7 Tale #7: Sweet Dreams

Whenever I went to sleep, they will always whisper to my ears, "Sweet dreams, dearie." As if to soothe the pain I am feeling. They will always do this every time I go to sleep. I don't know why, it's not like I want it nor did I request it. I also don't know if they planned to do this or if one of them said that they must do this when they saw me going to sleep. I never knew but I'm also too tired to even ask them. All I want is some sleep.

When I woke up, I'm not in my bed anymore, each time I will see myself somewhere else and it's definitely not near my bedroom. However, one thing is constant in those places: there's always toys and snacks. Toys of various kinds from small to my size and some are remote controlled and some have buttons that when you push— will move on their own. The snacks has an infinite variety, from chocolates to candied fruits and junk foods. It's always like that.

Of course, me being a kid, would forget the question 'why am I here?' and go and play with the toys and eat some snacks. From time to time, someone would go check on me to see if I'm alright and didn't hurt myself or anything while playing. Sometimes, I know that someone and other times, it's a new face. Most of the times, the person checking on me would go inside and play with me. That happens all the time.

Me, being a kid, have an infinite amount of energy and only need some sugary snacks to recharge while the one who played with me will always be drained of energy whenever we're done playing. The person will then say, "Nice meeting you and I hope we can play again." As he walked out the door while waving his hand goodbye. I will do the same and continue playing and eating. Of course, I also get tired so I will walk out the door and tell someone that I want to sleep.

Normally, they would just let me go to my bedroom, but there are other times where they beg to me to stay awake some more time because there is someone else who still want to play with me. There are times that when I say no, they would let me but most of the times, they will convince me to do so. Either way, it's fun playing with them.

When I lay down in bed, there I will feel how my body would ache because I played too much. Especially my legs and arms, my playmates mostly hold those when we play. 'So that we can do our play more perfectly', is what they will say. As a kid, of course I believe them, I had fun after all, but it will still hurt when I lay down too bed. It hurts so much.

Maybe they noticed that I'm in pain that's why before going to sleep, they give a glass of warm milk and after, whisper to my ears, "Sweet dreams, dearie."

I can't help myself but to feel pity for her. I tried to hold back my tears. I tried my best to show how calm I was and not to feel any sympathy towards her, I'm a professional journalist after all. I stayed like that as I interview her, as she described and told me her story.

After the interview, I hurried to the comfort room and there, I burst into tears. To think of how innocent looking she was as she told me her story, not knowing that she was a victim of child sex abuse.