The Prince's Choice

My Auntie hates me.

Elizabeth returned from the farm to find Elsa and Esin at home. They were her Aunts children, Elsa and Esin were twin and Elizabeth was a year older than them.

"Elizabeth you are back, welcome!" Elsa said as Elizabeth enters the sitting room.

"Thank you," Elizabeth responded.

"You look tired."

"Yes I am, and very hungry too."

"Hope there is food at home?" Elizabeth asked.

"Yes I kept food for you, even though mummy won't let me, I have to hide and keep some food for you."

"Thank you." Elizabeth said, as she was happy that she will at least find something to eat as she was very hungry and tired.

Esin seeing her sister spoke with Elizabeth stood up from where she sat and leave them in the sitting room hissing as she left. Esin hates Elizabeth just like her mum. But Elsie was different, she always stood up for Elizabeth especially when her mum tries to beat her or starve her over a little mistake she did.

Rose returned from work, and on meeting Elizabeth in the living room, she barked at her.

"You evil child," she said.

"You left the farm without finishing the work I ask you to do. I passed through the farm and noticed you have only cleared half of it, did you leave the remaining part for your late mother to come out from her grave and complete it for you?"

"I was tired Auntie, I will complete the work tomorrow," Elizabeth said, as tears poured out of her eyes.

Her Auntie was fond of calling her late parents in every slight argument she has with her, and the thought of that always makes her emotional.

"You were tired, you witch. Why wouldn't you be tired when you spent all night flying and looking for who to bewitched and suck their blood, your days are numbered for you to leave my house!" She shouted at Elizabeth, as she went to a corner of the sitting room to bring a rod to hit her.

"Stop mother!" Elsa cried out as she tries to stop her mother, and take the rod away from her hand.

"You fool!" she shouted at Elsa as she used the rod in her hand to hit Elizabeth severally.

Elizabeth fell on the floor, as her Aunt Rose flogged her mercilessly with the wooden rod she held in her hand. Her head began to spin as she laid on the cold carpeted floor with blood gushing out of her mouth. She cried until her eyes were swollen, her body ache's and her stomach growls, she was hungry and in pains.

Elizabeth went to bed without eating dinner, that wasn't the first day she had gone to bed without food. It was a regular occurrence for her. She lied on her small bed as she looked at the portrait of her and her parents that hung on the wall of her room. She had managed to take the portrait from her family house and few of her other belongings, after her parents died.

After the death of her parents, everything her parents left behind were shared among her father's brothers. She was denied everything simply because she wasn't a male child. She prays every day that one day she will grow up to take over from her uncles what was rightfully hers.

None of them think about her education. she was about writing her senior school certificate examination when her parents died, and since then no one thinks about her education anymore. It has been one year since they passed but everything still seems like yesterday.

She remembered when she used to cry all night after their dead. But now she has consoled herself that no matter what happens she will never allow their death continue to break her. but rather to take life as she sees it.

Her stomach continued to growl as the pain in her body increased, she bit her lips and prayed for sleep to come.