Chapter 1 - Sleeping Beauty

Present day

It’s a warm summer evening in Manhattan, the roads are unusually quiet, its 3:00AM and the moonlight is streaming in through the window on the 10^th floor apartment’s bedroom. Sleeping alone in the apartment is a beautiful young lady. The moonlight is shining directly onto her bed and her pale, flawless skin is shining in the moonlight. Her long honey blonde hair is spread over the pillow and partially covering her small round face. Her pink heart shaped lips seem to be pouting in her sleep, its pressed so tightly together. Her closed eyes with its long lashes can be seen moving underneath the eyelids. She is shivering in her sleep even thou the night is so warm. She looks like a real sleeping beauty lost in a dream or is she lost in a nightmare….

“Please stop, it hurts so bad, I can’t take it anymore…, please I’m begging you, just please stop…have mercy on me…”

Her quivering voice can be heard by her tormentor, who just stands and stares at her with no expression on his face. His cold, emotionless face isn’t even bothered by the poor girl’s begging. He is heartless and rotten to the core. There is no humanity left in him.

He walks slowly over to her, like a predator stalking his prey. She is shackled to the bed post with a chain around her ankle. She couldn’t run even if she had the strength to, but she doesn’t even have the strength to stand. Blood is leaking out of the small cuts inflicted on her lower body, across her stomach and thighs.

He grabs her roughly by her hair and jerks her face up to look into his piercing dark eyes, she winches from the pain she is feeling in her head.

“My love, you can beg all you want, but it won’t help you. I will break you and then I will mould you into a demon like me, I am the Bringer of death, and you will be the Mistress of death, you will rule beside me as my queen….” He’s menacing laugh echoes in the room. Just by looking at him you can see his out of his mind, he is a true psychopath. Darkness engulfs his soul, if he ever had one. No amount of begging was going to save her, and she knew it.

The poor girl is sobbing on the floor and when she looks up his standing over her with dagger, he has an evil smile on his face and the darkness is showing in his eyes… “Shall we begin my love…”

As she screams, she jerks awake and sits straight up, in shock, her stunning sky-blue eyes are filled with tears, and she is shaking like a leaf.  She holds herself and starts crying…

“Will the nightmare’s ever end”, it’s been two years since she escaped that life, but her nightmares remind her of those terrifying, dark and disturbing three years…

She gets up from her bed, on shaky legs, and walks to the kitchen to get her a bottle of water from the fridge. Taking the water bottle, she walks back to her room. She opens the French doors of her bedroom and walks out onto the balcony. She is lost in her painful memories, and shivers.

“You’ve come so far, don’t let your past affect your future, tomorrow is a big day for you” …. Her subconscious is telling her.

She is starting her new job tomorrow, her first job since completing her schooling. She had a gap in between her college career hence she only finished it six months ago. She managed to finally land a good job and she needed to have an early start to the day tomorrow. These nightmares are just stealing her sleep.

She was excited to be starting her life anew, leaving the past behind her.

She was going to be starting as the Personal Assistance to the CFO of Junction Media. One of the biggest media houses in America. She can’t afford to mess this up, so being late is out of the question.

She closes her water bottle, walks in, closes the French doors and forces herself to go back to sleep. After tossing and turning for a bit she eventually falls asleep, wondering what the day will hold for her tomorrow.

{If she only knew her past was going to catch up with her sooner than she thought, and her bad dreams would soon spill over into her reality, her nightmares were about to come to life again}

The sleeping beauty is Reyna Vasquez, 25 years of age, born in Spain, moved to America with her mother when she was 13 years old. Her parents got divorced and her father remained in Spain. Being an only child, it was only her and her mom for a long time. However, when Reyna was 18 her mom died in a hit and run incident and Reyna was left on her own. Her dad wanted her to return to Spain, but Reyna had already enrolled in college, she managed to finish two years of college before she was forced to return to Spain due to her father’s ill health. Putting her studies on hold and returning to her country of birth to be there to for her dad’s sake. Who would have thought that just one decision made from kindness and loyalty could steal 5 years from poor Reyna’s life…