Chapter 8

The road was shrouded in darkness.

Leon stumbled along, his footsteps quickening with urgency.

His biological mother had been driven out of the Pierce family by Madam Pierce when he was just a child.

His older brother treated him like a pet.

He would play with him when he felt like it and kick him when he did not.

Their father despised this unwanted presence that disrupted the harmony of the family.

Whenever he was the slightest bit displeased, he would beat Leon until his skin was raw, tossing him into the basement.

It was pitch black with no light to break the endless darkness, and he had no food or water.

He could not feel time passing, and all of his senses felt magnified.

The silence became so profound that he could hear his own fragile nerves snapping, one by one.

Desperate, he pounded on the door, crying out for mercy.

No one answered.

Slowly, he learned to be quiet.

He learned to live quietly, grow up quietly, and turn the world upside down quietly.

Later, as s