Prologue: Torment
"Do you really think I would let you off the hook, Emilia?"
The sound of my mother's tormenting voice sent shivers down my spine as I watch her feed my younger siblings with blood and gruesome uncooked flesh that I didn't know where she got. It feels like I'd throw up any moment now but I held the sourly feeling inside thinking she'd make me swallow it right after. I would rather eat soil than eat my own vomit.
She went to me and I couldn't move an inch. It feels like she's been suffocating me all this time without holding me. I couldn't talk so I gag, gasping for air.
Ever since, I would always think of my mom as a witch that developed late. I believed about the beauty of life when my father was still alive. She'd cook us good food feed us well but I certainly have fears when she looks at me every time I do wrong. I feel like she doesn't want me near dad and she'd be jealous of it always. When Dad died, she started doing weird stuff like going out late at night and feed us flesh the next morning. Every time my siblings cry because of fear, she'd slap them so hard and let them hold their voices instead of whining which children normally do.
And I would just stare at them thinking I couldn't do anything because I'm a coward. I couldn't understand how it happened but when she strangled my younger sister to death, I was the one gasping for air, gagging like I was the one hurting. As I was about to pass out, a warm and gentle hug brought me back to sanity. realizing it was all just a dream.
A bad dream. Nightmare.
He looked me in the eye and told me everything is going to be okay as he wipe away the tears that rolled down from my eyes. He hold me in his arms, caress my back and told me everything will be okay over and over again.
It did went okay, until one day it didn't. Until one day I wasn't, and I don't understand why.