Second Chapter One, a manhwa/korean comics/만화 fanfic

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. And she loved her life. She lived with her parents in a normal house in a normal neighborhood. Her father had a job in a really big company, and was paid a lot of money, so they lived comfortably. The little girl went to school and had friends. She always had good grades, and her mother praised her with a bright smile. The little girl didn't want anything to change.

In the little girl's perspective, life always had something new and exciting waiting in store. She couldn't wait for the day to end, because she wanted to experience a new day full of beginnings and dreams made could come. The little girl lived with hope and joy in her heart, thankful for everything in the world.

Until her father lost his job.

The company he worked at was forced to shut down, leaving her father with no money to pay for the house that they lived in. So, they moved out. The little girl unwillingly said goodbye to her beautiful house and her beautiful neighborhood to be faced with a dingy apartment that smelled of cigarette smoke, feces and trash. The lights glowed a very dim yellow, barely lighting up the kitchen and the very small living room. Her room in her house was twice the size of that in the apartment, and her parents' room was barely bigger than her own. As the little girl wandered through her new home, with its stained windows and cracked ceilings, she wondered if she'll even be happy here.

She wasn't.

The little girl's mother took on four different jobs to try to pay for the apartment. All of her jobs were very time-consuming, so everyday her mother came home around two in the morning, only getting four hours of sleep until she had to force herself out of bed so she wouldn't be late. The little girl missed her mother, missed the way she would ruffle her hair when she hugged her tight, missed the way she would kiss wherever her boo-boos were. The little girl tried to stay up until her mother came home, so she could see her face for at least a few minutes, but always ended up falling asleep before she came.

Her father became a stay-at-home-dad. He made the little girl's meals, even though they barely had any food and he was a really bad cook, and tried his best to take care of her like her mother did. But after a long day of trying to keep up with the little girl, he would stay in the kitchen for hours at a time, drinking from a bottle hidden behind all the junk in one of the cabinets. He would take a prolonged gulp, cursing his company for shutting down, cursing his wife for separating him and her for way too long, cursing his child for taking up so much of his time and energy. Sometimes the little girl heard his cursing while she was trying to sleep, flinching when he knocked something over or broke something in his drunken state. When she heard her father talking about how she was "a miserable excuse for a child that shouldn't have been born," she cried.

And cried.

Until she couldn't feel her blankets around her skinny limbs, the rock-hard mattress under her stiff body. All she felt was an emptiness deep inside her.

The first day of school was coming closer, and the little girl got a school supplies list from her new school. She felt exhilarated. She couldn't wait to see her new school and make new friends. She couldn't wait to get out of that small, disgusting apartment. The little girl forced her dad to take her to the supermarket to buy her much-needed school supplies. When setting foot into the supermarket, she immediately streamlined for the pencils, grabbing the same fancy mechanical pencils she used every year and put them into the shopping cart. Her father had a pack of very cheap wooden pencils in his hand and put back the mechanical pencils, replacing them with the wooden ones and started walking to find the next item on the list. The little girl was confused; she always bought those mechanical pencils for school. She wanted those pencils, not some weird wooden ones that were dull and felt awkward in her tiny hands. The little girl kicked and screamed and cried until she was a snotty red mess, causing a huge scene that made everyone around them stare at them, whispering to their partners about how the little girl's father was doing a terrible job on raising her, how her clothes looked dirty and stained with something in places, how her father was now yelling at her for crying and dragged her to a different aisle, the girl still shrieking, "DADDY I WANT THOSE PENCILS NOW! I WANT THOSE PENCILS, I WANT THOSE PENCILS!"

The little girl soon got over those expensive mechanical pencils, wiping away her snot with her hand and rubbing it onto her used-to-be pink frilly shirt, but her father was still furious. She had made a huge scene about mechanical pencils. Kids don't have temper tantrums over pencils. So after buying cheap renditions of the supplies she needed, her father took her home and gave her a hard spank, yelling at her for "bawling about some fucking pencils" and gave her a thirty minute time-out. The little girl had never been spanked, nor a time-out, and she cried even more than before. Her mind played certain moments over again, her father's hand raised menacingly that made her scream in fear, the pain of the spank that shot up to her eyes, causing them to water, the way those mechanical pencils shined in the light of the supermarket, seeing how her school supplies weren't the ones she had before. She cried, a thought replaying over and over again in her head. This day is the worst.

Soon enough, the first day of school arrived. The little girl gathered her cheap, not sparkly school supplies and organized them neatly into her small Hello Kitty backpack. She put on a pink lacy dress with many layers that came down to her knees, black tights with pink polka dots and pink flats with a sparkly bow. It was her favorite outfit, in her favorite color (her favorite color was pink). She brushed her teeth and combed her hair, wondering how her new school would look and how nice her new teacher would be. Maybe she would make new friends and they'll play at recess together, and they'll hang out all the time. The little girl smiled, forced her father to help her put a bow in her hair, and slipped her Hello Kitty backpack onto her shoulders. She couldn't wait for school to start.

