Part One: The Beginning.

I was only a kid. I was so innocent.
At least, I was supposed to be innocent.
But I wasn't. At all. And that was all his fault. He, who should've been protecting me took my innocence. After the first time he did it, he did it again a week after. And then again after a few days. Until, at some point, he did it once a day.

It all started when I was six years old. I had just tucked my four year old sister in bed, since my mom wasn't doing it, she just sat in the living room, staring into nothingness, like she always did.
"Do I really have to go to bed?"
"Yeah," I smiled, "But we'll play again tomorrow, I promise, okay?"
"But I wanna play now!"
"But daddy will be really angry if he sees us playing this late," I said, giving my sister her favorite teddy bear.
She grabbed it and hugged it tightly.
"Why doesn't mommy ever play with us?"
I shrugged.
"Maybe she's tired. Adults are always tired from doing adult stuff."
Being only six years old at that time, that was what I actually believed.
I went over to the door.
"Promise you won't get up again and play!", I said.
My sister yawned and nodded, closing her eyes and snuggling into her blankets. I smiled and closed the door to her room, making my way to my bedroom to go to bed as well. I fell asleep fairly quickly, as I always did at that age.
I woke up with a start a few hours later. I looked to my left to see that there was someone standing next to my bed. I was about to scream for my dad, when I realized, the person standing next to my bed was my dad.
"Shh," he said, and a terrible smell hit me.
The smell was coming from his mouth and it made me feel sick. Today I know that it was the smell of alcohol.
"I was just checking on you," he continued, patting my head.
"You scared me, daddy," I said.
"I'm sorry sweetie, I didn't mean to do that."
He sat down on my bed.
"I'll stay with you until you fall back asleep," he said.
I yawned.
"Okay …," I muttered, turning over and closing my eyes again.
Right before I drifted back to sleep I felt how my father laid down in my bed, hugging me.
"Daddy, let me sleep," I mumbled sleepily.
"But you're so precious," he whispered.
At least I think that's what he said, it was hard to understand what he was saying as he was slurring the words.
He began stroking my arms, my hips, my stomach and –
"Daddy what are you doing?"
"Shh, this is a new game I thought of. If you play it with me I'll buy you lots of sweets tomorrow."
I laid still, trying to decide if this "game" was worth the sweets. But my father wasn't waiting on my OK.
Instead, he pulled down my pajama pants.
"I don't think I want any sweets," I whispered.
"Oh trust me, you'll like this game. I promise."
I was rigid. I couldn't move. My father pulled down my panties painfully slowly.
He kissed my stomach and made his way down between my legs. And before I could react any further, he pressed a pillow on my face. Not too tight, so I could breathe just like that.
I heard a zipper and then all I felt was unbearable pain. I screamed at the top of my little lungs, but my screams were muffled by the pillow.
It felt like hours of unbearable torture, although it probably only lasted around five minutes.
I expected the pain to get less once he let go off me and left the room. But now there was a terrible, terrible burning sensation.
I sat up straight up in my bed, my heart racing. I sat there for a while until I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom to throw up. I spent the rest of the night in front of the toilet, but I kept quiet about what had happened that night. I even went to school the next day.
I pushed it to the back of my head, thinking it would never happen again.
I was so wrong. It did happen again. And again. And again. And I wish I could tell you that it was because of the alcohol. But my father was only drunk about half of the times he did it.

It went on for almost two years.
It was about a month after my eighth birthday.
My mother was laying on the couch, in a worse state than ever before. Empty bottles of cough syrup shattered all over the floor.
My sister, now five, still didn't understand. But I did. I understood so much now.
My mom was addicted to this stuff. It made her travel somewhere far else, somewhere far, far away from reality.
I was trying to wake her up but it was hopeless. Her dead eyes kept staring at the ceiling and she didn't react in any way to me shaking her. I'm still not sure if, at this point, she was already dead or if she was just comatose.
"Dad!"
He poked his head out of his office.
"Dad we need to call an ambulance, I think there's something wrong with mom!"
He walked towards me. Yes, me. Not the telephone.
"Dad, please … Mom needs help …," I muttered.
"I'll help her in a second," he said with that disgusting smile on his face.
I wanted to run, but I was frozen in place. He grabbed me, pretty much literally ripping the clothes off my body.
"Please, stop, we need to help mom!", I cried as I did everything in my strength to get away from him.
Then I heard the door to my sister's room open.
Oh God, no, I didn't want her to see this.
"Vi! Stay in your room! Close the door and don't come out until I tell you to!"
Her door closed. But I couldn't feel relieved. My father had taken advantage of me staying still for a second had grabbed me tightly and was now pressing me to the floor.
Panicking, I looked around me as he was about to open his belt. I got a hold of an empty vodka bottle that was standing next to the couch, and with all my strength, smashed it on my father's head.
He passed out instantly. I rolled over so he wouldn't smash me with his weight as he fell.
I stared at him. Blood was coming from a small wound on his head. I turned to look at my mom. She still hadn't moved. My heart began to race. I needed to … do something. My eyes locked on the gas stove.
I rushed to Violet's room, opened the door – I was naked, mind you – and yelled at her to get all her things and get out of the house.
She looked at me, both confused and scared.
"Do as I say, now!"
She grabbed her teddy bear and her favorite blanket and ran outside. I put my underwear back on, threw on a dress I found in the laundry box that was standing in the living room, not caring if it had been washed or not, then went to grab a box of matches that was lying on the coffee table. My hands were shaking as I was trying to light one of the matches.
When I had finally lit one, I lingered for a second, asking myself whether I should just stay here and die. But the moment I threw the match into the stove, I ran as fast as I could, out of the house. Vi was standing in the Yard, looking at me, terrified.
I had no time to explain, I just grabbed her hand and continued running.
"Where are we going?"
I didn't answer. I had no idea. But I didn't look back. Not once.
I only stopped running when we had arrived on a small, empty street. I leaned against a wall, trying to catch my breath.
"Sis, are you okay?", Vi asked, her voice shaking with fear.
Just as she had asked me that, a fire truck drove past us. I knew where it was going. And I hoped it would be too late for my parents when it got there.
I broke down, hugging my sister tightly.
She was safe now. I was fucked, but at least she would never have to go through what I went through.
"Lauryn, please talk to me, I'm scared."
"It's okay, Vi. It's all good now."