unspoken truth

Chapter 1

We had often walked past there as kids on the way back from the corner shop. We heard the desperate screams of frightened children fighting off crazy sex-driven old men. I still remember those exact screams now, they echo in my dreams as I remember the harsh reality of my life, and the pain I endured...

I was in my bedroom reading my favourite book. To this day I still feel so terribly guilty. If I had only stayed downstairs for five more minutes I wouldve been able to stop it happening altogether. It keeps replaying in my head like a broken record. My mums panicked screams and my younger siblings begging someone to leave our house, leave our mum alone and to spare us. I rushed downstairs and it was like a scene from a horror movie. My mum was laying on the floor, in a puddle of her own blood. And my three younger siblings huddled in the corner in front of a knife-wielding psychopath that was shouting 'whose next then?'.

I screamed, and he turned towards me. Tapping his knife on his hand he said 'guess you're the lucky one then' and, before I could even tell my siblings to run outside and get help, he shoved a piece of cloth over my face and dragged me out of the house. He shoved me in the back seat of a car and ordered me to 'stay out of sight' or he'd make me regret it. That's the last thing I remember before slipping into a deep sleep.

That's the last time I saw my family.