When her father drove in front of an old and dirty school with dead, yellow grass and forced her out of the car, the little girl was once again, confused. This wasn't anything like her old school.

Her old school had perfectly soft, green grass and flowering trees, the building itself glowing with a fresh colorful paint job and brand-new windows and doors. The classrooms were big, and the playground was so fun to play on. There was enough shade from the trees to stay under during a hot day, and enough grass to play Freeze Tag. It was the best school ever.

This school had yellow grass that scratched everywhere when you sat onto it. There were barely any trees, and the trees that they did have were small and weak, barely giving off any shade. The walls were cracked in many places, and there was a brownish substance that littered them. The windows were a dirty yellow, in some places darker than others. The entire school building was painted a dull beige. First impressions meant something to her, so she came to the conclusion that this school would suck. The little girl timidly shuffled towards the school, seeing that everyone had a friend to horse around with, their parents talking about adult stuff. She felt alone and hugged herself tightly as the shrill bell rang.

Her father told her that her classroom was Room 5, so she tried her best to find her classroom. As she walked further and further, she saw that the rooms didn't have any sort of pattern or order; Room 3 was next to Room 61, and Room 10 was next to that. The little girl found herself getting more and more lost, coming to a stop when she realized there was no one outside. All of the kids must've found their classroom already, somehow. She sighed and kept walking aimlessly to find Room 5.

After 10 minutes of walking in her tight flats, her feet started to ache painfully. She was cold, even though it was a warm day. Her back and shoulders were hurting from carrying the heavy backpack for such a long time. The little girl scanned the numbers on the doors quickly, hoping to find Room 5 soon. She glanced at something that looked like a S, did a doubletake, and finally, finally, found Room 5. It took forever to get here, even though the little girl didn't know exactly where here was, and she felt proud of herself for finding it. The little girl reached up to the metal doorknob and hissed at how cold it was. She quickly opened the door, to find millions of eyes staring at her.

The little girl could feel the judgement sweeping over her as she scurried inside to find an empty seat. Finding one at the back of the class, she plopped down into her seat, her backpack hanging and the supplies inside jostling around. The little girl looked up to the front of the class and saw her new teacher. She was a tall, old woman with very sharp features and a scowl permanently etched onto her face. Her bun was so tight that it stretched her forehead, making the many wrinkles there look even more prominent. Her glasses were thin and black, making her look very strict. By the way she held a ruler in her hand, the little girl guessed that she was. The teacher fixed her glasses and glared at her. "Miss L/N, I presume," she said, her self-dignified voice piercing the empty silence of the classroom, "if you would like to stay in school, I would suggest coming to class on time."

The little girl nodded and sunk into her seat, the laughter of her classmates causing her to tear up. But she wouldn't let her tears fall, not on the first day of school. She sniffed quietly, but the boy sitting next to her heard. "HEY EVERYONE SHE'S CRYING!" the boy shouted. Everyone laughed even more, and the teacher even cracked a smile. The little girl whipped her head toward him. "I AM NOT!"

"ARE TOO!"

"AM NOT!"

"Class, quiet down!" their teacher screamed, slapping her ruler onto the desk with so much force it looked like it would shatter. The entire class became silent. The teacher sighed, rubbing her wrinkled head in exasperation. "Class is starting right now, and anyone who makes a single noise will get detention! Am I clear?"

The entire class nodded, including the little girl. She couldn't wait until this day was over, not because she wanted to see the new beginnings and new dreams formed in the next day. The little girl just wanted to stop feeling this emptiness inside her.

After school, the little girl dragged her feet across the concrete sidewalk as she clambered into her father's car. As they drove to the much-hated apartment, she wondered how her life had become so bad. She didn't make any friends, the food tasted like cardboard, and there wasn't even a playground to play on during recess. Her apartment was the worst, and her school supplies weren't even glittery. Her mother was gone all day and night, and she felt that her father didn't love her mother anymore.

The little girl began to hate her father. In her mind, it was her father's fault that her life was so bad now because her father lost his job. She didn't care that it was probably the company's fault for shutting down in the first place, but focused on the fact that her father didn't try to get a new job or try to help her mother with her overload of work. The little girl hated that her father stayed up late at night just to drink and insult her and her mother when he thought she was asleep. She hated that he didn't take care of her like a father was supposed to. Soon enough she hated even looking at him. Even though she was six-years-old, the little girl developed a hatred toward her father that even a teenager with an attitude problem probably wouldn't have towards their parents.

After forcing the door of their apartment open (it got stuck frequently), her father went straight to the kitchen. That dreaded kitchen. The little girl quickly speed-walked to her too small bedroom and took out her homework from her backpack. She looked over her homework for the first time. There were symbols and words she couldn't make sense of, and they littered the pieces of paper. The little girl didn't want to ask her father for help, but she still wanted to do good in school so her mother could praise her like she did before.

