Prologue

I have been seeing the same visions, the same nightmare.

The bloody scene that dyed the memories of that doomed day.

I'd hardly fall asleep every night, for me to fight the dark shadows and force myself to wake up again. I'd feel so exhausted and try to go back to sleep, but I'd end up staying up the whole night, hugging my knees and shivering uncontrollably as I'd make sure not to make the slightest of sounds so that I don't wake my mother up.

She'd barely find time to rest, she works day and evening for us to afford the rent and pay the bills.

I'd always hear her, late at night before she sleeps, praying for my dead father and sister. And I'd pretend to be asleep while I swallow my sobs silently and cover my body so that she, who would be sitting on the other bed just beside mine, doesn't notice my shivering.

Ever since dad left us, 5 years ago, it has been hard for my mother to keep up with mine and my sister's needs.

At some point, she was once a happy housewife of a great detective. Now she's a grieved widow who lost her older daughter.

The 5 past years of my life taught me how evil and cruel this world could be.

How they never caught the murderer who killed my father,

How they abandoned a family who was having the hardest of times,

And to top it all,

For a little girl like me, so innocent and clueless to witness, right before her eyes…

The horrible bloody scene, engraved so deep in my memory that it'd give me those nightmares.

I recall it.

As if it happened yesterday.

A body that was once as pure as that of an angel, lying on the cold floor with a pond of dark crimson liquid surrounding it.

A face that used to shine in brightness, and bring joy to those around it, now drown in the crimson pond.

I gasped, as I saw the predator, his hands still covered afresh with blood as he was about to flee from the opened window and leave the room just as I stood there behind him watching in utter shock.

Cold shivers ran down my spine, my body felt so heavy as if it got chained to the ground, and yet, something surged within me.

Yelling deep inside me, telling me to stop that ripper.

And somehow, I was able to pick up the near decorative vase to smash it into his back with all my might.

I was very short and merely a kid and it was by a miracle that I survived that day; if I hadn't dozen-off inside my wardrobe, my favorite play sanctuary, maybe he would've found me and killed me with no hesitation.

I did not quite understand what happened to my sister, but I was aware of the fact that she no longer was with 'us'.

I never understood what the policemen told my mother during their investigation to make her face lose color and to cause her tears to stream nonstop with every scream she had let out.

-Until very recently.

Yes, I only understood everything recently.

As I dug out the facts that mom did her best to keep away from me.

I read newspapers and looked in the internet.

But I wish I never did.

I started to have nightmares about that day.

I learned what truly drove my mother to the extent of insanity.

I finally understood why my sister was begging him to spare her,

her shouts and whimpers,

remembering all of it, made me at first want to throw up.

But not any longer.

Seeing how they allowed the one who killed my sister after raping her to wonder out freely, under the pretext of him becoming handicapped and for his lower half to be completely paralyzed due to the severe damage that I inflicted to his spine.

Human rights they say.

He kills and gets away with it!

Those idiots should've first questioned his humanity before granting him any rights dammit!

The past couple years of my life showed me how stupid and twisted this world actually is.

You live for the good of others, you die and they forget about you.

You're left to suffer alone amidst hell, to suffer and strive in vain.

Your beloved ones get stolen away from you, one after the other, with or without a cause, and you're powerless to do anything face to what they call 'fate'.

Oh, how I hate that word!

Oh, how I hate this world!

But what can I really do?

What can a 17 year old like me do?

Even when my mind would hit rock-bottom, and when I'd despair and start to think of all ways of revenge, I'd look beside me to see my mother with her wrinkled face and pale skin for those ideas to evaporate.

I ended up giving up on everything, but not on life itself.

Because I know that, if I was to be gone, she'll have no other left.