There was ringing in my ears.

It felt as if though the Gods had filled a jug up with blood, and then poured that jug into my ears, my eyes, my mouth. 

Everything hurt. Everything everything everything hurt.

This is bad, I thought. This is really, really bad. How will I be able to work!?

"You are not allowed to go to university again. Do you hear me?"

No... Please no, no more, I can't take another-

But the blow inevitably came; he used his gun to beat me over and over. This is it... This is how I die. Casper... Mr Oliver, please. Please come save me.

"I will lock every door so that you can never get out of here again. You will have guards around you constantly, even when working." He kicked me in my stomach; I hadn't even noticed I had fallen to the ground. "I will decrease your price to almost nothing. You will earn nothing. From here on out, you're my slave, the cheapest one of all."

He pointed the gun to the floor and fired several times; I was too close to death to even jerk. But it hadn't been to scare me; instead, he ripped my T-shirt apart with his hands, and put the gun, hot from firing, straight to my chest. I screamed; it melted my skin, the pain so excruciating that my vision became white, and I heard stars in my ears.

He bent down.

"Casper, hmm?" He held up my phone. "If he loves you as he says he does in his sweet little texts, he will come for you when you stop answering and he gets worried. And I will kill him."

No... Casper no. He was exactly the type of man who would come for me, to pay the price, still astronomical even if it was decreased, one more time just to make sure I was all right. Please, I begged. Please, stay away.

With one final kick to my stomach, the owner left.

I threw up blood. 

I wish it would have taken him a week.

I wish it would have taken him two weeks, one month, two months, a year, ten years.

Or better still; I wish he was a worse person who didn't care.

That he would believe worse of me and think I just ghosted him, then let me be.

It didn't even take him twenty-four hours to come to me.

My clients had gotten the information that I was badly bruised. Some of them had cancelled, some of them hadn't cared but fucked me anyway to a lower price, and some even enjoyed it, pretending they were the ones who had hurt me while they took me. Usually, I didn't care but now, their game of pretence made sick to my core.

And then, there was a knock on my door announcing the arrival of my last client of the evening.

"Oh, my God, Izuna, what in the world happened to you?!"

No...

He ran to my bedside, grabbed my face in his hands, looked at me.

"Casper, run!!" I screamed.

"Don't be silly! I'm taking you out of here! I'm taking you out, and you'll stay at my place, and I'll take you to the police and-"

"Casper!!"

"Ahh, there he is."

A gunshot.

Casper's eyes staring, still at me.

A patch of blood spreading from the point marking the centre of his heart, further and further out.

He slumped into my bruised lap.

Behind him stood the owner, gun in hand.

Casper was dead.

I had no way of escaping.

Not only wasn't I allowed to university, or outside, but I was only allowed my own room and the room where I worked, as well as the bathroom I shared with two of the girls. I was escorted between the room by armed guards. While I worked, the guards stood outside of the doors. I even took my meals in my room.

I didn't understand it then, but I was in deep grief. I just shut off. I didn't feel the pain of having lost my boyfriend, whom I believe I had loved, even if I could never tell him before he died. I just couldn't grasp the concept that he was dead, that I would never see him again.

I had no idea where his body went. I had no idea if his family and friends were looking for him. I had no idea and I didn't really think about it because he couldn't be dead. Even if he's laid in my lap, lifeless, for hours, me just staring at his back, until a guard came and picked him up, I couldn't comprehend it. When the guard had plucked him off my lap, I had lost it and screamed, grabbed his legs, cried his name, tried to keep him with me. The guard had kicked me in my ribs so harshly, I couldn't breathe, but stay laying on the floor, where I lay lifeless until morning. From then on out, only numbness. The owner beat me up once more because the customers had complained I behaved like a dead fish. I didn't care. I was in so much pain when they fucked me as I had a few broken ribs that wouldn't heal. I still don't care.

Until one night, I cracked.

Casper is dead, I thought and it suddenly struck me exactly what that meant.

I scream-cried in my room, hiding my face in my pillow. I cried because I missed him. I cried because I missed Mr Oliver. I cried because this was inevitably my life now, locked into this place forever, only having access to three rooms, fucking people I didn't care about. I cried about my lost appetite, causing me to lose even more weight which I really, really didn't want to do. And I cried over my missed education, about getting that glimpse of the world, educating myself, doing something that made me happy. I had lost everything. Everything in the world.

I sunk into a deep depression. I did my job on autopilot. The owner beat me up once in a while, badly, no longer afraid of bruising me now he saw that people still paid for me, and my injuries even brought him a completely new clientele. I was in constant pain and numbed it with painkillers. For the first time in my life, I was tempted to try something stronger, but decided against it, mostly because of how strongly Mr Oliver had spoken against drugs as I grew up.

One night, five weeks or so after Casper was killed, I stood in front of my mirror once more, scrutinising my body. I thought I had had nothing extra on my body before, but that turned out not to be true; I had lost copious amounts of weight. I could see my bones protruding, and I hated it so much. I let my hand go to the one piece of familiarity on my body that was still left; the little birthmark on the right of my neck. I prayed then, prayed for my appetite to come back, prayed for my body to become stronger so that I could maybe, maybe be happy, and then I prayed that Mr Oliver was okay, that he was happy now at forty-five.

But most of all, I prayed that I would wake up soon, wake up from this hell that had been created for me, and that all that had happened, with my weight loss, my injuries, Casper's death, even my whole life would be undone.

Then, I fell down to my knees and wept again until I fell asleep.