She slowly guided herself towards the kitchen, the tights around her feet becoming a jumbled mess from dragging them across the ugly tile. The lights barely lit up anything, but the little girl could still see the glint from the bottle that was glued to her father's hand. She fumbled with the homework in her hands until she gathered the courage to speak. "Umm… D-Daddy?" the little girl asked.

Her father's eyes glanced down, the whites looking a sickly yellow from the light. He didn't look very happy. "What do you want, Y/N?" he slurred, his voice deeper than usual.

The little girl forced herself to look into his eyes as she asked, "C-Can you help m-me with my homework please?" She held up her homework with both hands, showing her father what her homework looked like. Her father glanced at the pieces of paper in her chubby, small hands for a split second before replying, "You're a smart girl… you can figure it out for yourself." He took a swig from the bottle in his hand before turning around to stabilize himself on the countertop.

The little girl kept asking. "But Daddy, I don't know how to do this! Help me please?" She poked him furiously, hoping that her pokes would force him to turn around and help her with her homework. But instead of slowly turning around like the little girl thought, her father whipped around, his hand coming down onto her face, causing her to fall onto the hard tile. The little girl screamed in surprise. She quickly put her hand to where her father just hit her, wincing at the pain. She started to tear up.

"I SWEAR, Y/N, IF YOU BOTHER ME ONE MORE GODDAMN TIME, I WILL DO MORE THAN JUST ONE FUCKING SLAP TO THE FACE." Her father's eyes had a crazed look to them, the guilty hand slightly red from the force of his slap. The little girl had never seen her father like this. "N-No, Daddy… p-please stop…" The tears in her eyes were falling involuntarily, and she stared at her father, no, the stranger before her. She could feel the anger radiating off of him, and ran. Ran into her bedroom, thanking whatever gods were watching her that there was a lock on the door. The little girl quickly locked the door behind her, and scrambled under her desk. She hugged herself, rocking back and forth as the door vibrated from the impact of a body.

The little girl hugged herself tighter, tighter as the door shuddered under the force of the slams onto it. "Y/N COME OUT OF THERE RIGHT NOW. OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR."

Thump.

More thumps as the man outside slammed the door with his fists, as if he was trying to break it down with just his strength and willpower. The figure under the desk was shivering in terror, hoping, praying that the door wouldn't break.

It didn't.

It seemed like forever until the little girl had the courage to inch out from under the desk. The thumps on the door had stopped a while ago, but she was still scared that her father would still be out there, waiting until she came out to put his hands onto her. She decided to not go outside until the next day, not until her father was out of this state. The little girl wandered towards her mirror, staring at her face.

It wasn't a pretty sight.

The left side of her face was bigger than the right, swollen and red, some places turning into a blueish color. It wasn't luck that she fell onto the side where her father hit her. Her eyes were pink from crying, and her under-eyes were puffy. There were trails of tight skin on her face, where her tears had decided to fall. Her nose was really red, snot dripping down from her nostrils. Her hair was all messed up and tangled, the bow that was originally secured onto her hair now dangling from a few oily strands. The little girl didn't feel good.

She wiped the snot from her face, even as more took their predecessors' place, rubbed the tight skin so it would hopefully turn back to normal. She avoided touching the left side of her face, but still her fingers ghosted over it, and she cried out quietly from the pain that shot through her. The little girl tried her best to make her look as normal as possible, even going out of her way to brush away her tangles and knots. She sighed, knowing that she did her best and slowly walked over to her door, her homework long forgotten. The little girl felt a sinking feeling in her stomach and she felt uncomfortable. As she got closer and closer to the door the feeling in her stomach took over her, causing her to feel like she was drowning in her own body. She couldn't walk any further.

She was only about two feet from the door, but she couldn't get any further. The little girl didn't notice she was trembling until she looked at the hand that was still outstretched towards the door handle. She grabbed her hand and hugged it towards her body, but the trembling wouldn't stop. Now her entire body was trembling. The feeling that had took over her body hadn't gone away; if anything, it had become bigger. Maybe it was overwhelming terror of her father, or maybe it was something else entirely. The little girl fell to her knees, her body still shivering. She didn't want to feel this anymore. How could she make it go away?

Suddenly she heard a scream. A female scream. The little girl looked at the small clock adorning her wall. 2:14 AM.

It was her mother.

The little girl heard more screams, cries of pain, the sickening thump of a body hitting the floor, grunts of effort from a masculine voice, the slap of a fist onto soft skin, a crack that split the air. The little girl couldn't take it anymore. She had to know what was happening. Putting off the sinking feeling in her core, she went to the door, gripped the doorknob, slowly, slowly, turned it, opened the door with a loud creak.

