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I make my way down the hallway. This time not scared, not trembling, not screaming. Just numb. Numb and defeated. Yes, I lost, I’ve lost to the point I don’t have anything more in me to lose. Every inch of warmth in me had swept away like dust. Never in my life had I been this raw. This exposed. Though perhaps in time I might get my peace back but not now… definitely not soon.

I see her sitting at the far end. Under the bench, knees against her chest hugging herself tight. Hair tied in a braid, tears streaming down her soft pink cheeks, trembling with fear. I can hear her whisper “dad come fast”… repeatedly under her breath. Yet they come for her. Grab her from her bruised, swollen ankle; pulling her out. I can hear her scream in vain. Choking on the hollowness of her soul.

So, so scared. They drag her to a 5×5 room like a prisoner. The door creaks open and I see her. Tied to the bed in a dark corner. Nails dug deep into her sore palms, trying to hold on. Pulling with her lifeless body begging to be rescued. I tap on her weak shoulder. No flesh just a pile of bones. She turns her face towards me and the sight makes me flinch, take a step back.

As she lifts her burdened eyelids, I witness what I had never seen before. Big innocent eyes, hazel with a hint of black, deeper than the ocean. Carrying the trauma of a decade of torture. A hundred emotions gush to the fore. Miserable, torn, shattered, helpless, BROKEN.

“You’re in here for a long time. I know you hate it, I know its suffocating but I also know you won’t give up, you’re a princess, a warrior” I said to her with a sense of pride. “How do you know all that?” She asked as her eyes twinkled with hope. “Because I’m you”.