Interlude

It started at a nightclub, with a blonde man I naively assumed wouldn't hurt me.

Handsome. Charismatic. Smooth. Normal... ish .

He said some things. Smiled in the right way, just enough to get my guard down. He intrigued me even when he creeped me out.

He tried to appear normal.

Why did I fall for it?

I was drunk. And I didn't know I was walking into a trap.

That night still haunts me.

I should've gone to the toilets with Isabel. I should've run when she warned me. I should've done so much more.

Right up until the moment in the alleyway, there were dozens of missed opportunities to escape.

But I didn't.

And that's why I blame myself . Not him. It was my own stupid fault.

See, I've gone back and forth on this part a hundred times. Where to start. How to end it. How to round off and summarise the worst year of my life.

But the truth is, it didn't all happen at once. It started in a nightclub. And it led to a kiss I can't forget.

I've filled this book now.

Over 200 pages of madness.
Scribbled words. Some pages were torn out and rewritten. Bloodstained, tear-warped, unfinished.

But this part — the part I'm writing now — is the only thing that has felt final so far, even though it's only halfway through.

There are ten pages left of this journal. Just enough to summarise this. All of it. But it's not over.

Because everything I've written down — every memory, every scream, every drop of blood — all happened within a few months .

And I'm writing this five years later .

So what happened after? What happened when he came back? What happened when I did?

I'll need another book to write that. Another beginning. Another me.

But one thing's for sure: It didn't end with the kiss. That was just where the truth started leaking out.

Sometimes I reread the early pages of this journal and I barely recognise her. The girl who was happy, who didn't believe in bad people, who still believed someone was coming to save her.

No... She died somewhere around Act Four. Maybe even three.

And if you're wondering how a girl gets from "I'm not like you" to kissing the man who kidnapped her... I don't have a clean answer for that.

It wasn't one decision. It was hundreds. Small ones. Quiet ones.

Letting him call me ' princess' and not flinching.

Sitting when he told me to and nodding. Obedience through fear.

Not because I wanted to, but because I was afraid of what he'd do if I didn't.
Like I had with my father...

Tyler used my fears against me and turned me pliant because he could. Because no one stopped him. No one questioned him. No one questioned the institution or the system it ran on.

Because monsters don't need cages when the walls protect them.

And he didn't need chains to keep me where he wanted. He just needed control. And control, unfortunately, was the one thing he had plenty of.

I remember every time I thought: 'This is the worst it can get.'

I was always wrong.

There was always another Act. Another layer. Another piece of myself to strip away.

Act One was testing the waters. He learned how to make me flinch. To punish and reward like I was an animal. Called it necessary.

Act Two was the first time he cut me.
He used my fear to control me.

I don't have the words to describe what it felt like, feeling my arms being sliced open in the name of 'desensitisation' and whatever else he thought it meant.

By Act Three I was already slipping.
I remember the scalpel. The blood. The cuts. The pain. Dissociating in the middle of it and hallucinating about blood bathing the walls.

And the kiss over the tape.

Act Four was the bucket of blood. The one I still have nightmares about. He poured it over me like baptism. Like art.

I screamed until my voice gave out, and then I just... stopped.

I gave up something that day. I still don't know what. Maybe my last real grip on reality.

Then he took me to Dylan. Chained. Muzzled. Beaten.

He handed me a gun. Told me I'd asked for this. Said it was a gift.

But I froze. I dropped the gun. The shot went off anyway.

He didn't die.

I don't even know if he was meant to.
All I know is that Tyler was furious, and yet... something changed.

Because then came "the favour."
The price of my failure.
Or an excuse.

He dragged me back to his office, pinned me to the wall, and told me I owed him.

And I nodded.

Not because I wanted to. Because I couldn't speak. Because he looked at me like I was something he'd already taken, and there was no going back.

That kiss wasn't soft.

It wasn't romantic. It was possession. Desperation. The final nail in the coffin of my resistance, and his.

I felt something shift inside him. Something broken and raw. Like even he didn't understand what he'd just done.

He ran from me after that. Literally and emotionally. Like he'd crossed a line he'd spent months pretending didn't exist.

I didn't see him for weeks. No explanations. No warnings. Just silence. He vanished — not from the building, but from me .

No more Acts. Not a knock on my door. No sign of him anywhere. Like he was hiding somewhere.

At first, I thought it was punishment. Then I realised it was self-preservation . Maybe even guilt.

Because that kiss shouldn't have happened. And yet it did.

Because he wanted it, needed it, craved it.

And so did I, to some extent — more than I understood at the time.

I thought maybe it meant something. That it had changed him. Maybe it had.

But Tyler is like gravity, and even when he's gone, he pulls you towards him.

I didn't see him, but I felt him everywhere. In the hallways. In the mirrors. In the pause between questions during more sessions with James.

I thought I'd broken him. But I hadn't. I'd just exposed the crack that was already there.

I realised that in Act Four, when he mentioned her . Whoever she was. Someone who had hurt him? Someone he regretted? Someone he used to love?

