I wasn’t really sleeping, I was only pretending. I could hear feet clumsily making their way to my door. My eyes widened as I tried to prepare myself for what, I knew, was about to happen. My door ripped open and a drunken dark image stood partially hunched over in the entry way. My heart began to race and my breath became rugged as tears began to emerge. A raspy voice called, “Michael… are you sleeping?” Out of fear I did not respond. The image turned, and standing sideways, chugged the last bit of alcohol in that skinny bottle. I believed that it was leaving, though I was quickly contradicted when this image rapidly threw the empty bottle against the wall. I could feel chucks of glass falling onto my comforter. I tired not to wiggle too much, but apparently it was enough to be seen by the wrathful eye of this shadowy, towering image now approaching my bed. With its head tilted to the side, inquisitively staring, examining if you will, the shape which designed my body. I could feel its penetrating stare surveying every inch of me. I had every intention of becoming a statue, consequently glass was digging into my side through the comforter causing me pain.
“Michael, are you awake?” I could hear the vice grin growing on its poignant face. By this point I knew that it would do me no good to continue on pretending, especially when I am not that good.
“Yes,” the word came out slowly and painfully. I knew that I basically signed my death sentence.


Suddenly this bent over figure stood straight up. With no prior warning the massive hands clutch my shoulder and drag me off my bed. I wonder if I had done something wrong, why else would this happen to me. These hands are no strangers to my frail and feeble frame. They haul my weak resisting body to the top of the stairs, I close my eyes… I open them to find that I am lying at the bottom. I fearfully stumble to my feet just in time to be snatched again by these hands. I drowsily march further through my house, a building of so many evils and secrets. We enter the kitchen and my heart begins to race. The hand releases me and walks over to the stove and turns it on. I cannot cry because that’s a weakness, I cannot be weak, not now. A distracted voice calls, “Michael, get over here.” I hesitate. “Michael!” I stagger closer. Unexpectedly, one of the large hands reaches around my head and throws it into the surface of the counter. My face bleeds. I do not make a sound.
“Why don’t you cry, baby! Why don’t you cry!” The voice has changed, it is loud and hating. My head is throbbing, it hurts. I trip over my own feet and fall to the ground. “I did not tell you to sit!” A foot embeds into my stomach, not once, not twice but three times. The hands again clutch my shoulders and jerk me up off the floor. Inch by inch we make our way closer to the stove. I know what will happen. I say a prayer. My silent tears sting the cuts on my face. Will I even be alive tomorrow? These hands lift me up off the ground and hover me over the stove top. I feel the heat. I do not try to resist, it will only make it worse, better to just deal with it. The hands quickly release and I fall onto the boiling stove surface screaming and pleading to only be heard by deaf ears…