2004__ A cute-faced seven-year-old girl was running around in her yard. Her yard looked like a garden, filled with blooming red roses. Then she saw a butterfly perched on a rose and tried to catch it.
"Mom! I caught it!" she cried after successfully catching the beautiful butterfly.
A beautiful young mother standing on the porch smiled at her daughter. "Yes, dear!"
A large, unique white house stood there, built as a two-story stilt house. The surroundings were so peaceful and cool. The woman gazed at the reddish, darkening sky.
"Anna! Come inside, dear. It's getting late!" her mother called, raising her voice slightly.
"Okay, Mom." Anna safely released the butterfly and ran toward her mother.
'Smack!' The loud sound of a slap rang out from the upstairs bedroom of Anna's house—her parents' bedroom.
"You insolent wife! Damn you!" Anna's father cursed.
At once, Anna jumped up from her seat, where she had been happily playing with her doll, and headed for her parents' bedroom. She slowly opened the bedroom door and peeked through the opening.
Her father turned at the sound of the door and glared contemptuously at Anna, clearly drunk.
"Anna, run!" her mother ordered, afraid that her father might hit her.
"Hey, stupid kid! Just you wait!" the man shouted like a madman.
"Don't hurt her, honey. She's your daughter!" his wife pleaded, trying to hold him back.
He shot his wife a sharp look and violently swung his hand without saying a word. Then he grabbed a piece of wood stored beneath the cabinet. Unbeknownst to him, his wife seized the opportunity to escape and get away from the fight.
Anna ran as far away from her father as she could and hid in an abandoned, weathered wooden house.
She was sobbing in fear, breathing heavily. "Papa hit Mama again."
"Damn it! She got away." The man immediately left the house to chase after his wife and daughter.
Not far from the house, the man spotted his exhausted wife running with a slight limp. He continued chasing her in a fury. The housing complex was relatively quiet, since everyone was busy with their own affairs.
"Stop!" he shouted angrily.
"I won't stop until you stop chasing me!" his wife shouted, quickening her pace.
Elsewhere, a nine-year-old boy was trying to stop his father from leaving for work. The thirty-year-old man was wearing a black suit. On the porch leading to the car, the boy tugged repeatedly at his father's jacket.
"Papa, you can't leave. You promised we'd go to the zoo today. Come on!" the little boy insisted.
"I can't, sweetheart. I have some very important work today, okay? Maybe another time. Ma'am, take him inside." He ordered the housekeeper to take the little boy inside.
The little boy kept resisting and fighting against the housekeeper. But his father still left, driving away in a black sedan. Before he went, he had already given the housekeeper a present for his son.
"Anna! Anna, where are you, dear?" her mother shouted as she searched for Anna outside the housing complex.
Unfortunately, Anna was nowhere to be found, so her mother returned toward the complex while keeping an eye out for her husband.
"Mama, Anna's scared." Anna continued crying silently. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she hugged both knees to her chest.
She looked around at the house's filthy, dark, and terrifying interior. She rose from the dirty floor and hurried away, unable to bear staying there any longer.