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Chapter 2 - When the voices began

Annalise's POV

I wanted to scream back at her. "You shouldn't have had me!". But I never even got to give her a piece of my mind, the opportunity slipped before I could grab it. She died before I could gather the courage to talk back.

I remember the call I got from school that bright afternoon. She died from overdosing on her sleeping pills.

When I was shown her cold lifeless body my heart grew still and numb. Her weary eyes that looked at me like vomit were shut…forever.

Her burnt lips parted, those lips that cut me open over and over, those lips could never say those words again.

I should be happy, I tried to be happy, finally this woman was gone, I no longer needed to hear her tell me how much she hated me but I couldn't.

My heart slowly dissolved into bitterness as I continued to stare at her pale slender body that reeked of death.

All the anger that slowly built up for years faded and all I had left for her was pity.

Perhaps she was once a girl like me too, a girl with dreams but she made a stupid decision and gave me life, the life she taught me to despise.

I was only twelve when my mother died and ever since I was moved from foster home to foster home and my problems didn't stop.

The first family was nice until the father tried to force himself on me and was caught. The mom blamed me and I had to be moved.

The second family didn't care at all when I was dying or not, if I had eaten or not. It was like I was a decoration for their house, it didn't make sense to me.

I was seventeen when I moved to the third family. I had never been hit so much in my life, not even by my own mother who despised my existence.

The tiny bruises soon turned to gaping wounds that needed to be stitched. At the age of eighteen I was finally let go and had to survive on my own.

A new bud of hope sprang in me "maybe I can be happy". I began taking as many jobs as my hands could reach and saved to get into a college.

I didn't particularly have any passion but I did have a hobby one that saved me in my darkest time.

That hobby was reading and I enjoyed every moment of it. During my teenage years, the books at the old libraries were my escape, Immersing myself into the words of other people's imaginations and experiences.

Wherever I stayed I made sure to find a library and drowned myself in the words of the different genres books.

I used to have a favorite that I read over and over and over again because I wished to be the heroine who was saved and swooped by the hero but even that book soon faded from my memories as I stepped into adulthood.

I daydreamed everyday about finding a charming prince who would come pick me up from my hell but he never came. I decided to pick the English language as my major, hoping to be a writer or an editor at least or even a teacher.

If I wasn't going to be able to travel to those worlds I built in my head then I would bring them to me with words, the same with other people who had a passion like me. Finally at the age of twenty I got into my college and things were going almost fairly well.

The weight of work and school almost pulled me apart but I was willing to endure. I made a friend or two and tried to enjoy the experience.

At twenty-two It felt like things were starting to look bright for me until…I got into an accident.

My bones were shattered and so were my dreams, hopes, everything. I took too long to recover and eventually had to drop out from school.

I got into a heavy medical debt and had to work full time to pay it off. I tried to pick up a pen and continue my writing journey but the words inside me ran out.

The colorful imaginations that filled my head turned into a black hollow space. I gave up. I did. From then I continued to just live, I wasn't sure what I was living for but "maybe I will find it again" I told myself.

Friends reached out but I cut them off. Their lives seemed great, it seemed perfect and I was jealous so I pulled away. All the books I read faded from my memory. I stopped enjoying them.

I began to lose interest in everything. Maybe that's when the voices began to show up, when they began to ring in my ears. I was referred to a psychiatrist who prescribed some medication. It reminded me of my mother. I was slowly turning into her.

The pills made me numb and I hated it. I hated not being able to feel anything. The voices terrified me but what terrified me more was feeling like an empty shell so I stopped taking them and I stopped going to the hospital.

I let the ache in my heart continue to spread waiting for it to completely engulf me. It was better that way.

My mind slipped back to the present. Now I was turning thirty, it was my birthday and the voices started to sound right to me.

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