The broken beta - healed by innocence

*Briony* I am eight years old again, trapped in a tiny, pitch-black space. My breath is shallow and ragged, and an unnameable stench fills the air. The space is so tight my small body hardly fits. Coldness seeps through my thin cotton dress, causing me to shiver incessantly. Something cold and clammy presses against me, the dampness seeping into my skin and raising goosebumps all over my body. Outside, the sound of harsh laughter echoes, a cruel melody that sends my heart pounding against my ribcage. The laughter is a horrifying counterpoint to desperate cries and pleas that spike the air. The voices are familiar, filled with fear, belonging to my mother and sisters. Their cries rip through me, filling me with a dread so potent I can taste it. I want to scream, to claw my way out of this darkness and throw myself into whatever danger awaits outside. But I remember my mother's stern warning. "Stay here," she had said, terror in her eyes I'd never seen before. "No matter what you hear. Stay." As I fight the urge to cry out, the laughter outside grows louder, some changes to grunts, like pigs slobbering food, the pleading cries more frantic. My chest tightens, the air in this confined space becoming thinner and thinner. I must stay. I must obey my mother, even as the fear of being forgotten, of being left alone with this cold, clammy presence threatens to swallow me whole. My heart throbs with a fear I can't comprehend, a fear that my family will be ripped away from me, leaving me alone in this cold, dark place. The danger outside is real and immediate, but the terror within me is growing, threatening to consume me, as I fear the worst… that I will be the last one standing, the only one left in the darkness and no one will ever find me. I sit up in bed, breathing hard as I try to tell myself that it is only a dream, a hellish nightmare mirroring the past, but no longer reality. Drenched in sweat and feeling I need some fresh air I roll out of bed and hurry to the window. I open it, gulping up the fresh night breeze. I need to get away from this place, from the memories and from the nightmares. So I go to my little desk and pick up the letter I received yesterday. Reading it again. It is from Alpha Chase Moonshadow, he is telling me he will pay my ticket to travel to his pack in West Texas if I say yes to becoming his mate and Luna. I sit down and start scribbling my answer.