We've stopped looking for monsters underneath our beds, and started looking for them in our heads. I'm done. I'm done with the pain, the name calling, the laughs, the being pushed around, the crying. I'm just done. I've bottled up my emotions long enough. No one knows. I scream in the dark and no one hears. I cry in the corner and no one sees. I put on a fake smile and do my work and tell everyone that I'm fine, that I am perfect when inside I'm broken. I can't be fixed. No one can fix me. I am too far gone. I have made my choice and there is no going back now. No, oops I didn't mean to do that. Redo. I will kill myself because I am broken and no one cares. And so tonight the blood will run free. It will escape this prison of skin and be free.

Never had a real family. Never went to school. Never had anyone to care for her. Assassin to competitor. Fighting for her life. You make a mistake, you die. You don't kill others, you die. Fallyn was an assassin her whole life, so killing others came to her easy. But being use as a toy when she isn't competing takes everything in her not to fight back. But when she starts to have feelings for one of these men, she doesn't know what to expect.

Sometimes all you really need is a place to call home. *** Claire is lost and scared and utterly alone. Her family is in shambles after the death of her older sister Ina, and she's left to pick up the broken pieces of herself as her life heads into a downwards spiral of loneliness. Her heart leads her to 5:48, a little cafe by 33rd street, where she finds her new home. With a broken heart and a speech disability, Jasper has his heart and mouth sewn shut by the winding threads of hurt and fear. Painting and serving coffee in cafe 5:48 are one of his last few saving graces, but the smile he's been painting on himself will soon fade away as everything he's ever held dear slips away from his grasp. Ezra is out-of-sync and oddly cold by the way life has treated his young self. Abandoned by his single mother at an early age, he has grown up thinking that he is a mistake. His constant shaking hands are a reflection of what he often thinks of himself, but the delightful pastries he bakes for 5:48's customers are a reflection of what others see of him. Drew is a quirky rarity. He is a dash of loud, a pinch of exuberant, and a cup of eccentric - just like the meals he serves in the cafe as the only chef there. Behind his playful grins and outlandish clothes, however, are his jutting ribs, hollowed cheeks, and too-thin arms. Sometimes he cannot stomach being in his own skin as much as he cannot stomach food. This family has gone a long way from finding each other, and they'll be going a long way together too as reality comes catching up to them, threatening the newfound happiness they've found with each other. Secrets are revealed, pasts become presents, and lives are changed. Slowly but surely, they find their way back home. *** NOTE AS OF 08/2026: This is the old version of the story from 2012, posted in FULL. Another story that will be considered a reprise of this old version is in the works, and will be posted under the name "Hiraya House."