Prologue
I kept slamming the wooden door in front of me so hard that I could feel the soft, white pads of my palm turning red and burning in pain.
But that was not the only part of my body that was hurt.
My throat was hurting as I screamed for help for almost an hour, calling out to my mother. I wanted her to open the door of the storeroom where she kept me locked as punishment.
I sobbed uncontrollably.
My yellow-colored frock was covered with phlegm, tears, and dirt from that musty storeroom. I already had bruises all over my body from the acerbic beating with a cricket bat that my mother used.
But I knew very well that my screams were muffled on the other side of the house, where my parents were entertaining their creditors. My parents, especially my father, had borrowed a huge sum of money for his lavish business, which he had failed miserably to operate
Now you would think on which earth a biological parent would lock his 11-year-old daughter up in the storeroom, in the abysmal dark, so that their unpaid creditor could rape her mercilessly?
My dear reader, welcome to the Planet of Anarchy, where a human is nothing but a piece of meat to everyone, for everyone to use for pleasure or for everyone to use as bait. Or to kidnap them or torture them.
A child’s life is the most useless thing on this planet.
I kept slamming the wooden door.
It reverberated in the empty, dusty room. When nothing worked out, hopelessly- I banged my head on the door once and slowly sat down in front of it, crying hysterically. A thin line of white light rayed from beneath the door, and I could feel the presence of others on the opposite side. There were movements, faint glimpses of shadows passing through the light. The world was alive and lovely outside, but nobody seemed to care about the helpless little girl trying to escape from the hell that everyone labeled as home. She couldn’t tell anyone what kind of torture she had to endure—not even her classmates or her teachers, who had mocked her for going from the best student in the class to barely passing exams.
I was so lost in my thoughts, silently praying to God to show me a way, to send someone to save me. I used to read fantasy stories where princes saved distressed damsels from agony. I prayed for an angel, not caring whether the angel would be an Archangel or a fallen one; anyone who would save me, protect me, and love me. I was praying silently, whispering to God to rescue me from this nightmare, begging him not to abandon me.
Suddenly, someone clicked the lock of the door from outside. My little heart became drenched with fear. I felt the throbbing of my heart in my chest as if it was about to explode with the anticipated doom. The door opened slightly with a creaky noise in its bolts. A head appeared in the darkness, shadowing their face from the light behind.
Then, I knew who it was.
The brute and mixed smell of cheap scent and betel leaf wafted from him, filling the air of that musty, dusty, cold storeroom.
I felt my heart pounding inside my body, sensing what was about to happen to me. I opened my mouth to scream for my life, for my innocence.
