I feel like I should preface this with some little bit of background. What I am about to see, what I am about to describe and my reaction to it - well, I don't feel like you would understand, dear reader, if I did not first take the time to explain some of my history.

I started this journal where the action began. As it seemed like that would be the most interesting place to begin. But, as with any story, the beginning was not the beginning, and the end shall not be the end. Events were unfolding long before the first word was written and shall continue to unfold long after I have dropped the pen. (Metaphorically, of course, I'm not actually using a pen to write this. What do you think I am, a savage?)

There is a reason that, in this story's beginning, I said of fantasy, "However bad it is, it's better than reality." And there is a reason why, even after everything that has happened yet, after everything still yet to be written, I will stand by this statement. For reality is not only a place of suffering, but it also is a place of helplessness. 

'Tons of people have it worse than me.' This statement is the truth, and this has been my watchword. My mantra. My life. For as far back as I can remember.

Oh holidays, when I locked myself in my bedroom and hid under the bed, I whispered this to myself, "There are people out there who are starving. There are people out there being tortured. There are people out there living in dog cages." And it was true.

And even as hunger forced me out, as I was driven from the safety of my bed, I focused on that idea. Despite the staring, despite the laughing, despite the jeers. And, even as I was being pushed or punched, I repeated to myself, "I have food. I'm warm. I'm surrounded by family."

As I grew up I kept to this thought. I clung to it, perhaps, too tightly. And it got me through the endless procession of days. 

In junior high when I made my first friend, I said to myself "Some people are friendless and alone." And, when my Friend was not with me, as my classmates cleverly found ways to sneak in punches and spit in my eyes, I reminded myself, "At least I'm not really alone. At least this won't happen when He is with me."

And when Junior High turned into high school, when I accepted the fact that my best friend didn't like me in that way but pitied me, I tried to be grateful that he was my friend. I introduced him to other girls and I tried to make him happy. 

Because other people had it worse. Because, if not for him, I would have have had it worse too.

As high school passed, I grew to be rather pretty. And I used that to hurt the boys, who had so carefully snuck in punches when the teachers weren't looking. I used this to tear apart the girls, who had lead competitions of who could cast the most lugies in my eyes. The entire time I told myself, "This isn't bad, other people have it so much worse than them. I have had it so much worse than them."

I went on to college. I went on to make friends with the artists and the philosophers. They accepted me, I think, because of my beauty. But they didn't really see me as one of them. And I found myself, still, using every spare moment between classes to hide under my bed. 

There, I read; there, I played video games; there, I slept and daydreamed - and I was so very, very grateful for food and warmth and, above all else, that I was safe.

But college cannot last forever. People called me a 'golden child'. People told me that I was lucky, because my Daddy and Mommy paid for me to get an education. But what people didn't know where the things I was doing, the things that I was allowing to be done to me, in exchange for that right. And I still pray that people will never find out.

Woe is me, right? Aww, the poor white girl thinks she had a rough life. Poor, little, stupid thing. 

Ya, maybe. Whatever.

But, dear reader, what you need to know, what you need to take away from this is the following:

I was in hell. I had seen and felt some horrible things. But the thing that would hurt the most was not to be my capture. It was not the rape. It was not, even, the feeling of my hands and feet being severed from my body.

What would hurt the worst, then and always, was the betrayal of a friend. A friend who, when all is said and done, had once made me feel safe.