Introduction
Virtuous “Vivi” All
Her present…
Warm tears cascade down a damaged face, showcasing a pathway of years of abuse, fear, and confusion. Eyes float restlessly through the watery abyss of lost hopes, abandonment, and lies. Everything inside feels like it’s on the brink of decaying, rotting like forgotten fruit. Inside she screams and implores for freedom, help for someone to care, but no one is there. So, she pulls deeper into herself, into the world where she has control. The World of All, her Queendom, her utopia where violent hands aren’t supposed to penetrate. This is how she survives. This is her fake freedom until he pulls her back. Harsh hands paint her once innocent flesh; virtue is stolen, as lips draw a pattern of deceit paralyzing her. It’s a constant repeat, as she’s set up for defeat. The will to fight and to survive diminishes more each day.
She tells herself simply to breathe and pray. She relaxes her tense body so the painful penetration, both mentally and physically, won’t rip her apart. His serenade of grunts and moans only add to her woes, pulls at her insecurity and sculptures her being with shame.
Shame.
This is how it has been for so many years, and though she’s been abused repeatedly, she holds on to her one hope, the One who knows far better than her. For many years, she has prayed to a God she has never seen, followed a Scripture that has yet to lead her to freedom, and prayed for release from a man who has never shown her the simple courtesy of mercy. If there is a God, truly, she prays He’ll come and defend her honor and restore her stolen virtue. Even as tattered and used as she is, she prays that He will see beauty in her bruises, power in her pain, and love in the lies that help her survive. If God exists, if her prayers are ever heard, then it is her plea that God will send her angel of protection because her World of All isn’t as protective as it used to be.
Theory “Vicious” Campbell
His past…
A body built not of flesh but of revenge, viciousness, and regret, a mind disfigured by betrayal, deception and abandonment. Just a boy, too young to be used as nothing more than his parents’ toy. They let drugs become their companion, they replaced him with their hunger for the next hit, until he was sent as payment.
Life taught him at an early age just how insignificant he was. He drowned, not in a river of tears but in a sea of fury that led him to a life of destruction. Wasn’t that all he was meant for?
His grandmother saw something more, something in him to pray and fight for. She showed he was not a person to ignore, but it came too late for him to relate. He became vicious and hollow, hateful and disrespectful. His attitude got him locked up, but her prayers set him free. Her tears of love and years of sacrifice taught him he was meant to live that he was worthy.
Life has meaning again but can he live it as his grandmother believes he can or will the streets that snatched him before finish what they started? Will the wall of faith he built come crumbling down? Can a man who has been broken and set aside, betrayed and preyed upon let that part of his life go? He wants to heal and let go of the past. He wants true freedom, but what does that really mean, is freedom ever really a possibility?
Maybe.
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