Donna of shadows

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.