Succumbing to Darkness

Trigger Warning: Abuse, Rape

I was born into a wealthy family or at least what I can remember of it, I’m sure back then I thought life was great but it was late spring 1998 that the world started to slowly crack like a mirror before it finally shattered.

I woke up to the smell of purple geraniums and the sun shining into the large room called my bedroom in this house called home or what I’d grown up calling it. It was the spring of 1995 and it was going to be a hell of a week. My parents were to leave for a trade overseas that will make a high turning peak in the family business. I was looking forward to about a month of sleeping in, no math, English or riding lessons. A month without my mother yelling about how I need to be the perfect lady and have the perfect education so one day I could be married to a wealthy family with the proper connections for the family business. A month without our daily family dinners which I would miss but a month all the same. Though I loved my parents and they loved me I was a child seeking freedom from what I thought were the struggles of every child’s life. 

The eve of the day of the trip came and over dinner, my mum told me she wouldn’t be embarking on the journey anymore. A sour look immediately overcame my features.

“Why?” I asked

“Your father and I thought that I won’t be necessarily needed for the trade, so I’m staying back with you.”

Yayyy I said in a sarcastic voice.

Two weeks passed since the day father left and we finally got a letter in the mail. I was excited to read it because my father always had interesting things to tell me about how his adventures go. I waited for my mum to read the letter then pass it on but as I stretched my hand to grab it she swatted it away. Tore it on sight and threw it into the fireplace. 

“Go to your room!!”

“Why?”

“Just go!!”

I could almost swear I saw her eyes turn glossy and mothers eyes never turned glossy because she never cried any that I’ve heard of or seen. I went to my room and read pride and prejudice, a real classic. Mother didn’t talk to me for 2 more weeks except for the occasional pass the milk during breakfast and so on. So I was left to ponder what was in that letter. Did the deal not go through, did they get lost at sea. But one thing I refused to believe was that he died. That he left this world without a goodbye.

A month passed and mother could hardly leave her room. I was allowed to visit her occasionally because the doctor said it may help. She was suffering from delayed shock and stress. She hardly ate and she had become skinnier than a watering hose. Two months had passed since dad left home for the trade so I was expecting him any time to walk through those doors and mother had been ill for a month. It was a windy night when Laura the maid woke me from my slumber and ushered me into my mothers private quarters. Her brow was fused together with sweat, her face and arms were deadly pale.

‘Mother”

She could hardly talk and her eyes could hardly stay open.

‘Listen, child, he died a month ago.”

As she said those words my hand slipped from hers and I fell to the floor crying.

When I was done with my tears and looked over her face to demand why she kept it from me, she hid it away knowing it would break me her eyes were closed and her mouth open no air coming out. She was dead.

I am left in this big house, all these maids, no idea what to do and a fortune to my name.

It was that night I knew all the light in my life had faded, the days of nice family dinners, picnics by the beach, a family that loved me. The darkness had crept in and wanted to eat me from the inside out but I wouldn’t let it win I’ll show it what a 10-year-old orphan could do against it.

I first kindly told all the maids and servants to go, leaving only Laura so I could have someone to help me. Then I looked through all the business books and ledgers trying to make sense of it all and see if there was anyone that could help me, but a 10-year-old only knows so much. Days blurred into weeks and before I knew it a knock came on the door and two men in brown leather coats stood there waiting to whisk me away. All I was allowed to know was due to my father’s death the trade never went through therefore leaving me with only a little fortune left to my name which I already guessed but I wasn’t allowed access to it till I was 18 and I had to go to an orphanage home. That I didn’t want. I hid, I screamed, I cursed but I was dragged by my brown curls to Milky way’s orphanage.