Her mother was lying on the ugly tile, sobbing her eyes out. Blood had pooled from an unknown wound, or wounds. There was a lot of it. There was bruises all over her legs and arms, and one of her ankles was in an unnatural angle. Her clothes were splattered with her blood, ruining the white blouse and black slacks. Her hair was matted and darker than usual, but her face. Her face was almost unrecognizable. Her eyes were swollen shut and black and blue, her cheeks puffy and red. Her lip was split, bleeding onto her chin. In fact, there were many cuts on her face, some deeper than others. But there was so much blood. It was a miracle that she hadn't died yet. And standing above the little girl's mother was her father, panting from exhaustion, his hands stained red from blood, a broken bottle in his hands. Blood was dripping from the jagged edges where the bottle was broken.

The little girl fought back the urge to vomit all over the tile. Her mother was lying under a monster, and she couldn't do anything. She couldn't go over there to comfort her, for fear of being treated the same way by her father. The little girl once again fell to her knees, hugging herself tighter than ever before. A cry ripped itself through her mouth, and her father was suddenly coming towards her, her mother forgotten. Her mother was gurgling, choking on her own blood as the little girl's father came closer and closer. His eyes were more crazed than before; they were wide open. So wide that his irises were a tiny island swimming in a sea of white. He was trembling also, but not with fear, like the little girl. But with adrenaline. The broken bottle in his hand was shaking, the blood on its edges flying to who knows where. His hair was mussed and stuck out in multiple places.

He looked scary.

Then he started to speak.

"You're mother is never around, Y/N. Do you know how much I missed her? How much I yearned to hold her body in my arms? When she comes home, we barely have enough time in bed before she is off to do whatever shit she does during her jobs. I don't even know her anymore." He looked back at the little girl's mother, smiling at her limp body and how her gurgles came to a stop as soon as he put his eyes on her. He grinned wider and turned back to the little girl. "And then I have to deal with a sorry excuse for a child all day, every day."

The little girl gasped. Even though she had heard him call her that in his drunken state before, he had never said it to her face. "This little girl, never doing anything she is told to do. What are you, a baby? Do you have a fucking baby brain? Causing that fucking loud scene in that fucking supermarket that made everyone's ears bleed, making all of the parents talk about how embarrassing you are, how I'm a sorry excuse for a father. I could hear everything." The little girl shut her eyes tight, so tight that it hurt. She didn't want to look at him anymore. He wasn't her father. Not anymore.

"And seeing you like this, your mother like this, it made me think. Why didn't I do this sooner?" The man in front of the little girl crouched down, the bottle in his hand scraping the tiles, causing them to emit a loud screeching sound. He traced his finger around the little girl's jaw, causing her to inhale sharply. Her eyes unwillingly flickered back and forth between the blood on the man's hands, her mother's blood, and his unmoving face. He didn't even seem to blink.

The little girl couldn't move, couldn't get out of the man's unnerving stare. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't move anything. Not even her little pinkie toes. And the sinking feeling that had controlled her body before had suddenly intensified. The little girl felt as if she was thousands and thousands of feet under the sea, the pressure of the water crushing her bones, her tummy and her lungs. She couldn't think, yet she had millions of thoughts speeding through her head. The man in front of her chuckled darkly, as if he knew what was happening to the little girl.

"Y/N, I just love this look on your face. I can see that you're afraid. But you don't have to be. Your death would bring peace to me, and your mother. We wouldn't have to work as hard. But..." The man paused to stroke the irregular edges of the bottle and smiled creepily. "It won't be quick. I want to extend your death as long as I can before you go limp, see your face contort into expressions of pure agony. And it will be painful. Excruciatingly painful. I think you would be in even worse shape than your mother."

When the little girl's mother started choking on her blood again, the man glanced at her, taking the sight of her broken body, imprinting that image into his brain so he would never, never, forget.

And he started to laugh.

He cackled so loudly that it probably could be heard from the rooms on the bottom floor. His head thrown back so far that the little girl thought his neck would break. His body spasmed and shook violently as his laugh became more severe. The iridescent dark bottle in his hand waved around mercilessly has he couldn't control his body, grazing the little girl's unclothed skin, some scratches deeper than others.

She hissed each time a new line was introduced to her used-to-be unblemished skin, and watched at the blood bloomed from her cuts, flowing like a thick syrup down her legs and arms. The pain from the cuts alone almost made her faint.

Seeing the man who used to be her father like this sent spine-chilling shivers all over the little girl's body. She realized a while ago that she couldn't breathe anymore, and it felt like her lungs were burning, shriveling up at the burn became more intense. The little girl looked at her mother, who was looking at her at the same time. The sadness in her mother's eyes was immense, and she could see tears still streaming down her mother's blood-stained cheeks.

Her mother started to drag herself, inch by inch, towards the little girl, even though she barely had any strength to keep her head off an inch from the ground. The little girl tried to signal her mother to stop, to not come over, but she still couldn't move. Her mother inched on, and on, her fingertips trying to have some type of grip on the smooth tile.

