Introduction

Lindsey is torn from her parents, all thanks to watering a flower in a not so natural way.

Darkness.  Fear.  Anger.  All of these thoughts raced through my five year old head as I hid in the closet, my only source of light coming from the small crack between the two wooden doors.  I ignored the urge to shift my position, small splinters digging into my skin and send a prickly feeling throughout my body.  I attempted to shallow my breathing as much as I could, the feeling of my heart thumping in my own chest becoming near painful.    All I did was water a flower, what could be so wrong with that?  My  hands covered my ears from the sound of pounding that came from the front door, the hinges rattling, threatening to fall off at any moment.  

The hinges held up to their promise as the raucous sound of the door crashing to the wood floors echoed throughout the house.  People began to shout at each other, their voices intermingling to the point I was unable to tell who my parents were and whose voices belonged to the ‘bad guys’.

          One noise rose above the sound of shouts though, and that was the loud and heavy footsteps that headed towards the closet.  My hand gripped onto the hanging clothes, my finger nails tugging on the fabric.  I squeezed myself into the corner of the tiny space in an attempt to not be discovered.  It didn't work.

          The doors were swung open violently, the sound of them hitting the wall with a loud bang making me flinch.  A man stood looking down at me, a gun in one of his large calloused hands.  He began to shout foreign words at me, his free hand grabbing me by the hair and yanking me up and off the ground.  A shrill scream left my lips.  My tiny hands scratched at the larger one tugging me, my nails breaking through the skin causing a warm liquid began to drop in my hair and run down my arms, making the man let out an angry word and drop me.  I fell to the ground, my arms cushioning my fall before I stumbled up and forwards, straight to my father's arms.

          “Don’t let them take me!” I sobbed.  My dad shushed me and stroked my hair as he muttered calming and soft words into my ear before he confronted the men in the black suits.  I clutched onto his white shirt as they began to yell, a table being thrown over in the process.  I looked over at my mother on the floor, her eyes glued shut, a red liquid pouring down her head and making her black silky hair stick to her face.  Her skin was pale, her chest barely moving up and down.  What was happening?  

          Before I could blink, two hands grabbed my sides and roughly pulled me away from my dad.  I began to kick the air as hard as I could, my hands wrapping around the man's arms as I squirmed my body in attempt to free myself from his grasp.  The man harshly hit me, forcing a yelp throughout my body before tossing me over his shoulder as if I weighed nothing more than a sack, which I guess is true.

“Lindsey!” My dad yelled, his hand reached out to me.  Two men had him pinned against the wall as he pulled harshly against their restraints, to no avail.  I reached my own hand out to him, but by this point he was too far away.  

Next thing I knew, I was being thrown in the back of a truck, and was consumed by darkness once again, except this time there was no light to calm me.