- 2 weeks earlier -

Keaton P.O.V

I awoke to my mental alarm clock. Just a side effect of being crazy, sometimes you can't get a wink of sleep. Which is just how my nights have gone for the past three days- three days, possibly, maybe 6 hours of sleep total. As soon as my brain was awake (sort of) I heard it, the sounds of singing voices when no one was even up in my house yet. Singing children, to be exact. It kinda freaked me out when it first started happening when I was 4, but I got over it. Now, these singing voices in my head, they are my radio. It took me a few minutes to even think about getting out of bed, and when I did, I tripped and fell flat on my face. I cursed at the floor and growled a little. I hate it when that crap happens, I'm just trying to start my day off at least a little normal, and this is how I greet the day. I sigh slightly. 'Wow, that was graceful' I heard the voice in my head say, I sneered at nothing and muttered, "Shut up, no one asked you." The voice answered, 'And yet, I still answered.' I ignored the voice to the best of my abilities and went to the bathroom to shower for the day, even if I didn't want to. I knew things would turn upside down as soon as I got to school. No one talked to me, because who wants the talk to the kid who is losing his mind? That just made classes that much harder...

I just didn't want the hallucinations to start when I had no one... Sometimes I just wish... Someone could help me...

Dakota P.O.V

I was woken up by something coming down on my head, hard. I yelped as I jolted up. My father, still drunk from being at some bar last night, had hit me over the head with a wooden baseball bat. Not hard enough to leave a visible mark, but hard enough to inflict pain. Even if it HAD left a mark, I would've just covered it like I do with the other bruises I get daily from my mother and father. My father slurred, "Get up, brat. If you're late to school again, it won't be pretty..." I shrunk back, "Y-Yes sir.." He left my room and I got out of bed, finding a pair of jeans and a long sleeve shirt for the day. I hardly even noticed when my stomach growled loudly because I was still feeling the pain in my head. I had long since known what REALLY going hungry felt like. I was already small for my age, but not being fed good food added to that. When I changed my shirt, I took a moment to look at the bruises and cuts on my torso. The cuts are from the multiple things that get thrown at me on a daily basis, and the bruises are pretty self explanatory because of how my dad feels the need to wake me up by hitting me with something.

You could see my ribs pretty well now, but despite that, one of the insults my parents threw at me a lot more than others was, "Fat Pig". All this did was make me even more self-conscious than I already was. The thing was, my abuse didn't stop at home, I had my bullies at school as well. So basically, my torture was around the clock and that made me realize that there was no escape from this crap world I live in. Suicide wasn't even on my list of possible saviors because I knew that it wouldn't help anything, even if I did die. Sometimes I just wish I had someone to help me...