Chapter 3 Lost Warmth

The cold felt like a living thing, wrapping itself around me tightly like a merciless predator. Sinking its icy claws into my flesh, clawing at my bones. I won’t be shocked if I get hypertonia by the end of the day.

I had always thought I knew what cold was… growing up in a world that had never been kind to me or offered any warmth. But this.. this was something different. Something alive, something malevolent. It was all time consuming.

I huddled in a corner, my arms wrapped around my knees, trying to preserve what little body heat I had left. The darkness was oppressive, broken only by the faintest sliver of light that managed to seep in through the cracks in the heavy door.

It made me question myself, what if they are right? What if I am useless? I can't even protect myself not to talk about my unborn child.

My breath came in short and unstable. It was the only sound in the walls I was confined in, a cellar I would prefer to call it. Apart from the faint drip of water as it fell from the ceiling, dispersing as it hit the ground. The world outside felt like a distant memory, something that had once existed but was now far beyond my reach.

I try to focus on something, anything to keep my mind from spiraling into the abyss. But there was no escape from the memories that were adamant on ruining my life, of reminding me of what I tried my hardest to not confront, no way to block the pain and trauma that had become as much a part of me as the air I breathed.

It all started when I was five years old. Five, a time when most children were just beginning to discover the world when the future should have stretched out before me like an endless summer day. But for me, It was the beginning of the end.

I could still vividly remember that night as if it were happening all over again. The night not just my childhood but my world and identity were stolen from me, ripped away in the dead of night.

I had been sleeping, safe and warm in my bed, dreaming of the dolls I would play with the next morning, of the songs my mother would sing to me as she braided my hair. But all of that changed in an instant.

I woke up to the sound of voices, hushed and urgent. At first, I thought I was still dreaming, that the shadows moving in the corners of my room were just figments of my imagination because even then, I wasn’t a child that was scared of monsters.

But suddenly, the door creaked open, and the shadows became solid, real.

Two figures loomed over my head, their faces unidentifiable by darkness. My fragile heart pounded in my chest, and I wanted to scream out for my daddy, to call out to my mother, but my voice was frozen in my throat, just like my body was now frozen in this icy tomb.

The hands that reached out for me were strong and cold. They yanked me from my bed, pulling me into the shadows with them. I struggled, kicked, and tried to break free, but I was too small…, ..too weak.

The world around me became a blur as they carried me away, away from the only home I had ever known. The night air bit at my skin as they threw me into the back of a van, slamming the door shut behind them.

I don’t remember much of what happened after that—just flashes of light and dark, of the van rattling over rough roads, the smell of damp earth and gasoline.

I cried until I had no tears left, but no one came to comfort me, to tell me that everything would be okay. Because it wouldn’t be. Not anymore.

The years that followed were a nightmare I couldn’t wake from. I was passed from one pair of hands to another, always in the dark, always afraid.

The people who took me didn’t care that I was just a child. To them, I was nothing more than a commodity, something to be used, traded, and discarded when I no longer served their purposes.

They broke me down piece by piece, stripping away the innocence, the joy, the hope that had once filled my life. I was no longer a little girl with dreams of dolls and songs; I was something else entirely—a shadow of the person I had once been, lost in the cold, cruel world that had swallowed me whole.

And now, after all these years, after everything I had endured, I found myself here, in this frozen hell. Not taken by strangers this time, but by the very person who had taken everything from me—my sister. The one who had taken my place, stolen my life, while I had been left to rot in the shadows.

The door to the cellar creaked open, and a gust of freezing air rushed in, stinging my already numb skin. I didn’t need to look up to know who it was.

I could feel her presence, a dark, wicked force that seemed to suck the warmth out of the room just as the cold did.