"Once upon a time, there was a tiny little lion cub. His mom loved him so so much." On an old sofa, whose springs had burst out, she hugged a baby blanket, now so dirty you couldn’t even see its original color. She clutched it to her chest as if someone might snatch it away from her at any moment. Repeating the same line over and over like a skipping record, she rocked back and forth with the blanket in her lap.
"Once upon a time, there was a tiny little lion cub. His mom loved him so so much." Tears fell from her reddened eyes onto the blanket that once wrapped an innocent baby. She shrank; a little child emerged from her large body.
From the shadows of buried memories, a voice erupted. "How many times have I told you not to play with dolls like a girl?"
She sobbed; "No, dad, please don’t hit me! Okay, I won’t play with dolls anymore."
She began to cry. The voice from her memory pulled off his belt. She yelled; swinging more with the blanket. Forward, back, forward, back...
"Once upon a time, there was a tiny little lion cub..."
The voice grew angry. "Stop repeating that! Your mom left because she’s a wretch." "No, my mom didn’t leave, you drove her away," she said with a voice choked by tears. She grasped the end of the belt. With each strike to her little body, she shrank. In her mind, the small body curled up against the wall. She tried to stifle her sobs as she hugged her tiny, crying self.
"Shh, it’s over! We’re grown up now. He can’t hurt us anymore." The little body's coal-black eyes, now surrounded by bruises, locked with her grown-up eyes that had lost all their innocence. "You became him, you’re just like him. I can’t trust you."
She reached out her hand to the child curling up in her mind. "No, I am not him."
The child shrank further, and its coal-black eyes gradually faded away. Just before leaving, it said, "You became him."
"No!"
She screamed; angrily slamming the blanket she clutched to her chest onto the ground. "No, I am not him, I am not, I’m not!" She cried uncontrollably, screaming and sobbing as she fell from the sofa to the ground. Her knees hit the concrete floor. It hurt; the eyes of the child in her mind became deep wells, pulling her in. Little hands grasped her mind. A pitch-black mist enveloped her soul. She wrapped her arms around herself, pressing against her chest. "Shh, it’s over! You’ve grown up, he can’t hurt you anymore."
"I have grown up," she said. She laughed so hard that tears came out. The child's hands were smeared with blood, its bloody hand caressing her hair. She sank deeper into her tiny form. As the mist gently covered her memories, another voice broke through the mist.
"Once upon a time, there was a tiny little lion cub, his mom loved him so so much."
Her large body merged into her small one. She ran toward the scent that smelled strongly of mother. Her large steps became small. Her black hair reached a woman walking determinedly inside her mind.
"Mom, don’t go!"
Black hair flew, and from the darkness, bright white skin shone. Cherry lips parted.
"I’m leaving, guard, wake up!"
The mist cleared, her face wrinkled with the pain in her knees. She stood up, the sharp smell of ammonia filling the air. She looked down; her gaze landed on her wet pants. She had wet herself...