Myocardium

Prologue

Well...fuck!

Those were my first thoughts upon entering the building, which was illuminated in a bright, blood red colour for the very first time. 

Blood red. What a fitting description for this dreadful, suffocating layer of light this place haunted every worker with, both night AND day. 

I wasn't supposed to be there. 

Hell – I really, REALLY was not supposed to be there!

Where I was supposed to be instead? With my siblings, of course!

But how could I, when my dealer put my life at risk, threatening to put a bullet straight through my heart if I didn't pay him in real dollar bills for once? 

I had no choice. I had to take the job he had told me about.

The ID-card, which I nervously flicked between my fingers, looked convincingly real. Nineteen, it read. Of course, I wasn't of age yet, faking my ID would have been senseless otherwise. 

Little did I know at that time that I wouldn't even need to pretend to be an adult with my boss and co-workers, they all knew that I was a nothing  but a lost, fragile child more than well. 

My fake identity was solely a cover-up for the customers I was going to learn to hate. The boss' acquaintances all knew my real age anyway. 

However, the precaution had to be taken, one way or another.

They didn't want any legal trouble because of my worthless body. 

Criminals! 

They're all perverted fucking criminals!

This place was my last option, my final resort. 

I had tried my luck with bartending, cleaning dishes and almost any other job imaginable that offered a night-time working schedule. However, for paying off all my debts - the debts my parents had left behind - even working two jobs wasn't efficient enough. With all of this on top of caring for two children, it was inevitable that it all eventually overwhelmed me.

Rumours had been spreading for quite some time that this institution would employ people like me for multiple reasons. Most of them illegal, obviously. Otherwise they wouldn't have been part of such notorious rumours. 

It was my dealer who proved those rumours right, who told me I was just the right type of person for this type of job. At that point, I was too mentally destroyed and manipulated to resist him or refuse his offer, all I needed was a way out of my misery. 

I needed it quickly, whatever it was going to take. 

Oh, if only I knew that it was going to take absolutely everything from me.

The first step I took into that building with that awfully tense atmosphere and the oppressive red glow was subsequentially the last step ever taken in my childhood. 

Ever since surrendering myself to this dirty business, I haven't been the same. 

I was never going to be the person I once was. My true self. 

My inner child, once so lively and sparkling with hope, was dead.

Murdered.

Quite literally crushed by the weight of selfish predators.

No one ever really knows what goes on behind the curtains of those types of establishments. 

Syringes, needles, pills, and bottles filled with temporary happiness everywhere. On the floors, in the changing rooms, on every table, in every locker, in drawers, hallways, bags.

Everywhere. 

Anywhere clients couldn't see, where normal people had no access. 

Where our secrets would be safe, only to be shared with people as fucked up as us.

I have always tried to give Daisy and Sasha a life as normal as I possibly could, a life I never had. I did my best to help, support and love them, in a way I never got to experience. 

I swore to myself that I would always be there for them. Nothing could ever change that.

But what about me? 

Who will be there for me when I'm the one struggling? 

Who will love me when I'm broken beyond repair, when I forget that love even exists in this cruel, dark world of mine?