Broken Wings

Eden

My name is Eden, not the one I was born with, but the one I was given in the Garden, along with a permanent Heliconius melpomene rosina butterfly tattooed on my back, a part of him that I will never be free of, along with the many scars across my body.

I have lived for 4 years in a 'Garden', a beautiful garden that held so many horrors that one would not imagine, encaged by strong walls of soundproof atrium that would be the holder of our screams, of our freedom, of our nightmares.

It's been 6 months since we left the Garden, since we watched it burn down, taking many of our own with it - a necessary sacrifice, not that we expected it to happen though, we just wanted to be free...

It's been 6 months since we left, 7 court hearings because it seems like we still have to explain to the court why our kidnapper should have a death sentence, like the ones he would give us, and 9 funerals, fallen butterflies that broke completely decided it was better to kill themselves than to live in this world, I wonder how many others will come.

Nothing is like it was, the world seems so dull... my mother killed herself after the third year of searching, cases of missing people turn cold as the time passes and the police had given up on her.

On me.

And she gave up too - she gave up on everything.

I didn't have anyone else, apart from the other Butterflies, it's crazy how much you bond with people when you share trauma... so when we left the Garden and no one came looking for me, I stayed with some of them.

But watching them break apart in front of my eyes was not something I could handle anymore, not when I was also breaking on my own.

So hello there, I'm Eden Morrow, 20 years old, a survivor of a serial killer, I am a butterfly, not a delicate and fragile one, but one of the rare poisonous ones. My kidnapper knew exactly what he was doing when he chose my butterfly - I would be his downfall.

I'm Eden Morrow - and I'm not afraid.