Prologue - A wish

Rain.

Something that I enjoyed amongst all others. It accompanied me even through the darkest days and gave me the impression that I wasn't so alone after all, almost as if it was watching over me. Now and then, I hummed along with the beat of the rain falling on the roofs.

"Rain, rain go away come again another day." I sang in the quietness.

It was quite a contradiction. I loved rain yet I just sang a song to tell it to go away. It wasn't my intention when the only song I knew that mentioned it was that one. Oh, how I wished I'd learned more lullabies about rain or played once more under it, back when I had all the time to do any thing. I wished I had watched more cartoons or played one more game of hide-and-seek with my cousins but all I could do now was wish upon a star.

"Little children want to play." I continued, mumbling under my breath, my finger tapping on beat against the cold window.

Along with some friends, I used to sing those lines, wishing for the sun to quickly return. It was now the other way around. I didn't want it to get sunny so soon.

I had settled, curled up on the window frame. My right temple touched the cold pane, my right hand hugging my calves for warmth and my free hand drawing random scribbles on the moisture. I didn't mind the lone futon in the other corner of the room, which was ripped and filthy, preferring this spot since I could wait for the sun and moonlight to greet me right here.

The sunrise to wake me up and the moonlight to help me see in the gloom of this attic room. It never failed to make me feel slightly better, even if it was just for a few seconds.

There weren't many ways to entertain myself aside from the lonely bookshelf on the left side of the room. I've read every book in it more than twice, including the dictionary and encyclopedia, although not everything stuck to me since I never had a good memory.

I wished I had been more thankful for my strict and overprotective parents. Sometimes they were too much but at least they let me out, unlike the woman who everyone called mistress. I've met her once or twice before my father had left mother and me in her care. I never caught her name so I went along with everybody calling her mistress. Imagine my surprise when I read from the dictionary what it meant. However, I didn't want to believe it. Father would never do such an act.

Click.

The clanging sound of metal being hurled inside drew me from my reverie. A tray of food, the sound of it reverberating around the room. I didn't dare try to get up to flee. The trapdoor opened and closed as quickly as it opened. I once tried to catch the sender of my meals off guard to jump down the ladders. After they realized what I was up to, they reacted by slamming the door shut on my fingers, leaving me with battered fingertips.

I gawked at the tray of food on the floor, willing myself and what little sanity left in me to eat. 

I noticed the tiny cupcake on the side, its frost tilted. That's when I knew it was my birthday. They never seemed to forget to remind me of it when I've always forgotten. It had been the fourth cupcake- and counting. I've tried eating the first one in the first year and ignored the other three. They were too sweet for me and fed me lies after lies that I was ever going to get out of here. The biggest lie that I believed.

I blinked and just like that, it was night time all over again. Another day was spent gazing into the forest in the backyard. It used to terrify me that whatever I was staring at every night was also staring back at me. But no monsters can reach me up here when the most monstrous of all was the one who ruled this place.

A bright star caught my eyes as I remembered that it's the planet, Venus. That didn't stop me from wishing on it, to wish upon a star.

Closing my eyes, I wished this attic room had always been my parents' beige and white bedroom. I remembered the day I started sleeping on my own. It had not been more than a year of that before I was imprisoned. My father was apprehensive of it but I've begged mother to change his mind. It wasn't a quick decision but we got there. I now realized how stupid of me to beg them to let me sleep alone. If I hadn't been so careless of my wishes then perhaps this wouldn't have happened to me. All because I was a brat.

The mistress was right. I am a brat. If I had always slept together with my mother then she could've saved me from the mistress.

I silently slipped into an awakened state after hearing a loud noise, eyes gradually opening in a robotic manner while adjusting my knees from having been bent the whole night. I hadn't noticed I fell asleep when I was making a wish.

My eyes darted around the cobweb-filled room. The dust had accumulated over the years since no one dared to come up here, abiding by the mistress' rules. There were two broken ancient TVs, random planks that my father had probably thought of using so he kept them in here, boxes and bags which I tried opening but had locks.

I sprang upright after the second loud sound, almost banging my head against the window's low wooden frame. With all the loud noise, the mistress must be having a fit again.

Strangely, the room was warm. It couldn't have been an hour past midnight when the moon was still so high up, what seemed to be the matter now? It was late at night, and it had recently rained, yet I had the impression that there was a heater running in the room, even though there was none, and I hadn't been exposed to such luxury in a long time.

I brushed the sleep from my eyes and lowered my feet to the ground. My eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, as I had become accustomed to it.

The barely noticeable outline of the trapdoor on the floor emitted an amber glow. It was orange when it should have been white. Have they changed the light bulb's color?

Not a second after, my questions were answered.

There was smoke sneakily going in through the narrow gap on the floor then I smelt it. It was faint but it was there, the undeniable smell of fire devouring wood.

The house was on fire.