Chapter 1: Lilith Williams
Diary Entry #1
It’s so cold in the Blackrot. I haven’t slept in ages. I’m scared of the power this place will have on me. I don’t know why I added writing in this book to my daily routine but I guess it’s so that someone or so this book can tell me what’s wrong with me, so I can understand what’s going on. I know that it’s a little too late to introduce myself, but I don’t think I can go on. Maybe the men will choose a new victim to put in this hell loop, and then you can use this book to survive. Anyway my name is Lilith Williams when I was introduced to the men I was only 5 years old with a mother who seemed to be in a world of fantasy thinking that these lunatics with women in each arm could protect us, but I was smarter. Even when I was 10 living in tents in the woods surrounded with skunks in the air I didn’t let those men change me and my perspective of the world. I kept up the act, played the game….at least until they wanted me to go into Dora Lake. At First this was just a random lake in a random part of the woods, then the crazies appeared. They took over this beautiful wonderland and turned it into a junkyard with the approval of the founder Dora Payne. This lake is believed to have mystical powers that can give you a clean slate. Once you step in you forget everyone and everything you’ve ever done or known in your lifetime. Like I said, crazies. The people stopped with their pipes and needles just to put me in a tight white dress and to shave my beautiful gold curly locks.
My mother walked into the tent of purity and the second she saw me she started crying. I hated when people cried. I never knew how to handle tears or how to be a shoulder for people to cry on.
“Do I look that bad?” I asked
“No silly. These are happy tears” mother said in between her slobbering.
“We can finally forget everyone who did us dirty Lily. Everyone who didn’t think I could make it out of that small town, Grandpa, Uncle Daniel”.
Everytime my mother mentions her family she looks away, I think I remind her of how she used to be. I always wondered what Uncle Daniel did to mother or if I’ll ever meet him. I did overhear her once. She was talking to one of the Enforcers, Mike Harder, on her purity day. I was going to congratulate mother on her special day because that’s what you do or at least what everyone else does. When I was approaching the purity tent I heard voices.
“I’m just scared Mike. What if he finds us?” I heard my mother say
“We’ll make sure that never happens Lucy.” Said Mike
“What if he does to Lily as he did to me. I mean I couldn’t live with myself if I let anything happen.”
I heard my mother start to cry and I wanted to barge in and yell at Mike, but Shelly, my only friend in this place, sneaked up on me and asked me what I was doing. Mike launched himself out of the tent, looking down at me with his stare that told you that you were an abomination. He always looked at me like that.
My mom sat me down on a big wooden crate filled with supplies for food. I don’t know where I got the courage to ask but I did. I asked the forbidden question. “What did Uncle Daniel do?“ as soon as those words left my lips mother smacked my check so hard that after a couple minutes you could still see where her hand impacted. She was staring at me like Mike and all the others did. Like an abomination. This wasn’t the first time she hit me but it was the first where she didn’t apologize after she did. She left me all alone holding on to my cheek wondering what happened to me.
Something happened to me that I can’t believe I did. I was yelling at all the lunatics that ruined my life. I was waist deep in the Dora Lake splashing water onto the crowd and screeching about how this wasn’t real. The head men went into the lake locking arms with me to drag me out all the while I was calling out their lies. I lost control.
I wasn’t given a slap or a beating instead I was locked into a dark room. Tortured. Forced to think this was all real. I did always want a room that didn’t have bunk beds that came with a pair of smelly feet. Look deep in the forest and you’ll see the start of my nightmares. Clear pass the mysterious staircases that appear out of nowhere. Escaped clues of the existence of what I like to call The Gate to Hell.
