Chapter One:

Taeyeon is dead. She walks on a lonely road with only her shadow following her. Her eyes are closed, and not even a ray of sunlight could go through the thick skin that covered them. She is the one who is never waking up again. It all started one cold night of September, in the year 2010.

“Taeyeon! Come here now!” She heard her husband calling. Trembling, she walked to the house’s kitchen hoping that this time he would not be the same beast he was the day before, or a week before, or a month. ‘Am I still alive?’ she asked herself and looked at her emptiness through the mirror in the hall—even though it seemed impossible to do that.

 Trapped in a hell disguised as a two-floored cottage was how she lived for 12 years until that day.

“Why are you so slow? Do you want me to get angry,” he said in a harsh tone. The 20-year-old woman walked faster, scared of the things that her exterminator could do. As she entered the kitchen, her head automatically lowered.

“Oh, you’re here. Go to your seat, and I will give you your lesson in a few minutes,” she nodded walking to the worn-out piece of wood that adopted a chair’s shape long ago. Three minutes after he was gone, The Beast walked out of the bedroom and stepped on the cold floor of the kitchen for the second and last time of the day. Only to be seconded by a faint sigh of Taeyeon, who was already closing her eyes, waiting for the impact.

He hurt her body; he broke it. The Beast damaged his victim in too many ways to be described. It was already a routine

However, this time it was not funny enough for The Beast. He was angered and tortured her in an insanely painful way… but Taeyeon remained immobile disconnecting her senses of the surrounding darkness. That was how she endured the inferno that The Beast created.

That night, the agony seemed inexistent and she smiled to the thought that wandered in the desolation of her mind—she was finally going to be free.

She opened her eyes, watching the last expression of The Beast. He was waiting for a single tear, something to remind himself that he had the power in their “relationship”. Nevertheless, it never appeared. Instead, she looked at those black eyes that were filled with hate and whispered a single sentence before going to sleep, never waking up again.

 “Thank you, Beast”