“Why?” a hoarse voiced asked.

The woman on the floor was covered in a thick layer of grime. Her eyes were wattery; face swollen to an inhuman size. The hair on her head was in matted clumps, sticking to her scalp– blood undoubtedly a part of the masses. What were once designer clothes had been reduced to scraps of fabric, of which did nothing to protect her integrity.

“Everything… everything I did was for you.” Light was scarce in the dirty and smelly room, but the faint illumination that was there reflected the still tracks of wetness on her cheeks. They were tainted red. “I have devoted my everything to you. Why do you hate me for it?” Her voice broke with every passing syllable.

“Why?” she asked again.

Standing proud before her pitiful figure was a man with only disgust in his gaze. He made a mental note to burn the shoes he wore; ones that she was grabbing onto.

He kicked her.

She could only make a soft noise as she fell back.

It was all she could do.

“You’re wrong,” the man looked down at her, “You did everything for yourself.”

The once arrogant Raine Hastings had fallen. Her family was to follow soon.

“No,” she shook her head vehemently. “You’re the one who’s wrong. Please, please remember. And then we can put this behind us and be a happy family.”

He laughed.

“I will never be happy with you.”

And that broke her more than the physical torture she endured from his hands.

- From the Darkest Depths of Laia’s Laptop