I knew one thing: finding out who she was would be the key to cracking Tyler completely. Because if I could figure out his past, maybe he'd take off the mask.

It's strange, looking back now, how fast the spiral happened.

It didn't feel fast at the time. It felt like drowning in slow motion. Like watching myself disappear in fragments, one small compromise at a time.

The first time I ate what they gave me without being disgusted. The first time I didn't cry. The day I stopped dreaming of escape. The day I let him touch me and didn't flinch. The morning I woke up and realised I hadn't thought about home in weeks.

He got into my bloodstream like venom — slowly, steadily, until I couldn't tell which thoughts were mine anymore. Until I wasn't sure if I hated him or needed him. Or if, in some twisted way, those had become the same thing.

But there were moments, even then. Quiet, private moments where something stronger flared up — rage, defiance, a glimpse of the girl I used to be. And I held onto those moments like oxygen.

Tom gave me that, gave me something to fight for.

That day in the cafeteria when I first saw him, I saw a broken, beaten boy who didn't know anyone but Dylan. Lee told me he was Dylan's pet. That word sickened me.

The word "Master" sickened me even further, the name he called Dylan that day in the hospital ward.

When Tom told me his story — how Dylan had groomed, abused, and kidnapped him — I made a vow to help him.

He gave me hope and purpose.

So did James, in his own way.

It took me time to trust him fully. At first, he felt like just another part of the system — polite enough, but distant, watching me like I was a case study and analysing my brain in the way only therapists do.

But James wasn't like the others. He never mocked or teased or spoke condescendingly. Never used my trauma like a lever. He let me talk in circles. Let me scream. He never pushed. Never asked the wrong questions. Just sat quietly and reminded me, "You're still here. That counts for something."

He knew more than he let on. Back then, I thought he was naïve — someone hired to keep us sedated with therapy and softly-spoken nonsense. But no. He knew about the Acts, about Tyler, about everything. He just couldn't stop it.

Because he'd been through it too. He was once a patient here, long before I arrived. Tyler had 'treated' him the same way — tore him down and rebuilt him under the guise of fear therapy.

James tried to protect me, in the ways he could — small, subtle ways that went unnoticed by Tyler but meant everything to me once I realised, like warning me when he thought it wouldn't get him killed.

And maybe he failed. Maybe in the end, none of it changed what happened. But the kindness matters. Especially when it costs you everything.

Then there was Sam — Dr. Thorne.

He didn't say much, didn't have to. He treated my wounds without cruelty. Without cold detachment, either. Just quiet, methodical care.

He never looked away from the wounds. He cleaned them gently, wrapped them tightly, and sent me back out like it hadn't happened — but not out of apathy. Out of necessity.

In this place, kindness is dangerous. Sam gave it anyway, in the only way he could.

He gave me dignity. And when someone treats your pain like it matters, even if they can't stop it — you remember that.

Those friendships and alliances, no matter how small, gave me strength even when I physically had none.

I don't know when I started understanding Tyler — when I started seeing beneath the control and cruelty and started noticing the man behind the mask.

The way he looked at me when he thought I wasn't watching. There were times I wondered if he was more prisoner than I was.

He didn't speak about her again until much later, something I'll find space to write in part 2. But I could tell she was a part of his story, his past, in the way he distanced himself after the kiss, like the guilt had surfaced and scared him back into hiding.

And yet, I never stopped feeling him. His absence was louder than his presence had ever been.

That's the worst part of trauma, I think. When the ghost of someone hurts more than their touch ever did. When you start to miss the cage because at least it was familiar.

I don't know how to end this. I've been trying to find the right final sentence, something that wraps it all up neatly. But there's nothing neat about this. It's jagged and messy and full of questions that still keep me awake.

I'm not healed. I'm not whole. But I'm still writing, and I won't stop until this story is told. I'll get another book. A way to document the next part.

We’re both different now. Everything has changed. And you're about to read why.

Part 2 is the rest of it.

What happened after the kiss was just the beginning.

This isn't a love story. It's not even a horror story. It's both... and neither. It's just the truth. The version I remember.

But I don't exactly want to call myself a survivor. It doesn't feel right. Survivors get to leave, right? I never did . I'm still here. I can't leave. I'd love to. I've wanted nothing more since the day he brought me here.

I still want to go home, to see my family and friends — Mum, Alex, Darren, Isabel — but I've learned not to think about them. When I do, I start spiralling again. The memories flood back. And the guilt is the worst thing. Because I couldn't tell them, and they'll never know where I went.

So, saying I survived really isn’t an option. Survival implies a finish line of sorts. A victory. But this is just... a continuation.

There are good days, sometimes, but mostly bad days. And then there are the in-between days, where I spend hours rereading the things I wrote and wondering if any of it is real. If I'm dreaming and none of it happened. If I'm in a coma somewhere and have been for a while. But that wouldn't make sense.

Tyler told me memory was malleable. That fear rewrites facts. He was right about that.

But he was wrong if he thought I'd forget. Because I remember everything, and I write it down. Not because I want to relive it. But because true stories, even ugly ones, deserve to be told.

And I'll write all of it. Even if it's the last thing I do.