Chapter five
"Lilly, humans can be far worse than the devil himself. Just because you have a kind and soft heart doesn't mean the world is the same. Some people will see your kindness as weakness—a way to control and manipulate you because they think you're naive. But they don't understand—you're not stupid. You're capable of achieving what they achieve without violence, unlike them. You have a strength they'll never understand. To stay kind and soft in a world full of pain and ugliness? That's real strength. Don't let the darkness of humanity consume you, my baby. In the darkest of shadows, be the light."
That's what my mom used to say to me whenever I came home bruised and battered, after trying to shield Lois from the cruelty of the world. I tried to make them see reason, to tell them how cruel it was to mock someone just for being different not by choice . But words never worked. That day, all I got was a gash so deep on my forehead it scarred over. We didn't have the money to go to the hospital, so l pressed tissues against it, taped it down, and waited for the bleeding to stop. It healed eventually, but the pain never really left. And not just physically.
My parents came to Ashgrove chasing the promise of something better. A future where they could build a life for us and escape the endless cycle of struggle. My dad cleaned floors, and my mom scrubbed strangers' homes. But no matter how hard they worked, it was never enough. We lived in a crumbling house where the mold grew faster than we could clean it. The walls were thin, and every winter, the cold seeped through the cracks, biting at our skin. We were always coughing, always sick.
I used to wonder if things would've been different if I was born into another family. Would I have been happier? Would life have been easier? I hated myself for even thinking it. My parents were good people. They tried their best. But sometimes, love isn't enough to shield you from the world. The constant bullying,the endless suffering—it eats at you. Seeing my parents mistreated, broken down right in front of me, shattered something in my soul.
And then my dad changed, so suddenly, so unexpectedly.
For months, he wouldn't let us leave the house—not for school, not for anything. He stopped working. He stopped letting my mom work, too. We had no income. The fights started then. Screaming turned into bruises, and bruises turned into scars. He'd never hit us before, but something inside him had snapped. His anger was terrifying—wild, uncontrollable. Even my mom didn't know what to do. She hid me and Lois upstairs when he started destroying everything in sight, screaming about how "they" were coming.
"They'll come for my children ," he said over and over. "They'll come for my wife , all because of him. All because of that bastard." His voice grew louder, more frantic, until it felt like the walls were going to cave in.
And then everything went black.
When I opened my eyes again, all I could see was red—blood everywhere. My parents were lying on the floor, lifeless, and Lois was gone. I remember screaming until my throat gave out, clawing at the ground like it could somehow change what had happened. But it was too late. It was always too late.
My eyes slowly open, but the world around me feels hazy. My head throbs, each pulse a sharp reminder of the agony coursing through me. Every inch of my body aches, but my abdomen hurts the most, the pain so intense that I can't even bring myself to move. I lie there, motionless, helpless. My cheeks are wet, and I realize with a heavy heart that it's my own tears. Grief wraps around me, tightening like a vice, and for a fleeting moment, I wish I could feel any pain but this. Anything to dull the ache in my chest, I hate remembering my past. It's too much, too unbearable. Every time I let myself remember, I'm forced to relive the horror all over again, as if I'm drowning in it, unable to escape. so I focus on the pain in my abdomen and head .