I'M OFF THE DEEP END | 100 Oneshots

[Sel]

[align=right]CHAPTER ONE
— INTRODUCTION

She was born to Geoff, the owner of a massive Cartel, and his wife Eliza, a former teacher. She was the eldest of their four children (though Geoff certainly had more), the others being Aaron, Lessandra and Isabel. She didn't have any bad relationships with any of her direct family members, she was friends with her siblings and she was her father's favorite. That caused some animosity from Aaron, but at the end of the day they were family and family was what was important.

Or was it? Growing up, family was the only thing in her life that really mattered, it was one of the only two priorities she was supposed to have, alongside the Cartel. But if that was the case, why was she walking away from the family she had left, promising to find the family she had lost? It wasn't like she wanted to let Lessie get away with her betrayal or let Isabel die in the wilds, she just... couldn't handle it right now.

For more than a decade Geoff had trained her to be a robot - always calculating, observing, never emoting. From the age of eleven now to twenty-three, she wasn't allowed to have emotions, let alone express them. Back home everyone was watching, waiting for her to slip up and show everyone how she really felt about her sister's betrayal and the presumed death of the other. And she could feel herself on the edge and all it would take was the wrong word or implied... anything to send her spiraling. And she'd cry and scream and fall apart. And no matter how quickly and effectively she picked herself back up, they'd always remember that she broke.

Yeah, family was family and family came first. Unless you were a bastard that was swept to the side to make way for the legitimate children.

She needed to escape before she broke down. Sel had always been a wanderlust individual but now it was so much more than that. Now it wasn't just a desire to leave the Cartel, it was a need. A need that would betray weakness that she had trained for more than half of her life not to have, so she needed another way out.

She convinced Geoff and Eliza to let her go after Lessa and Isabel, claiming that Aaron could take care of her duties and that no one else would be able to succeed in bringing the latter home safely or even getting remotely close to the former. But she couldn't go after them - she always had a plan but for the life of her she couldn't think of how she'd deal with her beloved little sister, how she'd bring her home likely to be shot. Or how she'd face Isabel knowing she'd failed to protect her or get to her in time.

So Sel headed towards the Badlands - a place where no one would know the name Felix and a place where she could not have to be the same person. She could maybe smile and make friends and climb the ranks without power being handed to her by her "birthright". A place where no one would judge the blood on her hands because they were all the same.

It sounded like a dream come true, really. And that's how the short, skinny, dark-haired young woman ended up in the ravaged city. And pretty soon she discovered that it was a dream come true. She had begun climbing the ranks, she had made some friends (or allies), she had a nice house and was sharing it with a nice guy, had it made. Even after going home and admitting to her family that she'd failed to get her sisters and had lied, everything was still good. She could have everything, so it seemed. Except her sisters.


--635 Words
I'll probably rewrite the end bc it kind of sucksssss
but this is more or less (up until the end) a joining thread for the Badlands.