Then she stopped. Her mother let her head fall, a soft thunk sounding as it hit the tile.

The little girl knew that her mother was coming to kiss her boo-boos, like she did before.

Before all this.

Her lips curled back, the reflex signaling her that she was about to cry. More than any of the past times she fantasized this dream, the little girl wanted to go back in time. Back to when the world was amazing, to when she lived in her beautiful home and beautiful neighborhood. To when her school was the best, and her mother was there to love her. To when her father had his job and when he came home, he always hugged her tight and kissed her mother with a genuine smile on his face.

The little girl wanted to go back.

But she couldn't.

The man in front of her was still there, her mother's blood soiling his clothes. Her mother was still lying lifeless on the hard tile, a trail of blood following her like a sick version of Superman's scarlet cape. The apartment was still there, the walls still cracked and dirty, the putrid smell of cigarette smoke, feces, trash and now the salty, irony stench of blood still in the air.

And the little girl was still there, frozen in terror, and fearing to move, breathe, even let the unbearable tears in her eyes fall down her cheeks. Her body couldn't take this torture anymore.

The man standing in front of her had finally stopped laughing, and stared down at the sight of her mother, her face smushed against the ugly tile. He glanced briefly at the trail of blood that followed her. Then as quickly as he looked at her, he looked away and shrugged with a nonchalant manner. The man turned to the little girl, the bottle in his hand now still.

"It looks like your mother died. Pity," he said, his head shaking side to side slowly and his mouth in a soft frown. As if he actually cared that his wife just died in front of him. But the little girl knew he didn't. If he did, he would be crying and holding her mother's body close, like in all of those PG princess movies (and in some PG-13 action movies) she had seen.

But he wasn't.

The man in front of her didn't even shed a tear.

He raised the bottle, high and strong, above his head, readying himself to kill the little girl with one hurtful blow. At least, that's what she thought. She didn't know what he was going to do with her, but the little girl steeled herself, shutting her eyes tight and turning her head away, as if it would help the pain be more bearable.

It probably wouldn't.

The same thought crossed her head again: if only she could go back in time. The little girl wanted this more than anything else in her life, even more than that Barbie doll she begged and cried for ages until she finally got it on her 5th birthday. Even though that Barbie had the frilliest, pinkest dress in the history of frilly pink dresses, the little girl wanted nothing more than to go back in time.

But perhaps she wouldn't have enough time to do even that.

The little girl finally gathered the courage to inhale a great deal of air, the last she would ever take. But the air seemed thick, so thick that she had trouble breathing it in. She needed that air so bad, but she couldn't breathe that air quick enough to satisfy the burning and clenching in her chest. When she finally did, the little girl then again steeled herself for the fatal blow that would soon be made.

But it never came.

The little girl waited and waited, wondering what was taking the man so long to kill her. Not that she wanted him to; he just seemed so ready to do it without any hesitation. The little girl decided to open her eyes to a small squint, to see what was taking so long. What she saw didn't seem possible.

The man's hand was moving in slow motion. Not like fake slow motion where you can clearly see that the person was restricting their movement. But actual slow motion. The kind that only shows up in high quality movies, that slow motion, was happening right in front of her. The little girl lifted her hand up, and saw that she could move with ease in a normal pace.

What was happening?

The man was still moving in slow motion, the way his body lunging forward showing that he was actually putting all his might into his swing. But he was moving so slow, so slow that his hand barely even moved even after a few more minutes of waiting. The little girl crawled away from the man as fast as she could, fearing that this was some kind of trick and he would immediately turn back to normal.

As soon as she stood up ran to the front door, ready to bolt from the scene as fast as she could, she felt like she was punched in the stomach. The little girl felt the wind being knocked out of her, and she fell backwards and landed in a jumbled heap. She tried to somehow breathe in again, but all she could do was gape at the ceiling, opening and closing her mouth in vain. The pain in her stomach spread to her legs, her chest, almost immediately as she fell.

The little girl felt so weak. Even if she was only a six-year-old girl, she could still defend herself when the situation called for it. She couldn't help her mother, and every time she blinked she saw the image of the man standing above her with her mother's blood splattered over him. The little girl could've stopped the man, running outside her room as soon as she heard her mother scream.

But she didn't.

She had stayed only two feet from the door, frozen with fear. She couldn't move forward two feet when she heard more screams and that thump that can only be associated with flesh hitting a hard surface. The little girl couldn't do anything. And now her mother was dead on the floor of their dirty, small apartment, her blood staining the ugly tile in ways that cannot be washed out. She felt so ashamed that she couldn't save her mother from the man.

If only she could go back in time.

The little girl strained her eyes so she could stare at the man, who was still moving in slow motion, when she saw him flicker. He disappeared for a split second before appearing again, still slowly, slowly, moving, the bottle in his hand still coming down. The little girl blinked and rubbed her eyes, wondering if it was the pain in her stomach and legs had affected her vision somehow.

But it happened again.

