(The Beginning) When the room went dark she heard her name. It resounded quietly in her head. The fragile image of the small child wearing an ill fitting jumper that later in life she would reflect on as being 'kept ugly' sat shivering on the floor. The room was grey in the half light and it was cold. The house felt still and unloved. She was waiting for the sound of footsteps on the stairs but no one came. It was a sense of relief in a way. The shouting had stopped but the fear remained as she waited in anticipation for it to start again. She had become accustomed to the silence of her own company, a lonely soul who could retreat inside herself at any given moment. She was a wisp of thing. Languid the Doctor had said on one of the many occasions her mother had taken her to the surgery with some unknown condition that she had thought up for her daughter. She was definitely nothing special or pretty and she was very aware of that. Her skin was sallow and her face tended to appear forlorn and lost looking. Her hair was dark and tousled. Definitely not a child who would turn anyone's head. She had never known the joy of feeling either being loved or wanted. How she envied the bright lights and warmth that radiated from other people's windows. People looked happy and mother's fussed over their children, something she had never known. She could not bear to look at her own image as her perception was distorted from the constant criticism. She remembered her father's angry voice screaming at her mother that 'the kid looks like she is bloody pregnant'. She was five years old at the time and she was standing in front of a long mirror with her mother brushing her hair. His words had filled her with some terrible guilt though why a five year old should feel such a thing was unfathonable. No one can really understand the psyche of a young mind lost in no man's land. A child that has no real understanding at the time that her life wasn't normal. It wasn't so much the physical abuse as the emotional damage. She really was only a victim of rather one too many clips around the ear, but it was the bruises that couldn't be seen that lasted a lifetime and she would look back on them in adulthood and realise they could never heal.....(P) It felt like many hours were passing in that cold room as she sat quietly on the mat huddled against the big bed. How she would have loved to just cry, just to let our a sound, but the tears would not flow and nothing would come out of her mouth. It just made her throat ache and that was painful. Then she heard her name again. A gentle whisper. She was used to the breathing, not that it was something that ever bothered her, in fact she found it comforting. She would lay in that huge bed at night with the stale sheets and she could hear it coming from the corner of the room. She even thought of it as some kind of unexplained friendship with something unknown. She knew the dog didn't like it because he would whimper and start scratching at the bedroom door. But to this small lost child it was something that belonged to her and her alone. She had long given up expecting such a connection with the living as no one ever came in her darkest times. When she had nightmares and woke up screaming it was ignored no matter now long she cried for and now she had lost the ability to even do that. Again the gentle whisper. 'Monica'. She had learned to listen with her mind rather than her ears. Many years later she called her imaginary friend The Voice and she could even smile at the thought of it. If only she had known at the time where this would lead her. 'Think of the dream' The voice penetrated her conscious self. It almost woke her from her mini trance. 'Think of the dream' it said again. She remembered the dream well and immediately felt the warmth of the sunlit white road she had found herself walking down in her sleep state. It was a long and brightly lit path and the sky was so white hot that she had to squint to see what was in front of her. She could feel the heat on her young body as she descended down what felt like a neverending slope. Then she found herself in front of a white building, it was sudden transition and suddenly she could see an old man was waiting behind a small gate. As she approached him he opened the gate and beckoned her in. Her first thought was 'Is that Granddad?' but as she looked closer she knew it wasn't either of her grandfathers. Oddly enough she did not feel afraid. It seemed a welcoming place and she was eager to take this stranger's hand and be led inside the white enclosure. It was pretty. Very white and on every wall there were small pictures of people and flowers in small vases. It had a kind of familiar odour which she felt she knew but she didn't know. It was floral and sweet like jasmine after dark. It was a beautiful place to be, a place of safety and kindness where she felt acceptance and even love, if there was such a thing. The old man walked her down every alley inside this white edifice. He pointed at the photographs and the names. Monica felt an incredible sense of calm and this was a dream she did not want to wake up from. It was nothing like the dreams that woke her in the night filled with fear, the running dreams as she looked behind her terrified and kept running as fast as she could. This was different. She wanted to stay inside this one but then there was a sudden tug and she felt herself lurching backwards at great speed. This was painful and she cried out as she was pulled from the old man's grip. It felt like something was pulling her backwards at great speed and then the dream was over. ......(Chapter 1) Bath time wasn't something Monica ever looked forward to. The family lived in an old an unkempt flat on the top floor of an Edwardian house in the east end of London.It was a grubby looking place in a long road of equally uninviting dwellings and it stank of old oil heaters. There was the odd tree that broke the monotony of boken pavements and a mish mash or decaying walls and tatty gates. There was no hot water in the bathroom so her mother would attach an old garden hose to an ancient Ascot water heater that sat above the kitchen sink and from that, something that half resembled a luke warm bath could be made. Monica had this memory of being sat in the bath and getting her hair washed. Her mother had run out of shampoo and without a second thought she had pickd up a packet of washing powder and smothered her head in it. She could see the big red letters that said OMO on the box and she had an embedded memory of how it burnt her head when her mother rubbed it in then poured the half cold water from the bath from an old enamel jug straight over her face. Oddly enough it just felt normal to a child that didn't know any better.......(to be continued).