Author's Notes: All characters within are 18 years or older.
Some more themes of reluctance in this chapter, though Priscilla does get her own this time.
Welcome to the second chapter of Priscilla's adventure as she makes the great escape from her oppressive hometown and gets her first lesson that the world is not better. This is a longish chapter, but necessary to show her progression from a small town girl to an adventurous girl.
Hope you enjoy it!
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May Rising Chapter 2: Oh and Three
A sharp jolt sent Priscilla back several paces as she clutched the stinging red cheek her mother had brought her palm down upon.
"You... whore..." Trisha's words were almost a whisper of disbelief. Eyes filled with self-important disgust, lacking the empathy of a mother.
At the threshold of Priscilla's childhood home she looked up at her, more furious than she ever had been, palm raised in the air with eyes wide. Priscilla was almost afraid, guilty even like a kid who had broken a rule she did not understand. But the feeling soon faded away, the anger and betrayal she felt for what happened at church that morning burned it.
On the table, the flashing notification light of the digital phone indicated their line was off the hook. Call after call was silently ringing for the Andersons, no doubt members of the church calling to chastise Trisha for her daughter's wanton ways. It probably took little more than one call from some busybody in the congregation for Trisha to believe anything but her own daughter's story. Easier to blame than fight for her.
"The reverend? You little slut must have been sneaking around... who else?! How bold do you have to..." Trisha's words grew terser and terser, hands shaking as her mind spiraled into manufactured realities where Priscilla was some back alley whore in the small Nebraska town and she was only just finding out.
"No..." Priscilla only hung her head. She didn't even want to fight, there was nothing that would make the town believe if her mother refused to listen to her. Her life here was over.
"No?!?!" Trisha brought her hand down to strike Priscilla once more, but this time her daughter caught it. Priscilla's green orbs were intense and unyielding as she looked at her. The doe-eyes of the innocent church girl were hidden under malice as she struggled with her mother's hand, both vying for this singular moment of supremacy over one another. Yet Priscilla was weary of the eighteen years she had spent subordinate to a woman who didn't care about her in the slightest. Balling her fist she brought it to connect with her Mother's Jaw, sending her stumbling into the nearby painting.
"Ohhh!" Trisha exclaimed, feigning some surprise her monster of a daughter would ever lash out this way. Her role would now turn to the victim, poor Trisha who did everything she could for her daughter just to end up on the floor of her foyer holding her jaw.
"Get out of my house..." she spat blood onto the floor near Priscilla's feet. "Ungrateful little bitch." These were the last words Trisha would say to her as she didn't bother to even look up at Priscilla.
Despite all indications that the happenings of today would undoubtedly lead to Priscilla's departure, the words of her mother still cut her deep. As she stood above her looking down at the woman who raised her, it was finally confirmed to her that she didn't give a damn. Priscilla had always known Trisha was about Trisha... but to hear the words from her mouth, simply tossing her out of the house without a care or regret was a new level of dark.
Wasting no time she ran to her room with tears in her eyes, gathering a small bag with as many clothes and personal items as she could stuff into it. Looking into the mirror she decided her Sunday best was a bit after the fact now, slipping the dress up and over her head before tossing it aggressively in the corner.
There she stood bare once more, looking at her topless form in the mirror, only the pair of beige panties around her waist to cover her. Her hands came to her breasts, rubbing them, holding them, crossing her arms in front of them. What was that feeling the reverend brought out? What was the sharp yet overwhelming pleasure that had escaped her as he twisted her pink nipple ever so slightly? When she did it nothing happened, letting out a deep sigh as she dropped her arms to her sides. Watching in the mirror her hands soon found the spot where Bryce had rubbed on her panties, and as her curious finger dared to rub the spot, a twinge ran up her spine and Priscilla gasped hard.
Yet as she felt that, the memories of that turning point in her life returned, Priscilla quickly shed the panties in favor of leaving them in this hell hole with the rest of her life. Her bare slit reverberated with the curious sensation as her fingers were tickled by the wisp of blonde hair between her legs.
"Ok..." Priscilla exclaimed, holding her hands up as if she were at gunpoint while her heart raced. She didn't have time to explore this new feeling, it was time to leave.
Finding a new pair of panties, this time light blue cotton hipsters along with a matching bra, she quickly took inventory. She pulled on a pair of tight jeans her mother always hated seeing Priscilla wear because they were too revealing of her form.
