Imagine Innocence

Prologue

She jumped when the broad masculine hands descended upon her shoulders, trying to offer a comfort she would not and could not accept.

“You can’t go on like this.” She could hear him take in unsteady breaths, as lost as she was, but not as guilty. “We can’t go on like this.” She turned and for a brief moment they stared in each others eyes; both filled with unimaginable pains, both changed for eternity. She could see the tears building in his chocolate brown eyes she used to love so much, while she knew her eyes reflected nothing, nothing but a dead echo of the person she once used to be. She tore her gaze away and brushed passed him, never saying a word. She barely said anything anymore these days. Words no longer held any meaning nor reason. Words were empty now, everything was empty.

She walked listlessly through every part of the house, recalling memories of a better time, a time now lost forever. She walked past the master bedroom, a room she hadn’t slept in for months, towards the last door in the hall, towards the room she spend most of her days in since it happened.

Opening the door, she stepped in and gazed upon the small bed in the center of it. She slept in that bed every night hoping to feel something, anything to make things better. Maybe, if she tried long and hard enough she’d receive a sign or vision like those psychics she’d heard so much of. But every night was the same. She’d lay there awake till the dead of night, fighting exhaustion over and over again until sleep finally claimed her and she would wake up in the morning and nothing would have changed. It would still be the same nightmare.

Her daughter would not be there when she woke up. Her young, beautiful daughter was gone. Vanished without a trace.  And nothing could ever make it better.