Page 1 of Temptation
PROLOGUE
I once heardthat this earth we were living on was nothing more than a Purgatory, created for sinners with pure hearts but vile thoughts. Created for people like you and me, destined to live with this heaviness in our chests, swallowing our cries, hiding the pain behind fake smiles and sweet lies, until Judgment Day came.
Have you ever closed your eyes, wishing you were born in some other place? A different family, with a different name, different friends, and a different destiny.
Have you ever wished to be someone else, imagining what it would feel like to go through life without the constant need to run away?
Have you ever screamed without a sound? Have you ever cried but tears never came? Have you ever put a knife to your skin, pretending that you only wanted to see the color of your blood, while demons whispered in your ear to end it all and be free?
Has your mind ever told you that no one would ever love you, because you would never be enough?
Have you ever craved your father’s love and your mother’s acceptance?
You have, haven’t you?
You wished for all these things and more. You wished for a world to stop turning, just for one minute, so that you could catch a breath and feel alive.
You probably had at least one of these thoughts running through your head, and if you hadn’t, I envied you. I envied you because I wanted to know if the rain felt like rain, or if you smiled because you were truly happy.
I wanted to know the taste of a life fully lived.
I wanted to know if the love you felt really brought those butterflies people so often talked about, because I never felt that way. I thought I did. I thought that this feeling inside my stomach was the representation of the love I felt, but it was still just the fear coating my blood in the color black, stopping me from truly living.
For a moment there, I thought I could be free.
I thought I could get far away, if only I survived.
But I should’ve known that even when I couldn’t feel it heavy on my shoulders. Darkness had a way of concealing itself, hiding in the corners of my room, waiting for my shields to go down.
I thought I would be able to run away from my sadness, from my grief, and my pain.
But I was so fucking wrong.
And I knew—this wasn’t Purgatory.
This was Hell.
1
DYLAN
Before
She’s calling my name.
She’s calling my name—again.
But I didn’t want to go to her. Not today, not ever again. But I knew I had to.
I knew I had to get up from my seat, walk upstairs, and open the door of that filthy room she always resided in.
“Dylan!” Her high-pitched voice tore through my mind, like knives on my skin, their tips pressing and pressing and pressing, drawing blood, hurting me, and I didn’t have a choice but to lean in further, letting them cut me.
“Dylan!” It came again, that whiny sound I hated so much.
How could I hate her and love her at the same time? How could I wish for her to be both alive and dead, but still unable to voice what was happening in this house of horrors?
“Come to me, baby!”