This time the entire apartment flickered.. The little girl's mother disappeared from the floor, the surfaces with blood suddenly spotless, the dirty and cracked walls and ceiling vanishing. But like before, it lasted for a split second before everything came back to normal. If you could call a murder scene normal. The little girl couldn't comprehend what was happening.

Was her vision failing? No, she could still see the man moving in slow motion, the dirty cracked walls of the apartment, the corpse of her mother lying face down on the floor, the blood-splattered surfaces. She couldn't be losing her vision if she could still see everything so clearly.

Was she going unconscious? But according to the movies, you have to be drowsy and droop your eyes a lot. And after that you can only see black. But the little girl wasn't drowsy at all. She was awake and functioning, her eyes wide from the phenomenons that were happening right in front of her. And she didn't see black, so that couldn't be it.

Was it something else entirely? The reasons before didn't fit at all with her current situation, but what else could be happening?

The little girl kept staring at the man, in case something happened and he somehow got out of this "slow motion trance." Now he was moving much slower than before; when she looked at him, it seemed like he didn't move at all. She moved her hand toward the doorknob, waiting for the right moment. Even though the man was immobilized, she wanted to see the reason for why this was happening.

Suddenly the man started moving again, this time faster than before.

The little girl jumped at the sight, opening the door with a swift turn of her wrist and was ready to sprint out of there when she caught a glimpse of the man.

He was moving backwards.

It was like when you rewind a movie so you could see a certain scene again. The man's hand moved up, he crouched down, he got up, and started walking backwards towards the kitchen. The little girl's mother's head came up all of a sudden, and she started to crawl backwards. Everything was happening so fast that the little girl didn't know how to keep up with all of it. The man was now standing above her mother, the bottle dripping with fresh blood as her mother was sobbing. But it sounded so wrong, like how speech sounded awkward when it was rewinded.

The little girl couldn't watch this anymore. She ran to her safe-haven, her bedroom, and opened and closed the door in a flash, locking it behind her. She scrambled under her desk and closed her eyes so tight it hurt. She stayed under her desk, rocking herself back and forth to somehow calm herself down.

What was happening?

It wasn't a pretty sight.

Then she stopped in her tracks, two feet from the door. Wait, she thought.

Didn't this happen already?

The little girl was puzzled. Her father, the man, had basically killed her mother and was about to kill her too, but then… something happened. She knew that before all that she hid under her desk in fear of getting hit again. And she hid because the man hit her. Why was she reliving this moment of her life?

Maybe she was asleep and having a dream. Scratch that, a nightmare. It seemed logical. It wasn't like she actually went back in time. And maybe what had happened to her mother, and herself, made her have a nightmare about it because it affected her so much. Yeah, this is just a nightmare.

But if it was a nightmare, then how could she know?

The little girl isn't that type of person who just knows that they're in a dream. Even if her dream is about flying on unicorns and eating pink fluffy cotton candy clouds, she would relish the dream and dig herself in deeper and deeper, hating the moment she woke up in the middle of it. Even if this is a nightmare, she would play along and scream her lungs out when a witch chased her, or a monster was about to eat her arm. She never once thought about her dreams being dreams, or her nightmares being nightmares. She just lived the dream for a few hours each night.

Maybe she just knew it was a nightmare because it happened to her. It was probably that day-jya voo thing her mother talked about sometimes. It couldn't possibly happen again.

One thing that changed was that the little girl didn't feel that sinking feeling in her stomach like before. She was surprised, but relieved, since it caused her so much discomfort. She had no trouble walking to the door and opening it slightly to peek through.

The man was still propped on the kitchen counter, taking a swig from his bottle, that dreaded bottle, every now and then. The little girl stared at him. The corners of his lips drooped downward, his eyes hooded and dark, the fact that the bottle was so big and yet he had drank most it it already, and he stared at it with such intensity that he looked like he was boring holes into it. He stared at that bottle like it was the only thing left in this world that he cared about. His other hand came up and cradled his face, and his shoulders shuddered, moving up and down in irregular jerks.

He looked sad.

The little girl had never seen this side of the man before. He had always been the tough guy of the family, never showing weakness or embarrassment. She never saw him get down in the dumps. Sometimes he would lock himself in his room for the rest of the day, but the little girl thought he was doing grown-up stuff, so she never bothered him. Seeing him like this made her rethink her hatred for him.

Suddenly, the door to the apartment opened with a loud creak. Her mother pushed herself through, and the man's head came up in a flash. His eyes were no longer hooded and dark, but they were wide and alert.

The little girl knew what was going to happen.

He was going to attack her mother, and she would die, leaving her all alone.

She didn't want to relive that moment.

The little girl grabbed for the closest thing she could find, something pointy. Her hands grabbed a pencil, the same one she used to try to do her homework. She rushed out of her bedroom, pencil in hand and high above her head. As soon as her mother's eyes widened at the sight of the man, the little girl plunged the pencil into the man's leg.

