My hands trembled as I played the soft melody on the piano. The keys felt cold beneath my fingertips, as if they too knew I did not belong in this place. The sonata was supposed to soothe the nerves boiling beneath my skin… and yet, my ears remained deaf, drowned by the frantic pounding of my heartbeat. Every note faltered, breaking just a little more—like my breath, like myself.

This is nothing but a game to them. Aristocrats toying with the lives of others, tearing away hopes like loose threads from an old dress. To them, we are replaceable pieces—puppets they can break as many times as they please, without ever staining their hands.

“Born low, die low.” They repeat it like a doctrine. Like an eternal sentence.

What a convenient lie. Because it is not your class that turns you into a monster… It is your black heart. Your hunger. Your cruelty.

There is not much left to do when your starving family sells you off like cattle. When their eyes no longer see you as a daughter, but as a price. When desperation becomes the executioner.

There is not much left to do when your lord—your owner—is a vile shadow of a man who stopped being human long ago. A creature of the night who smiles with invisible fangs. A predator wrapped in silk and hollow promises.

They say I am safe in here. That I will not lack for shelter, food, or warmth. But no one mentions the cage. No one mentions the invisible chains tightening every time I exhale.

“You look tense, my dear,” he murmurs, approaching like a ghost one never hears coming. “Is it the sound of the rain that makes you so uneasy? I promise the storm won’t reach you in here.”

His voice is an embrace that burns. A poison that wants you to believe it is honey. A sweet nectar filled with lies.

And there is only one truth left—sharp as a blade against my throat:

In here, nightmares doesn't come only at night.