A Journey from Bitterness to Truth

Chapter 139

But Matilda’s cries couldn’t bring back the man walking away. Yvan had left, and Matilda stared blankly out the window at the protective fence, feeling as though she had been thrown back into a prison cell.

The dark days without a glimmer of light had returned to her mind when she least expected it, and the humiliation she suffered in that cell once again plunged her into a deep fear.

Curled up on the floor, Matilda didn’t even have the strength to crawl into bed. She lay there, hugging herself with a ghostly pallor, as large beads of sweat slid down her forehead, muttering like someone in the throes of hysteria, “Open the door… open the door… let me out… It wasn’t me… I’m not the criminal… let me out….

Tears streamed uncontrollably down her face, her eyes wide with terror, as she helplessly cried out to the empty air for help. “Help me… don’t lock me up… I didn’t kill anyone… it wasn’t me… help me…”

Her world had once again slipped into a nightmare. There was a kind of conditioning that had seeped into her bones; even if her mind had forgotten, her body remembered, sparking reflexive, instinctive reactions. She hugged herself tightly, her knuckles turning white with the strain.

But Matilda didn’t realize that her room was soundproofed; no matter how desperately she

no one would come to

end of this darkness, there was simply

desperation, clutching at her chest and gasping for air, Matilda felt as though her depression was about to destroy her life.

anyone…”

wasn’t until the next evening that Yvan opened the room door. He had thought that a day’s

shard from the shattered bedside lamp, embedded deep into the flesh of her palm from the force of her grip, while her right wrist bore the stark new scar of a fresh

on the floor

felt as if a hammer had struck it. His heart pounded violently, his fingertips trembling before he let out a

rushed forward, lifting Matilda from the ground, her blood fresh and not yet dried, staining. his clothes. Holding Matilda in his arms, his eyes reddened, he rushed frantically out of the house, calling

could grasp what was happening, he saw the man he called father rushing out with his mother in his arms. He tried to follow but was

mom in