Together We Fall

Prologue

Blood trickled down my face, coming from my forehead. The nape of my neck was clawed, forming wounds that would eventually turn into long-lasting scars. My legs were weak enough to get myself out of this hellhole and I ended up lying prone on the floor in front of a front door. My vision was blurred and my head was throbbing with pain due to the loss of blood, debilitating my body.

"How could you do that to my son?!" A female devil grabbed my hair, forcing me to stand on my feet then threw me towards a coffee table nearby.

Fortunately, my hands landed on the edge of the coffee table, preventing my head from getting struck. Then, the woman threw a flower vase at me, aiming it to my forearm.

"This is what you got for what you've done!"

I screamed in pain as loud as how much it hurt. The vase shattered and some of the pieces got onto my left wrist just beneath the palm of my hand. My body weakly fell onto the ground and I lost my hope of living in this world, the only hope I had now was death, hoping everything would stop including my breathing system.

Just as she pulled the collar of my shirt, hoisting my frail body up, the front door was being kicked open and blaring police sirens filled the whole room along with a grating voice of a man.

"Let her go and put your hands up!" A man shouted. "You're under arrest!"

The woman obeyed his command, suddenly her facial expression turned wan and scared, letting my collar off her grips and my body thudded on the floor.

She literally did let me go.

My green eyes couldn't stay open and my body was entirely exhausted to get up. Fortunately, a paramedic guy came rushing towards me, lifting me up in his arms and laid me down on a stretcher to be hauled into an ambulance. I'd never been so relief to ultimately get out of that house.

Once I was in the vehicle, I could feel someone put an oxygen mask on my face, how smooth the surface of their gloves were when they held my hand to have a look at the wounds and also the injection they gave. I could finally feel the feeling I had been dying to feel for months after living in that hell. Calm. I felt absolutely calm despite the fact that I was physically drained and hurt.

But then a question came across my mind. After I got my treatment, how was I going to pay the medical fee? Where should I be living subsequently? I was only eleven years old, how was I going to stay alive at this age without any family members?

* * * * * *

Two days after I was given my treatment, I was still stuck in a room full of dullness. I had no visitors, well, who would visit me when I got no friends or a family in my life?

I sat on my bed, staring at my left wrist that was swathed in bandages and just kept remembering the words from the doctors.

"Your scars would take a very long time or probably, until your late thirties, to fade," the doctor told me. "There's nothing we can do about it."

I didn't want anyone to see all these ugly scars I had. They reflected how horrible my life was and I needed no sympathy from someone.

Suddenly, someone knocked on my door, breaking my stare from my hand. The door was then open after a brief moment of knocking, revealing two men in detective attires.

Initially, I was shocked to see these men but then, the fear within me walked away when a train of realisation hit me in my head that they came here just for interrogation without any kind of intentions to harm me.