 A washed off building cramped between buildings with similar features on a street I had never encountered. I was welcomed with the least enthusiasm I believed living creatures could muster. On arrival, I was shown up into a room that had bunk beds lined at the walls, painted pink. I assumed this was the girls’ room. The lady in charge of the orphanage Ms Helga showed me around gave me mashed potatoes and peas, the leftovers of lunch and left me to my thoughts. As weeks went on the orphanage was a mix of emotions. I constantly woke up with paint and doodles on my face which I assumed was someone’s idea of a prank or maybe welcome initiation, then I was left to clean up after everyone breakfast since I was the newling they said, I also got the worst chores like cleaning after the younger ones bed after they wet it, scraping the gum from the makeshift desks where we went to “school” and so on. I usually went to bed with a mild headache refusing to cry for my old life and not allowing the darkness to consume me. I wasn’t liked by the other kids in the orphanage maybe because I easily understood what was taught mainly because I had done it all before, or because I still had a glow to my skin still being the newest addition to the establishment.

 As months passed different couples came to see the children of the orphanage looking for who to adopt and I had been chosen so many items and turned them all down, that Helga just stopped showing me to visitors entirely. I turned them all down because I knew I couldn’t fake the cherry young child the couples were looking for, it felt like betrayal joining a new family. She got so fed up when a young barren couple were looking for a child not older than thirteen and when I was being interrogated and promised false happiness I told them I’ll rather have drowned in one of my father ships than gone off with one I don’t come out from. Ms Helga blamed it on depression and the aftershock of my parents’ death but I didn’t care. The only thing that kept me sane was the thought that I could get back onto my feet by eighteen. I could wait for 8 years. I was strong or so I thought.

I had spent three years in the orphanage watching children come and go and the years rush by when one day, a young lady walked in. With no words, Ms Helga summoned me downstairs gave me a little bag with my few belongings and sent me on my way. I thrashed, I screamed, it was just like the day those two men took me from my house. After I was done with my tantrum I was given water and the next thing I knew, I fell into a deep slumber.

 I woke up in a small cooped up room with no windows and a small door. In the corner was my bag with my belonging. I tried prying the door open but it was locked. Maybe I was kidnapped but could I call it that if my supposed guardian just gave me away. I went back into slumber and was awoken by a loud rasp to the door. The young woman came in and I could see her features more clearly. She had blonde hair with bright red lips but I could see the wrinkles and stress lines on her face with a nasty scar over her eye trying to hide with the ton of makeup plastered on it. 

“Hello darling, I’m Stella.”

“What am I doing here?”

“Well I bought you from that hideous orphanage where your assets can be used to more value, I’ll train you to perform all sorts of jobs for me and the better you perform and obey the less it will be hard and the easier it will get.”

“Where am I”

“The Dark rose”

Later that night a girl who looked not so much older than me gave me a bath combed my hair and only said one thing.

“The Dark rose normally breaks the girls after the first month but if you obey you will last.”

So obey I did, each morning I was dressing in black tight shorts with a matching tight black top and taken downstairs where Stella awaited me.

After about two weeks of training when Stella thought I was ready I was dressed in black shorts which covered less than underwear did and a top that showed much of my lower back. I was taken downstairs and put in a small room with a young man. He was hardly the definition of handsome but wasn’t ugly.

“Dance.”

I just stood confused.

“I want my money worth, dance, twirl do something.”

I just stood confused. He stood up and I counted the five steps to reach me when he touched me starting at my shoulder until his hand rest on my waist. I bit his hand out of instinct and kicked him in between his legs. His screams were loud and were like a howl. That night Stella beat me with a whip. Giving me thrice the lashings the more I cried. It was that night that I knew The Dark Rose was a pleasure house. 

For six months I didn’t allow any of my “clients” to touch me. I twirled, some just wanted to talk, but the monsters who wanted to hold me, I would thrash and push and not allow them a single finger on my skin I knew Stella had pride in. For each client, I was given lashes with the whip. Stella didn’t stop, wouldn’t stop until I will fall to her knees and beg but I stopped crying after the first week of lashings, I screamed, cursed never cried because then I’ll be letting darkness win, the same reason I didn’t allow the men to touch me, unlike the other girls. If Stella felt you did really good work after each job she would give you the purple room. It was a room with its own shower and a proper bed than what we mostly slept on and had a bath in. It was something all the girls looked forward to except for me. I had never been in the purple room and didn’t wish for it if it meant I could do this my own way.