He screamed, loud and deep, and fell onto the ugly tile. He tried to grab her, but she dodged and stabbed his arm. Once again, he screamed. The little girl gripped his throat with on hand as the other came crashing down, over and over again, into his body. He gurgled and spasmed, but couldn't escape her. The little girl kept stabbing him, her eyes shaded and focused on nothing except for the man under her.

It was until he stopped making noise that she stopped, the pencil covered in blood, dripping onto the ugly tile. The man's corpse was littered with puncture marks, each one spurting out scarlet, staining his and the little girl's clothes. The bottle that was in his hand had rolled off to a distant corner. The kitchen was splattered with his blood, and and pools of it were forming on the tile.

Her mother had witnessed her daughter kill her husband. Her hand was to her mouth, trying to keep herself from vomiting. The little girl looked over at her mother, her mouth twisting into a smile, her face smeared with the blood of the man.

"I saved you, Mommy."

A few days later, the little girl's mother dropped her off at a big brick building after school. It was definitely better looking than her apartment, and it had flowers in the front of it. It looked old, but kept in good shape over the years. The little girl clapped her hands. Maybe it was a new apartment, and they would live there instead. It was really far from her school, but that just meant that she would be able to go to a new one. She turned back to her mother, a genuine grin on her face. "Mommy, are we going to live here?"

Her mother's face became sad and distant, but before the little girl could confirm how she was feeling, her mother smiled. "Yes, sweetie, we're going to stay here. Mommy has to go do something right now, so can you be a good girl and wait inside for me? I'll be back soon."

"Yes, mommy," the little girl said immediately. She skipped up the concrete steps that led up to the door and she heard the sound of a car driving away. Mommy will be back soon, she thought. The door was made out of a dark wood, and had intricate swirls and designs carved into it. The doorknob was a bronze color, shining yellow in the afternoon sun. It was pretty high, so the little girl stood on her tip-toes, reached up, and twisted the knob with her chubby hands. The door swung open silently to a dark hallway. The little girl stepped inside and closed the door, knowing that her mother would scold her if she left it open.

Then the lights turned on. She held up her hand to her eyes, shielding them from the sudden light when she heard a voice.

"Hello there, little girl." It was a middle-aged woman, her hair a dusty brown and tied into a bun. The little girl winced slightly, remembering that her teacher had a bun and she was the worst. But this woman's voice sounded soothing, so she relaxed a little bit. The woman spoke again. "My name is Mrs. Lovewood, and I'm going to take care of you while your mother is gone."

"Mommy said she would be back soon," the little girl replied curtly.

The woman smiled. "Well, your mother also said that I would take care of you until she came back. She called me before she picked you up from school. Now, come along Y/N."

The little girl nodded. Why else would Mrs. Lovewood know her name if her mother didn't call her ahead of time? Mrs. Lovewood took her hand, and began walking down the hall. "Y/N, do you know what this place is?"

"It's where me and mommy are going to live from now on!" The little girl beamed, her chubby cheeks filling up empty space. Mrs. Lovewood chuckled. "Yes, this is where you will be staying. You can consider me your… babysitter from now on."

She let go of Mrs. Lovewood's hand and crossed her arms, pouting irritably. "I don't need a babysitter! I can take care of myself!" she exclaimed.

Mrs. Lovewood put on what looked like a strained smile. "I'm sure you can, Y/N. But you might need some guidance after what happened."

The little girl was stunned. How did Mrs. Lovewood know what happened? Did her mother tell her over their phone call? But that would mean she ratted her out to a woman they never met before. Why would her mother do that? "W-Well, I'm sure that Mommy would help me, so I don't need you."

Mrs. Lovewood stopped walking as soon as she neared the end of the vast hall. "Y/N, you're going to be staying in this room. Make yourself at home." She swiftly opened the door, shoved the little girl in, and slammed it behind her. The little girl toppled onto her hands and knees, but recovered quickly so she could burst out of the room. She twisted the knob as fast and strong as she could, but it only rattled in place. She couldn't turn the knob.

Which meant that she was locked inside.

The little girl couldn't believe how unlucky she was. Mrs. Lovewood was obviously some crazy lady who liked to know everything about little girls and lock them in random rooms. She banged on the door as hard as she could, shouted at the top of her lungs, hoping that someone might come and save her.

"You do know that no one's gonna come for you, right?"

The little girl whipped around at the sound of someone's voice. It was obviously feminine, but was also loud and rough. She saw a girl probably ten years older than her, sitting on a bed that has seen better days. The girl's hair was messy, but looked like it would've been straight if combed thoroughly. She had long legs, which the little girl envied, seeing how short she was, but she was plump in her cheeks and fingers. Then she spoke again.

"I'm pretty sure no one would want some brat who whines and has the temper of a gorilla." The girl slid off of the bed and walked towards her, making the little girl back up until her back hit the door. The girl roughly stuck out a hand. "I'm Eun-bi. I'm your roommate."

