also Tyce is pronounced Tiye-cee)

*Congratulations*, I tell the reflection in the greasy yet reflective puddle, *you leap closer to death every day*.

I lean back against the wall and sigh. I look over at Tyce, curled up next to our pit bull Blossom. She looks unchanged from being awake; her small face still shows that same, blank expression, the only difference is her eyes are closed.

I can barely look at her, especially with that scar slashed across her face, without only being swallowed by guilt and self hatred. I should have never brought her along.

I say that every day of course.

She's only 8 1/2...9 very, very soon, and I plan on celebrating her birthday. She doesn't know that of course, probably thinks nothing of it. She deserves it no doubt.

Tyce had done nothing. Little Tyce, her real name Tyra but preferring "Tyce", with the "e" being pronounced, because she felt it fit better. Small girl, short cut hair, plain face. I've never seen her overally excited or depressed. She barely talks. Just looks at the floor and nods if you talk to her.

This made it easy to disguise her once we left. Both of us are young girls out alone on the street. That makes us the honey-covered target in an abyss of flies. I figured it would make things a little bit more safer for us if we looked more like boys than girls.

I cut her hair even shorter once we left, into a boy's cut. and told her to keep quiet most of the time. Because of her youth, she could almost pass as a boy already.

This was hard, turning my little sister who as a child I wanted to do nothing but dress up and play dolls with, into a little brother and she wasn't even prepared for it. It wasn't as if she wanted to be a boy. She had to.

For me, things were a bit harder, especially because at 16 years old I'm female and post-puberty, of course. So the easiness of transforming Tyce into a boy did not apply to me. I cut my hair as low as possible and tried stuffing things into my shirt to make me look--well even. That did no good, of course.

Thankfully I'm not as...well...anatomically far-gone as I could be. I could pass as a quirky looking boy, I suppose.

But to really do it, because my face of course is female, I had to get a knife and slice it.

Yes, slice my face down from the forehead to chin.

It's given me a scar that obstructs my feminine-face and I believed it worked.

But Tyce saw this.

The next day, after I'd done this, I saw Tyce shaking in the corner of an alley. As I walked closer, I saw her face covered with blood and a messy scar down her cheek and by her mouth.

I screamed and screamed and shouted at her and sobbed.

But she was calm. Shaky, but calm. And she said, "I wasn't going to let you mess your face up alone."

I rememeber sobbing my heart out, hugging her tightly and promising her, that would be the worst pain she would ever feel.

We're both scarred on the face--from that, of course. She did a good job--she looks about as masculine as she could get.

It still traumatizes me.

It's something no child should have to go through, ever. And I dragged her into it.

We used to live with our parents and older brother, and deranged uncle who probably attempted to kill us in our sleep. I say used to because we ran away.

Well, *I* ran away.

Our family turned abusive. First towards me, after ignoring me completely starting at age 13 and cursing me every moment they got starting age 14.

And then with Tyce. I saw early signs. Not as much attention as a child needed, overall neglected and I had to take care of her.

Maybe it's something we could have dealt with. Until one day,

~Saving~