Chapter 1
The suffocating silence of the living room was shattered by raw, agonizing sobs. On the hardwood floor, the little girl was on her knees, clawing desperately at the air as she pleaded for mercy. Behind her, her mother stood unmoved, fingers twisted brutally into the child’s ponytail. With a violent, deliberate wrench backward, she forced the girl’s head up.
“Mommy, please! It hurts... please stop!”
The desperate cry did nothing to soften the woman’s stone-cold expression. If anything, her grip tightened, knuckles whitening as she held her own flesh and blood hostage to sheer malice.
The front door clicked open.
Her father crossed the threshold, his leather briefcase slipping from numb fingers and hitting the floor with a dull thud. The scene struck him like a physical blow: his daughter trembling in absolute terror, and his wife standing over her like an executioner.
A red haze of fury detonated behind his eyes. Crossing the room in two strides, he shoved the woman back and delivered a ringing slap that sent her crashing against the wall. He instantly scooped his weeping daughter into his arms, shielding her small, shivering frame with his entire body.
“Daddy! I’m scared... please don’t let her hurt me!”
“I’m here, sweetheart. I’ve got you. You’re safe now,” he murmured, burying his face in her hair. But as he looked up, his gaze caught the corner of the ceiling.
A tiny crimson LED was blinking on the wall-mounted CCTV camera, recording every single second of the madness. A dark, vindictive smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. Staring down at his dazed wife, his voice dropped to a venomous whisper:
“Too bad for you. It’s all on tape.”
The mother pressed a trembling hand to her bruised cheek, her skin turning an eerie, ghostlike pale. Yet, the panic he expected never came. Instead, her lips parted into a twisted, haunting smile. She locked eyes with him, her voice dead and hollow:
May you like
“You really think that’s the only camera watching this house?”
A cold dread seized the father’s chest. The air turned brittle, and as his grip on his daughter stiffened, he realized with sickening clarity that the horror had only just begun.
Related Stories
