My body feels like I should be unconscious, but my head is totally clear. When I hear my father telling me that he's going to help me up to my old room, I want to scream, but I can't. It's like one of those dreams in which you try so hard to run, yet all you can do is to walk in slow motion. My attempts at screaming are foiled down to tiny exhalations.
As my father begins to help me walk towards the stairs, I realise that he really is taking me there: Up to the room that I have avoided for over 10 years now, the room which was the scene of so many brutal nights. I can't avoid the images of what he used to do to me flashing through my mind. Images of me as a small girl, laying frozen underneath her father as he forces his huge penis into his own daughter. I remember how he used to frequently oil my bedroom door so that my mother would not hear it creaking open as he entered almost every evening. I remember how, after every time he raped me, he used to tuck me in and kiss me goodnight whilst I cried myself to sleep.
Amidst all these images and memories, I feel myself pass out, falling to the floor...
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