The little girl huffed and crossed her arms, tilting her head to the side. "My mommy's gonna be my roommate, not some rude stranger," she replied.

Eun-bi set her hand down and copied her stance, crossing her arms and tilting her head to the side. "Whether you like it or not, I'm your fucking roommate, so get used to it you prick." Eun-bi strode to the bed again and plopped onto the sheets, billowing them and causing a loud creak to emit from the mattress. The little girl saw that the sheets were scattered with awkward looking lines and shapes, with no real pattern at all. It made her feel uncomfortable, so she decided to stay standing. Then she looked over the room.

It was small, but not as small as her room in the apartment, which was nice, probably because there was supposed to be another person to live with you. The walls were painted a creamy yellow, but the paint was chipped in multiple places, it was barren of any pictures or posters. There weren't any windows, but there was a light smack in the center of the ceiling, which glowed a bright white. There were two beds, one on one side of the room and the other on the opposite side. The one Eun-bi sat on was obviously hers, since the sheets were messy and undone, while the other was pristinely made, the sheets tucked and the pillow fluffed. There were two desks and two chairs, one which had a lot of school supplies and paint covering it. It was obvious that Eun-bi had lived in this room for a long time, but still, the little girl didn't like Eun-bi, and wanted her out of here as soon as her mother came back.

Eun-bi crossed her legs and propped her elbow on her knee, resting her chin on top of her hand. "Look, I know well enough that you don't want to be here. Hell, none of us wanted to be here. But you are here, so you have to suck it up and get used to the fact that your mommy left you," she said.

The little girl rolled her eyes. "Mommy said that she would be back soon! She didn't leave me!"

Eun-bi sighed, uncrossing her legs. "My mom said that too," she stated.

The little girl smiled. Maybe Eun-bi wasn't that bad. "We can wait for our mommies together!"

"It's been eight years."

The smile on her face dropped. "W...What?"

Eun-bi scoffed. "Do you even know what this place is?" she asked.

"It's where me and mommy-"

"No," Eun-bi interrupted, "this is an institution." The little girl had no idea what an institution was, but it didn't sound good. "This is where the 'crazy kids' go after they did something really fucking bad. I was left here, under the pretense the my mom was gonna come back for me, and even after eight shitty years, I haven't seen her once. All because I beat up this girl from my school because she called me 'fatass' and nearly killed her. She left me here to rot."

The little girl shook her head. "N-No, Mommy loves me! I didn't do anything bad! I saved her. She wouldn't do that to me."

"Well, she did. She left you here so she could get a mistake out of her life. So shut the hell up before I make you."

The little girl shook the knob again, to check if it somehow magically unlocked during this conversation. But, of course, it hadn't. She was stuck here with Eun-bi, a girl who wouldn't allow her to dream about seeing her mother again. She decided that she hated Eun-bi too.

All of a sudden, Eun-bi laughed. "Oh yeah, I forgot. This place is also allows random couples to come and adopt you. These two women came by a few weeks ago and decided they wanted to adopt me, so I'm gonna be out of this shithole. Looks like we aren't gonna be roommates after all." She stood up and went to her desk, stuffing the papers into the backpack that hung on a chair.

"It took eight years for me. How long is it gonna take for you?"

Eun-bi left later that day. All of her things were taken, and her bed was made by these women who barged in while the little girl was sleeping. She still didn't believe what Eun-bi said, that her mother left her here and some random couple would come and adopt her. The little girl knew that by the time she woke up, her mother would be there to pick her up and they would leave to a better place.

The next day, Mrs. Lovewood came and dumped a pile of clothes on the floor, saying that they were her new clothes. They were beige, and itched in places that shouldn't be itched. The little girl hated them, since they weren't pink and fluffy at all. She decided to stay in her dirty pink t-shirt and skirt, wanting to look presentable when her mother came.

She didn't come.

The little girl still didn't give up hope. Her mother would be back soon. She said that herself. And so, the little girl repeated that phrase over and over again, to remind herself that she was going to be out of here with her mother.

The days became weeks. And those weeks became months. And soon enough, those months turned into years. Still, the little girl's mother hadn't come, not once.

She started to believe what Eun-bi said all those years ago, that her mother left her here to rot. She didn't believe that there was always something better to look forward to tomorrow, after spending everyday in a place without anyone who loved her. The little girl had no dreams, for they were crushed long ago. No new beginnings were made, because no one wanted to adopt her.

She saw many girls and boys saying goodbye to this place, while she stayed here, wrapped in a thin blanket, trying to keep the voices in her head out. She saw new kids come, and go. She even saw Mrs. Lovewood leave this place, while some random old, strict lady took her place. She saw herself becoming older, her hair becoming longer, her eyes becoming more sad. She wanted nothing more than to leave this place, but she was stuck here.

Waiting to rot.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl.

And she hated her life.