Bʟʏᴛʜᴇ.

Lᴏᴠᴇ ɪs ᴄʀᴜᴇʟ

Where was the fun if they didn't play with their food a little bit? The kids deserved to be fed sprinkles of hope before their inevitable ruin. They deserved to be fed with sweet lies and empty promises and warm, affectionate touches. Until the kids blindly trusted them. Until they fell on the trap with their own feet.

With time those sweet words weren't so sweet anymore. The warm hugs weren't just hugs anymore.

While the little girl was too busy being happy she'd found a safe place in the embrace of a stranger, she couldn't possibly notice the sharp sting on her arms as her skin was sliced open by claws of the same hand offering her comfort. The little boy didn't see the malice behind fatherly touches until his body ached from ugly wounds and he was too messed up he couldn't see the difference between love and sick, twisted torture. How could he? The only love he'd ever known was cruel words spoken to ruin sanities and violent, destructive touches. Yes, that was love. Love was pain. And sadness. And loneliness. And lost battles. And aimless walking. Love was simply destruction in its sickest, most evil form.

To our boy love was torture. Love was being held captive without hope and on means of escape. Love was prayers left unanswered and cheeks bathed in tears and body teared into shreds. And then love was questioning yourself all the time. Love was a curse. He loathed love. The thought of love made bile rise in his throat.

He once made a promise to himself that he'd never forget. When he was finally free, if he ever managed to escape his cage, he'd never love or allow anyone to love him again. He wasn't going through this pain again.

Love was sick! God, how much he f*cking hated love. He didn't need love. He didn't want to be loved. He was never going to fall in love! Never!

Innocent, childish thoughts. Little did he know love was also merciless. Just because you didn't want to be in its clutches didn't mean it would spare you. Love was sick.

The kids didn't escape. Years passed and nothing changed.

And so little by little new scars, new wounds of all sizes and colors were stuck on their skin stubbornly remaining there like tattoos. Little by little they lost their childhood, their purpose, hope petered out, their voice abandoned them after long periods of screaming, tears were dried out like their eyes were drought.

Life was sucked out of them by the same people they trusted.

As the days flew by, each of their visits taught the little kids a valuable lesson at such a young age.

Humans were capable of having many faces.

They had countless of them and they switched them as they pleased in order to manipulate others.

Humans were all writers in some way, creating characters with distinct personalities not on a piece of paper but on themselves. They always wanted to be someone else, someone completely different from their true self. Humans changed themselves to be accepted, to love themselves or to be loved or to hide the rotten human being they were.

As Japanese believed: people have three faces. The first face you show to the world. 5he second face you show to your close friends and family. As for the third face, you never show this face to anyone.

While Zoe, she thought they had many more than three.

Sociologist Erving Goffman developed the concept "dramaturgy", the idea that life is like a never ending play in which people are actors. He believed a person in his daily life is the same as an actor on stage. Every situation people encounter is a new scene and individuals act different roles depending on their spectators.