Her eyes looked around her childhood room in all its lacklusterness. A simple twin-sized bed with hand-me-down quilts, some posters of horses, and pictures of friends long departed. It would be hard to shed this part of her, but necessary, many who she knew had escaped this hole and so would she.
As her blonde head slipped into the V-collar of a tight white cotton shirt, she found one other poster she was always fond of staring at. It was a map of the solar system, likenesses of some of the first exploration ships sent to map the planets of the Sol system flying around. Maybe now that she was leaving this place she could see all of this, go where the first explorers to Europa went, or travel outside of Sol to the far territories... perhaps even meet a non-human.
Images of many other intelligent lifeforms she was able to see brief glimpses of on her friend's TV flooded her mind with excitement. Her mother wouldn't let her see or talk of such things, demons the non-humans were. But whenever she could hear something about them behind her back, she thirsted for it.
With a few last buttons of her jeans, and a bag on her shoulder she huffed, taking a final look at her room before turning the old pink nightstand lamp off and sulking away. The floorboards creaked as she walked through the house. Little inside was different than homes from over a hundred years ago, unsurprising for a family that rejected modern technology in favor of blind reverence to religion. Yet Priscilla's perspective was skewed, she didn't understand this was not normal, her eyes only saw the home she was raised in, despite all the unhappy memories. Smelling the mustiness of her home for the last time the half-truths and imagined splendor of the outside world called to her, and in her heart, she knew this existence in Waterbury was not right.
Trisha was now sitting up against the wall of the kitchen, a hand with an ice pack on her jaw. She wordlessly glared at her daughter as she emerged from her room, eyes looking over the too-tight jeans she had disapproved of. Priscilla didn't need to hear her words to know she was calling her a whore for wearing them in her mind. Her face twisted as she looked down on her, anger in her eyes for not loving her the way a mother should.
As she passed the kitchen table one of the few items of technology in the house rang again. No doubt a call from another dried-up old hag to complain about the harlot Anderson's daughter. With a swift hand, Priscilla swept the digital phone off the table and across the room, a sharp crack as it hit the wall and split into several useless pieces. Trisha jolted as she did so, yet still refused to acknowledge her daughter.
Coming to a foyer table Priscilla found an old picture of their family from when her dad was alive. It was one of the few pictures of her father that she knew of, most of the memories faded behind the trauma of a sheltered and indoctrinated childhood. Looking back at Trisha they shared an even deeper antagonism for each other, and in turn, Priscilla picked up the picture frame and smashed it against the table. Looking at the image of her younger self on her dad's shoulders, happy, she swept away some of the glass and deposited the picture in her backpack.
This was it, Priscilla looked around at the dusty cage she had been captive in for so long. Part of her was yearning to feel some sort of fondness at this moment, to hold a happy memory of her childhood, but there was none.
"Goodbye, Trisha." That was all she would say as she pushed open the door, letting it slam behind her before heading down the dirt road to the main highway.
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It was well past midday as she strutted down the side of the Nebraska highway with only a solemn look and what she could carry. Priscilla hadn't realized her adventure had just begun, her mind still flooded with regrets at home.
Priscilla had been careful to never act out of anger toward her mother before, always staying within the unrealistic bounds Trisha set forth no matter how much Priscilla's resentment grew. As the thought of her punching, throwing the digital phone and smashing the picture recycled through her mind her hands shook with fear as she realized there was no going back now. It had not sunk in enough for tears, her mind keeping her going as if she was fleeing danger.
Waterbury was beginning to vanish behind her, only these final malicious memories and a lifetime of repression still carried with her. Yet she was not quite far from town as she believed a churning of her stomach came on the sound of a vehicle creeping behind her. It was hard to notice at first, the electric engine of the oversized farm truck kept it mysterious as it lumbered through the farm fields. Unlike city cars that were gravity-bearing, the truck needed hefty tires to make it over rougher terrain. This particular specimen happened to have its flare added to it, often painted in the mud with an oversized set of fog lights and racing stripes.
Priscilla nearly jumped out of her skin as they honked the boisterous boat horn they rigged to it, a series of malicious laughs carrying over its electric drive as it lingered behind her perversely and then rolled next to her with the laughter getting louder.
"Hey look, it's the bless-ed tits!" One said, his arm hanging over the window of the truck as he spoke around a wad of chew in his mouth. There were four of them in the truck, two in the cab and two in the extended bed, each straining their necks to look at her walk pitifully down the road as they jeered.
