~ Past separated them, now pain will bring them together.~
A teenager Sofia Hayden, experiencing her falling apart family isolated herself slowly from everything that she held dear, especially from her best friend Max Wilder who had just realized hi...
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Never had Sofia thought in her thirteen years of life that she would have to witness a day as this, in her own home.
The familiar ambiance of her home had ceased to exist since a while now. But right at the moment, it seemed downright foreign.
The school bag slid down her shoulder heedlessly. The pungent smell of alcohol almost suffocated her. Standing there at the threshold, stupefied, she watched as her father loomed over her mother on the floor.
He had a fist raised with fury glistening in his eyes, and her mother's wide eyes stared back in fear, trying to cower behind a shield which there was none.
Voice failed to come out of Sofia's mouth as she tried to scream, call out for help, cry—anything.
The fist swung down, hard and fast.
She heard her mother's pained cry and soon realized she'd been screaming as well.
--
Sofia woke up to the sound of her own groans of misery.
Gasping, she tried reclaiming steady breathing. And as the haziness of sleep and anguish of the nightmare dissipated, the clammy feeling of perspiration on her forehead began to make her skin crawl.
Kicking the sheets off her body, she turned to her side and faced the wide-open window of her bedroom.
It was still dark outside.
She refrained from seeing the time on her phone.
For some weird reason, the knowledge of time made the task of falling asleep just a bit more impossible for her.
What an irritating disposition.
Sighing, she couldn't help but think back to the ever-familiar nightmare.
It was initially memory of one of the worst days of her life and would stay an ever haunting ghost till she breathed her last. She recalled how since that day the change in her began. She had thought she was being strong that way, but the sad truth was it was exactly the opposite. Surely, she had been acting from great pain but that fact didn't make anything she did a single bit right. It was way too late when she finally realized her wrongs, but by then, her stupidity had cost her so greatly.
She had to shake her head to clear her mind off the terrible memories.
The next hour passed in twisting and turning, but sleep didn't come again. And so, with a frustrated grunt, she got out of bed.
Lazily, she padded towards the window and held the grills absentmindedly. Dawn broke through the sky, the colors vivid and captivating her heart. It was a sight no one can ever get used to.
