My hands are trembling while I tell them the story, and before my eyes dance the images from times past, which still haunt my sleep:
I was in the study, ten years old or so, sitting at the desk and playing with a stuffed dog. I had at that point already accepted my fate, was even excited to learn how to deduce (I didn't really know the consequences back then). The Keeper walked in, looking angrier than he usually did.
"What's wrong, Keeper?" I asked concerned, and he looked down at me in even more disgust.
"Is your new student bad?" I'd remembered that he'd recently started teaching #25, who I knew was about five years younger than me. The Keeper's face turned a deep scarlet red.
"Why aren't you talking to me?" This time, I was even scared, scared that he might hit me or something of the sort.

That is exactly what he did.

He grabbed a nearby umbrella and smashed it into my back. I called out, fell from my chair and dropped the dog. The Keeper let out a large growl, took the dog, my then most precious toy, and ripped it to shreds with his bare hands. I began to cry. The moment I did he let go of the massacred stuffed animal, took the umbrella again and hit me for every word:
"YOU. WILL. NOT. SHOW. EMOTIONS." I continued to cry, even louder than before. It went on for hours and hours, or so it felt. He only stopped when I had no energy left to cry.
"That'll teach you. The lesson is over." And he walked out of the room.

It did teach me in fact. But it took him years, years of hitting, scratching, screaming and occasionally even whipping for my back to become numb to his hits and for me to stop crying. What Keeper never realized though, was that just because I am not showing emotion, doesn't mean I have none. On the contrary: I am constantly terrified to have them, which is a paradox in itself.
"I don't understand what happened; why he became so angry with me, so suddenly..."

John, Joan and #25 are very silent, just taking it in. I stare at the door again, and staring at it makes me even more anxious than before. My breathing is quickening, and I just remember every single beating to the back, feel where my scars are, the ones his whip made, and there's a scream trapped in my throat waiting to escape. They're talking now, I know they're talking but all I hear is muffled sounds under my breath and my quickening heartbeat while I feel him hit me again.
He beats. I scream. "Pain will teach you not to feel!"
And the door is in front of me. And in there is the study and maybe even–
"Twenty-four."
I am crying and he punches me in the face.
I promised myself it would stop. That now that I was a consulting detective everything would be okay, there would be no more hitting.
"Sherlock."
He hits me. But not my ten-year-old self, he's hitting me.
"Sherlock!"
He takes a knife and goes along my scars, opening what I thought was closed and over now.
I scream.
"Sherlock!"

I fall to my knees and almost flop over, but John catches me just in time. In the distance I swear I hear a child screaming in pain.