Chapter 1: The Arrival

Glaring through the gaps in the almost ethereal- looking clouds, the Moon's light pierced my very soul. Long, spindly fingers grasped at the stars. Their roots intertwined with one another.

I had arrived.

The past few days had been tedious and enveloped in melancholy. My late parents had supposedly committed suicide, and of the places I could've been sent to after their untimely and tragic deaths, I was sent here. To this run-down hell-hole. My own personal prison.

The clock struck twelve. A silhouette loomed outside of the barred doorway at the front of the menacing structure. Glancing to the window to the right of this foreboding door, I noticed the honey complexion of a girl.

Then, the silhouette crept forward, like a spreading disease. My hazel eyes encircled with a ring of gold and amber adjusted to the darkness. I caught a glimpse of the creature's face. It was my uncle.

"Jasmine, welcome to my home," he screeched like a barn owl.

My heart started pounding. Blood pumping. Head dizzying. I screamed. I didn't want to be here. I wanted to turn invisible. To hide. To be sucked into a black hole and taken far away from this stone prison. But I couldn't. Instead, I just stood there. Rooted to the spot. Paralysed. Fear coursing through me, I shudder at the thought of what this demon had done to me in the past.

My uncle was malevolent. The devil incarnate. Every time he visited my parents and I, he would 'bless' me with his infamous double-barrelled glare that seared my soul and embedded itself into my mind - with that look, trouble always followed.

The belt. The belt always followed the glare. He always slowly removed it from his leather bag, as if he were taunting me. The belt is long, sleek and hurts like hell. I should know, every time he visited he would always do the same thing. Find fault in me. And punish me for it.

Extend.

Up.

Down.

Slash.

He would always do it when my parents were out, and they would never believe me when I told them of his despicable actions, despite the proof of my scarred back. Some parents they were.

Sadness overwhelms my senses as I remember the time where I had no scars plaguing my back, where I didn't fear for my safety in my own home. But enough of that. Regaining my composure, I stand tall and straight and sent a steely glare in my uncle's direction. I refuse to let him see me weak.

As I stared at him standing there, on the cobblestone path, overgrown with weeds, my confidence and resolve melt and are replaced with uncontrollable and irrational fear. This was the man that hurt me. This was the man that my parents couldn't protect me from. No. He is not a man. He is a monster. A beast of the worst sort.

My train of thought abruptly stopped when he sauntered up to me, picked up my suitcase, sneered with disgust, and disappeared into the mansion that was to be my jail cell for the next 2 years (or at least until I found a way to escape).

This thought comforted my somewhat, allowing me to gather enough courage to take a step forward, toward the structure built off of the blood and bone of others ( it used to be a cemetery, you see, before my uncle knocked it down and built his looming mansion on top. How he got permission to that, I have no idea. He's a manipulative little bitch.)

Another step.

And another.

Until I was cowering before the barred doorway. I entered.

My first impression of my prison was that it was vast.

There were candles in the hall, however, the flame didn't quite reach the corners of the room. They were untouched by light. Shrouded in darkness and shadow.

I scanned my surroundings.

Black. I only saw black. The furniture. The walls. The floor. And the ceiling. It was all ebony black.

Like a darkness waiting to consume all.

The creak of a floorboard, and a blood-curdling scream.

Silence.

Nothing but silence.

Something is definitely wrong with this madhouse. And I swear I will unearth the truth.