Ghost

Prologue

   Silence. That's all to be heard in this room of isolation. The room I have been locked up in for nearly 13 years. I was always tied up in a chair so I couldn't move. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year. I was usually tied up, but when I wasn't I would paint on the walls. Painting always helped me find sanctuary in this cold room. Left to rot in a friendless space with only my painting to look at. This has been my life since I was 10. Alone and afraid. A ghost nobody looked for.

My father locked me in here for being a bad girl. I remember that day clearly. It was like any other day, I was just playing in our drive way when I saw two men stop in front of our house. They were both in black suits and had briefcases in each hand. The men barely acknowledged me in the drive way. They only faced forward and stood stiff. My dad met them at the door. He looked frantic and unorganized which is the complete opposite of what he was usually.

Dad was a very precise and organized man. He always liked order in his life. Not a hair out of place or things ended badly. He would always tell me to keep myself in order or else bad things would happen. I was 5 when he started telling me this.

After those men left, my dad came outside looking for me. He looked furious, I knew this because his face would do that red thing and he would curse. He roughly picked me up from the floor and ran back inside. I told him he was hurting me, but my struggles were only in vain. He had an iron grip on me as if he wanted to hurt me. Father never hit me before, but he would yell at me. This time I can tell it was different.

He placed me on the high chair I used when I was a baby. I was much too big for it now, but dad didn't seem to care. He told me to be quiet and be a good girl because I had caused enough trouble for him. I didn't know what he was talking about and so I asked him. He stopped what he was doing and slowly turned toward me. He walked really slow to me and right then and there I knew I had said the wrong thing. I watched him lean toward me so our noses were almost touching. I felt my breath pick up in fear.

We stood like that for a couple seconds before he whispered that I couldn't be a little good girl and be obedient. He started yelling that if I had just done what he told me, my mom that I had not known about would not want to take me away. He said it was my fault that she wanted custody of me.

At that moment of anger, he raised his hand and slapped me hard across the face. I was so shocked beyond belief at the force that I didn't have time to cry out, so I stood quiet and still. Feeling as though he would lash out again if I made any movement. He just stood there and stared at me like I was a stranger. He looked disgusted of me.

It was like something had snapped deep within him. He quickly grabbed me and started walking to the back room we have in the house. I was so scared, so I started to thrash in his hold and scream for him to let me go. He only held me tighter and told me to be quiet. Hearing the door slam open I became more frantic. I didn't know what he was going to do to me, making me all the more afraid. He quickly got a chair and sat me down. I saw him looking for something outside the door. He came back in with a rope In his hand. He started tying me roughly to the chair. I saw him then step back with closed fists after he was done.

The room was bare of anything except a single light bulb that hung from the ceiling. There was only one window at the top of the wall providing some natural light to come in. There was nothing else to look at. Only a cement floor and plain cement walls. 

I turned to my dad and found him already at the door ready to close it. Panicking I asked him what he was doing. He casually answered that I needed to be punished for all the wrong I had done. He actually laughed and said I will never leave this room until he deems fit and then he closed the door. Leaving me in the room with only silence to accompany me. I hadn't even realized I was crying until then.

In that moment, I didn't recognize him as my dad anymore. He looked like a monster to me. The ones that I had nightmares of. He had locked me in a bare room tied to a chair never to come out again...