Chapter 1

Nyla, the girl everyone ignored. The one that was always pulled aside by her parents to keep her angel like personality never to be touched by such foul activities. Never allowed to simply dance or eat fast food, sing the newer songs and of course could only ever be home schooled. It was what was considered "only the best" for little Nyla. She no longer felt connected to her parents, it had been that way for a long time. They never let her hang out with friends or have friends over. A simple lonely soul she was. Spending all of her time writing in her journal or drawing pictures. Pictures that her parents could never see. Ever.

Her parents never really got along much, always fighting over what to do with her. "She needs to be herself; can't you see that?" her mother was always on her side. She tried to sneak her out on a few occasions. It worked once. Never again.

Never again would she be able to feel the freedom she once felt; the soft wind blowing her long black ponytail back and knotting up her bangs, the sweet smell of the gardens outside mixed with the amazing smell of others cooking in their backyards. Never again would she be able to hug a friend and talk for hours on end about everything and nothing. And now, she couldn't even do that with her parents. They had no time left for her.

Then the day hit, the day she never wanted to remember. The moment she would then dream about for eternity.

Red. Crimson red.

On the floor, and on the walls. On the old rug she made when she was 8. The paintings that were decades older than her. On her dads' hands, and only minutes away from being on her neck.

And the most retching of the sight, her mother. The reason for the red. The palate that produced the color. The paint.

Her father. The artist.

The last bit of the memory that unfolded in front of her, the ghastly vivid scene, was the blinding lights flashing and the ones who claimed to be her neighbors, grabbing her and pulling her away from the ones who she still considered family.

The car ride was more than tedious. Constant backroads and long rocky trails. Not to mention the more than ever present rain, it seemed that's the only weather that existed in this place. The homes that seemed to exist as they passed only had shitty fake grass and half dead trees.

The only true life to be seen was a single man, carrying what looked like some hunters catch or dead livestock. 'What a crazy man to be walking in the rain.' she thought. Her bare minimum knowledge of the outside world brought a lot of things to her attention.

The smell of rain. The sound of silence. The awkward feeling of being alone with someone you don't know. The feeling of moving away. The feeling of being outside everything you've known. It all hit her with a crushing weight. Suffocating.

"Please be ready to exit when we get there." The man in his black suit and dark glasses broke the silence. His face was more than stiff. No emotion ever so slightly coming through. The small bit of his face that you could see was wrinkled with what seemed like stress and years of a grim, emotionless attitude. Only suited for the few that can handle what seemed like apathy.

'Only the best for Nyla'

The road continued for miles. On and on. So did the rain. How long had it been? 5 hours? 8? Maybe 10 even? She had been thrown in the car after being told she was leaving in the middle of the night. No clue of when that was. She had her phone but could only sit and stare as all the memories came back.

All she knew is it was day now, but before noon. She decided it would be a smart idea to check her phone. 10:56 it read as it lit up; the white numbers looked bright against her dark red lock screen, the cracks flowing over the text. It had definitely been more then 5 hours.

The car slowly took its first turn in a while, rolling into a gravel drive. The passageway was a full circle drive with a fountain in the middle. Small streams rushed down into the small pool underneath it, reusing the water in one continuous loop. The building on the other hand was more of a castle at first glance. The bronze lining on the sides shining not only due to the rain, but also its reflective build. The door was a wide wooden double door full of engraving on it with knockers on each.

The further the driver pulled up the more details she could see. The knockers were dull silver skulls with even more dull handles on them. The place itself was mostly wooden with brick and metal accents. Places like this are rare to find and even rarer to live in, but she was too dead from the drive to even care about it. She just wanted to lay in a soft bed and curl into a ball to drift away from everything around her.

"Please step out." The driver insisted, almost inaudible through Nyla's obnoxiously loud music. Her hands quickly laced around her luggage as she clicked the door open. Stepping out felt like heaven, her legs finally having freedom to stretch from the one continuous drive. The driver also stepped out of the matte black vehicle, walking towards Nyla.

"This is from your father; you're not allowed to leave before you take it." His tone was dead and grim. He only acted this way because he was told to, he couldn't lose his high paying job as a "guard", though she believed she didn't need one. She was 19 for God's sake.

Nevertheless, she took it, a small piece of notebook paper with a few scribbles on it. It had a label "Read before you enter" she was for sure not going to. 'Its most likely just to scare me' she thought. Knowing her dad, trying to scare her to make her not want to go into the outside world was one of his many tricks. One that she instantly learned to ignore.

The man got back into the car as quickly as he got out, slamming the door. She was left with little to nothing, her small, outdated phone, the old clothes she was able to collect from friends. The few things she owned as she went from house to house spending the night as she waited for the day she could go back home. That day never came.

The sleek matte black BMW smoothly drifted back out of the drive and crept away from her view. She was officially on her own. Well, she was moving in with a family, but it was definitely not anyone she knew.

She was alone for the first time.

Ever.