Dear God,

    It’s me, Olette; the girl that cannot live up to her name. Olette comes from Alette, which means “to be free like air”. Today was like any ordinary day. I woke up, went to work for about 19 hours - but honestly, who’s counting anymore? - and I went back home. Seems pretty standard. But today, I had one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life.

    To start my day, I woke up late. Once I arrived at the factory, my master took out his belt and whipped me. What a great way to start the day. After all the pain, I began work. My station is in between a 6-year old girl and a boy around 13-years old, the same age as me. This girl - Phoebe - has half of her hair chopped off due to an accident with one of the machines. I’m not sure what happened, but I don’t want to know. Phoebe also has some raw skin showing on her face. She’s actually not allowed to work because of a legislation stating that children under 9 years of age are not permitted to work..” It’s not stopping our master from putting her to work, though. He just hides her in a dark storage room when the inspector comes to visit.

    The boy who works to my right, his name is Eli. I’m not going to lie: he is quite handsome. He’s tall, has bright eyes and a sharp jawline. He is probably the least damaged-looking kid who works here. The only visible injury he has is a long scar across his left cheek. Its a shame that he has to work here; a face like that shouldn’t be working here.

    After some time, the master called Eli over to slide into a large machine that just broke. He never came back.

    We took a break to eat. It feels like forever since I’ve eaten. Too bad the food was disgusting. I don’t even know what they just served us but I think we all just ate a rat. Let’s just hope they didn’t cook Eli and gave him to us to eat. No, they wouldn’t go so far, would they? Anyways after drinking some murky brown “liquid”, We all went back to our stations.

I cut my finger on the machine today: not so fun. It wasn’t too bad of a cut, I’ve seen worse, but I still went to seek medical help. At least a piece of cloth to wrap the cut. I go up to my master for aid, who did absolutely nothing. He just told me to go back to work. I start to protest - bad mistake. He yanked me by the hair and dragged me into a dark room. He tossed me on the floor, grabbed a whip hanging from the wall and whipped me more than 100 times. He yelled profanities at me. “You’re useless. No one likes you. Do you wonder why you work here in the first place? Your parents don’t love you. They’re just getting rid of you.” he said. He continued to scream profanities at me. He began to approach me, my hair. “Now, I think you deserve a break. How about we have you entertain me?” he says, as he proceeds to take off my shirt.

    I don’t know what hurt more, the physical pain, the emotional pain or my pride.

    Why am I still alive? Why was I born into this lifestyle? I work in a textile factory for a violent man who gives out a terrible salary. All this, JUST to support my parents who don’t care about me. Maybe I can end all this madness. Maybe I’ll just end my life tonight.

I will meet you in heaven. Sincerely,

Olette.