1 ░PROLOGUE░

SOPHIAAGE: ELEVEN

Was playing games always this painful? Was this how all cousins played?

I thought playing was for fun. But that wasn't fun. It was the complete, total opposite of fun.

The room was dark. Everything so horribly dark, it scared me. I was so terribly scared and frightened out of my mind. But my family said that I should play with my cousins and not sit with the elders.

So I did. I played. I played with my cousin. I said I didn't know what to play. He said he'll teach me. He asked me to follow him upstairs into his bedroom.

I didn't want to be further lectured. So I did. I followed him upstairs and he led me to his room. And I looked around the room. I was so engaged in looking that I didn't hear.

I didn't hear the door lock click. But I saw as the room darkened. Completely.

"Aasim Bhai (brother). Why did you turn the lights off?" I asked, my voice a whisper in the endless dark room.

He didn't say anything.

But what he did afterwards made me cry out in pain. Why did I not shout? Why did I not ask for help? Why did I not fight back?

Why was his grip on my arms so firm? Why was he so much older and stronger than me?

I didn't like him anymore. He was like my brother. But my brother had never played games like this with me.

He whispered. He told me that I shouldn't tell about this to anyone. That if I did, no one will believe me. That if I did, he would do worse things to me.

And so I didn't. I never told anyone.

I never told anyone about the pain I felt. And the blood that I saw. There was so, so much blood. It was everywhere. The bedsheets, my body, and my heart.

My heart bled. And it never stopped bleeding.

I didn't want it to stop bleeding.