3 years of working in The Dark Rose had passed when I had emerged 16. Stella had no use for me anymore she said but I begged her to keep me, that I was her best asset.

“No, you were my best asset.”

I was thrown into the street with no money and only the clothes I came in with 3 years ago. For the first 2 days, I stayed at the front of The Dark Rose wishing Stella would reconsider. One may wonder why I would want to go back to a place where I was beaten and forced to perform against my will, but at least I was fed, had a roof over my head. It was better than the streets. On the second day, the bouncer chased me off of the front steps claiming I was scaring customers away and threatened me if I don’t find my way.

I wandered the streets looking for a job, anywhere that will accept a 13-year-old girl with no experience and I was turned away from all. There was no saviour for me, no light in the dark streets but still, I refused to kneel to darkness.

After about 3 days of hardly any sleep, I found a small space behind a dumpster and slept off. I awoke in a small room, no cell. I could feel the salt in the air and it felt like I was moving. I was at sea on a ship. Oh no. I looked around and could see several girls in small individual cells in rows that went back way down. I was so delirious from the panic and lack of sleep I was in and out of sleep only properly awake when strange-looking men opened the door once a day with a tray of food. I tried to ask questions but I was answered with grunts and nothing more. With no sense of time, one day the ship came to a stop. And our hands were tied in ropes and we were marched out into buses. After what felt like hours we were walked into a long building and told to await our owner. A young-looking man came out. His name was Mr Moser. He was the biggest sex slave trader in Europe and hadn’t been caught in years. We were all taken into a large room and called on one by one. Some girls came back crying, some came still as a statue. The girl who had gone before me her name was Myra. She told me about how she was walking home from school late in the evening and the next thing she knew she woke up on the ship. One thing she was sure of was that she wasn’t in her home country anymore. When it was my turn I was taken to Mr Moser and put in a sit in front of him.

“Name?”

“Name?”

“Fine, her file.”

One of his goons brought out a yellow light file with my name and picture on top. Mr Moser quickly went through it then smiled. 

“You’ve had quite the childhood, though no sign of parents name or work. Care to share?”

“Dead.”

“Ah sorry.”

“Well, you will be auctioned along with the other girls before then you will be given a bath and nice clothes to dress up with. The auction is tomorrow so I advise sleep.”

“No!”

“What was that”

“No, I have the right to my freedom and I refuse to be sold.”

“You lost your right the day your parents died.”

I was stunned. I didn’t make another sound until I was shoved back into the room. He was right. The day I became an orphan my rights vanished. From one place to another never seeing the light felt like I was in a relapse of time.

The next day came and only 20 girls were to be sold that night, I included. I was taken to a small room where I was scrubbed like my life depended on it, my curls were brushed out and I was placed in a pink frock and taken into a bus. On arrival at where I supposed the auction was to take place. A voice spoke to me from my head. Escape. Escape this life, escape all of this.

 I told the guard at the door I needed a restroom and I was taken into a small room at the corner of the corridor. Fortunately for me, there was a small window which I could shimmy out of. But then the voice came back. If you escape you’ll just get kidnapped again or worse killed. Will you be moved from one horrible event to another. Better to get sold than getting taken again. When it was my turn for auction I was taken to the stage and immediately men of different size and shapes started bidding. I heard the prices go from 1000 euros to 5000 euros. 

I was given to an old man in an ugly green waistcoat. I was taken into a black car and awoke in the basement of a house.

“Hello, darling.”

Silence

“You’ll warm up to me soon enough but I’m not a patient man just give me answers.”

“What’s your name?”

Silence

A crack of a whip.

“Your name?”

Silence

I felt the whip tear through my body. He took a step toward me and we were mere inches apart. Then he put a kiss on my lips.

That broke me. He touched me, he kissed me, he beat me.

A tear slipped from my eyes and the tears kept running out.

I fell into a cold slumber, unconscious and trapped in my own mind. There was no light only darkness. 

 Layla Ackman had welcomed the darkness. I was thrown into unconsciousness, not sure if I will wake up ever the same. Because when I succumbed to the darkness I died inside.