SHAWDOWS OF DEFIANCE

The little girl stared in curiosity as she looked through the space of her mother's door; on the floor of her mothers's room was where her cold, lifeless body lay. Black and blue bruises littered her smooth olive skin, and her mid-thigh yellow cocktail dress was bloody and ripped, exposing her chest and stomach where the imprints of a knife lay. There was blood and lots of it. Her shoulder-length jet-black greasy hair looked as dark as night as it lay soaked in rich crimson blood. Her lips' once caked in cheap lipsticks to look more appealing, are now dried and dead.

"Mommy". The little girl muttered softly.

She opened the door and cautiously walked towards the woman's corpse. " Mommy, I'm hungry," she says a little louder. Yet, the woman does not budge; her stomach aches in hunger as she weakly takes her last step to the corpse.

"Mommy! When is Dad- sorry".

She quickly apologized as she remembered the last time she had ever dared call that man her father, as the wounds from the punishment still lay open on her back.

But little did Aria know his body lay dead in the basement, where she had recently received her punishment.
Aris has lived her entire life knowing what she wanted and how she wanted it, and being alone gives you a lot of time to dream and contemplate what you wish you had in a world filled with hate and sadness.

She was a quiet and humble teenage girl who knew much about pain.
She was never social; some often found it strange how she had never uttered a word. Aria wasn't mute. Yet, she was no fool; if she ever mentioned a word of her circumstances, they would surely kill her.
So when she was knocked out after being hit by a car on her way to school and woke up in a strange man's home, Aria was beyond petrified.

A strange man who made her feel foreign emotions, emotions she didn't think she could possibly be feeling.