Prologue

The room is always pitch black when she's around. I never know when I'd feel the stinging pain until I hear the leather struggling in her grip. It lashed at me. The twisted leather would always whistle as it cut through the wind. The length of it licked across my back and left behind a trail of blood, as a tongue would leave a trail of saliva. The pain was constant and I thought that by now I'd pass out, but I knew better. I wouldn't know the sweet bliss of unconsciousness, not for a while, not until she was finished. 

Chains were set up on either side of the small room. The shackles restrained my wrists and stretched out my arms, keeping my limp body from falling over. My knees would hurt after hours of being bent over the old, battered mattress I often slept on. I'd never cry, or scream. I'd endure it, no matter how long it lasts. After a while  a sort of numbness takes over, which is why I find screaming pointless. She wouldn't stop. I've begged her before, pleaded for mercy, but after so long I find having a soar throat to match the pain sort of unnecessary.  Sometimes it would last minutes, sometimes hours, and sometimes I'd spend days chained up until she saw it fit to release me. 

"Have you learned your lesson, N 0.3?" Her icy, hollow tone made my skin crawl and it brought out a fear in me so old and familiar that it has become second nature. I was terrified of her, of my mother, my creator.