Waking like the living dead, waking in a corner of the room like a
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.
