I used to believe monsters lived under the bed. Now I know better. They wear human skin. The chains bite into my wrists again as I try to squirm, but I don't cry anymore. Crying makes it worse. Crying makes me weak. That's what he says, anyway. "Big girls don't cry," he sneers, dragging the blade slowly across my stomach. "You're not a baby anymore, are you?" I try to be silent. I try to be still. But the pain makes my body twitch. The blood trickles like warm tears down my ribs. I squeeze my eyes shut and pray for the darkness to swallow me whole. It doesn't. I wish I could remember my mother's voice. My father's face. My brothers- Were they even real? Or just dreams I invented to survive? Time doesn't exist here. Only pain. And him. He says my name like it's a curse: Alessia. He tells me pain is my teacher. That fear will become my friend. That one day, I'll thank him for turning me into something more than a girl. He's wrong. I'm not more than a girl. I'm something else entirely. Because one day, I stop praying for the pain to end. I start learning from it. One day, I take the knife from his hand. One day, he bleeds. That's the day I stop being Alessia, the little girl. And I become something far worse.
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