Prologue

I woke up.

Tentatively I opened my eyes, only to find myself in a dark room. There was no way of telling if it was day or night. The windows were shuttered, and not a ray of light could pass through.

Looking around, I couldn't really see anything. Darker shadows where the walls were, lighter shadows where the windows and doors were. As far as I could tell, there was no furniture. It seemed like any other room in the house.

Slowly the memory of this morning came back to me.

I was playing on the floor with my brother, under the watchful eye of my mother, when suddenly the door to the room flew open. In came an entire entourage of people, with a little toddler leading the way.

How queer I had thought to myself, as my brother took hold of my hand. It was as if he knew what was about to happen, and didn't want to let me go.

For that was what they were here for. To take me away. Why? I had done something very wrong. Something very, very wrong. I had to be punished. Funny thing was, I didn't know what I had done.

They shoved my mother out of the way, and picked me up, my brother desperately tried to hold on, but they swept him aside easily.

Without my brother's comforting hand to held me, I suddenly felt very insecure and lost. I started to cry, but that didn't help things. As my wails got louder and louder, my brother and mother could do nothing but watch me being taken away.

Mother sobbed and begged. Brother just stared, and some how I knew that it would be alright, he would come and get me.

I was wrong. After all we were just babies, babies who couldn't even walk yet.

The door to the room opened flooding the room with light. That same toddler came in.

He shut the door, and once again, I was in a world of darkness and shadows. I could see him, or rather a very black object advancing to me.

All of a sudden I was kicked in the stomach and rolled across the floor until I hit the wall.

Everything started to hurt but he continued to hit and kick me until the world was spinning. I was crying my face was wet, either with tears or blood or both. It didn't matter to him, he just continued until finally I blacked out and could remember no more.

I awoke, and realized I had just been rudely woken up by a splash of ice-cold water. My body was still aching from the bashing I had just taken. Apparently it wasn't over.

The glint of a knife blade in his hand.

I went hysterical, trying to no avail to get away, and screaming and crying, except that I had no voice, or he had taped my mouth shut and there was absolutely nothing I could do.

He walked, slowly, as if reveling in every moment of my extreme agony and terror.

Monster. One word to describe him.

My mind went blank as the blade of the knife inched closer and closer to me.

I woke up screaming. Then I realized it had all been a dream. Nightmare more like. Ever since I had come here, it had been the same scene over and over again. I could make no sense of it and it was starting to get on my nerves. The toddler, the monster, who was he and what happened next? Whatever it was it could wait, till morning, when the shadows faded into nothingness and when the sun's rays warmed up the earth. In the meantime I curled up in bed, trying no to think about anything. After all a blank mind was a blissful one.