Puzzles

 

Prologue 1

 

                Lightning struck. It lit up my pitch black room to reveal a nine year old girl lying in bed. Awake. Fearful. There was creaking on the floor boards. “Here it comes again,” I thought with dread. It happened every night. I wanted to make it stop, but I couldn’t. A hand touched my thigh. “No…” I started to say, but the hand kept going. I tried to push it away, but it kept coming. I couldn’t fight it. All I could do was sob and wish that it would end. It eventually did. Not soon enough, however. At the time I didn’t know why he was doing that to me. Or how he could think that way about me, nothing more than a little girl. All I really understood back then was that it happened.

As a result of my midnight traumas I hardly got any sleep, and every morning when I woke up I took a shower, and then I took two more during the day. I felt dirty. I always felt like I needed to clean myself to make up for what was happening to me. Somehow I guess I thought it was my fault. Like I should have somehow been in control of his actions. What I didn’t understand was that he was the adult and I was the kid, and he was responsible for it all.