dog...tired and sweating and groping for breath. Waiting for the next

beating, the next unkind word, the next...nothing. Rachel will never

die. She just lives inside this distorted and pathetic imitation of

reality.

     He's there. He always will be there. Like some hideous and evil

presence, from which Rachel can never escape. Fate had shaped

her hellish destiny, and Fate would have the final word. Moments

of happiness were short, and unsubstantial. Forever haunted by

sharp and sudden thoughts she could not control, Rachel lived inside

herself, a self so tormented that someday she would break free.

But, she would not escape by her own choosing. It was some

inimitable phantom, some dark netherworld, that would pick the

time and the place... and the method.