Pain. One word, many definitions. For some people, pain is physical. For others, it is internal. Some fear it, some worship it. For me, pain is not being able to do anything while a person, who I call my father, slowly drags a dagger down the pale skin of my back through a giant hole in my shirt.

The cut isn't deep, right around my lower ribs, and just enough to make me bleed. He uses a dirty rag and soaks up the blood that slowly drips out. My father then sprinkles a white powder in the wound, which makes it bleed more. I don't know what it is, but it hurts like hell. he is in a particularly bad mood today so he adds an extra pinch. When I gasp in pain, he takes the dagger and makes a deeper cut in my side, twisting the knife.

My father walks around my limp, dizzy body and starts to ring out the rag that is filled with my blood into a black watch. The flare of pain in my side is intensifying drastically and I whimper in pain. He turns around slowly.

"Did I hear something?" He hisses, slowly walking toward me with the still bloody knife clutched in his right hand. Involuntarily, a tear slips out of the corner of my eye. He lifts my chin and places the tip of the dagger right against my neck.

"Remember Kassandra," my father says through clenched teeth, "big girls don't cry." And with that, he turns and stalks through the door. The sound of a dead bolt locking interrupts the silence that encloses me. Its the  only sound in the dark of the basement. Everything is silent. Its just me, bound to a metal bar by chains around my hands and ankles. Alone.  

I can remember a time when we were a happy family, my father, my mother, and I. My parents had a little corner store that was providing a low income for us to live on. I was five years old and had just come in from jumping rope with my friends that lived next door to find my mother on our couch with an ice pack on her head. My father was talking nervously to a middle aged man with a beard who was holding a big black bag. 

I can remember being confused about the stranger. What was he doing in our house? What was wrong with mommy? And why oh why did he have such an ugly bag? The strange man poked and prodded my mother face, hands, and feet. After he left, I ran up to daddy, as I called him at the time. When I asked what was wrong with mommy, he smiled.

"It's a little fever Kassie-girl . Nothing to worry about. Now why don't you run and take a popsicle from the big old freezer, any flavor you want." I eagerly ran out to the freezer that sat in the back corner of the store. I remember eating that popsicle sitting on the big wooden front step. I recall my younger self thinking what a great life I had. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Mother's fever persisted throughout that week. I remember her calling me up to our sofa, which had become where she slept and stayed during the day. Father ran the store and she sat all day, feverish but sane. She would always braid my hair and add in flowers from the bouquets that people sent her. After she fell into a fevered sleep, I would plait her light brown hair and put anything i had in it. Flowers, pennies, pretty stones, leaves, ribbons and her favorite, nightingale petals.

Nightingale flowers were a dark blue and had a black center. The petals had light white spots that reminded my mother of stars. She always said that if you have nightingales in your hair when you die, your soul will go and live a happy life among the stars. I had always hoped that was true, especially when I woke up after falling asleep to find a complicated braid filled with those flowers

As soon as I finished, I would wake her up and she would admire my work. That one night, I tried to wake her up. There was no response. I always knew that it would happen, but it seemed unreal. I cried for weeks. The most important part of my young life was gone.

I already missed her laugh, her beautifully horrible off-key singing, and her eyes, which seemed to smile on their own. There was nothing we could do. We were to poor to afford a funeral. My father eventually sold our beautiful house on the corner and every memory of my mother.

I had a black diamond locket that I kept a secret from my father so he wouldn't take it and sell it. We moved to this ratty old building in the middle of a ghost city. There, no one bothered us.

My father grew more and more distant from me. I think he hated me because I was just like my mother. I think he hated me because I was just like my mother. I had her smile, her eyes, her hair. My father retreated into himself and I had to take it upon myself to see that he was fed. Whenever I asked if he was okay, he would snap and tell me it was none of my business.

The first time he saw any interest in blood was when I accidentally sliced my palm open. In a half a half-hearted attempt, he pushed a little glass over to prevent the blood from staining the table. At that moment, a tall stranger with a black top hat walked into our shop of trinkets. He immediately saw the blood in the glass and pushed 1000 gira across the table. He grabbed the glass and rushed out, not saying a word. 

After that, my father only collected my blood when I accidentally got cut. When I was about seven, a man came and said that he had heard that my father sold blood. My father gave a weak attempt to protest, but when the stranger pulled out a huge velvet bag of gira, he stopped. I watched terrified from the corner.

At the sight of the money, my father's eyes grew glassy with madness. He roughly pulled me over to the table, grabbing a knife on the way there. He held my arm and sliced open a 3 inch area on my forearm. I cried out in pain, and he promptly slapped me across the face.  I watched as he took a clean dusting rag and sponged up the blood. 

My father looked for something to put the blood in. The little shop was failing and he had a collection of random containers that no one ever bought. The closest thing in reach was a fake silver pocket watch. He popped open the lid, removed the face, and poured the blood in.  

The stranger was ecstatic.

"This is perfect!" he exclaimed. "No one will realize there is blood behind it!" My father looked at him quizzically, opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again when even more money was thrust upon him. 

"I will expect a refill every month. You will be paid 25% more than I paid you today if you manage to be reliable. I will make sure to spread the word about this place!" He yelled, running out the door. My father turned to look at me. He still had that gleam in his eyes, which scared me.

"Daddy, why did you do that?" I was on the edge of tears. This was not the father I knew. He would never do this. In a rare moment of  kindness, he tenderly hugged me. 

"Daddy has to sweetheart, he has to." This would be the last time he ever really showed he cared.

That night, as I lay awake in bed, I heard him crashing around downstairs. I went to go check on him. He had spent all of the money he earned from my blood on drinks, and was bumbling around the shop, completely drunk. 

I slowly helped him up the stairs and into his bedroom. that night, I realized that it was up to me to survive. As I drifted off to sleep, I hummed an old lullaby.

The next day, a short hispanic man walked in. He casually leaned over the counter and asked where he could get a 'blood watch'. My father demanded payment, and got it. The total was 3 bags of gira. I was again dragged over, cut, and bled into a watch. This time, the watch was gold and slightly bigger than the silver one.

 My father and the man talked for a while and had some whiskey. After the man left, I told my father that I did not want to bleed anymore. I did not realize that he was drunk again. He snapped at me and told me that it was too bad and that I was going to stay his blood slave. He then took me up to my room and tied my wrist to the bedpost with some rope. 

Because he was drunk, the knot was not tight and I managed to slip out. I quietly tiptoed downstairs and fell asleep under a counter. When he found me the next morning, he had a bottle of beer in his hand. He yelled at me and brought me to the basement where used more rope to tie my wrists to a railing. 

I have stayed down here since. I watched as changes took place. He started getting different colored watches, putting his initials on the face, switching from rope to chain to hold me, and cutting me in different places because my skin was becoming tougher.

Eventually, I realized that this was illegal. I told him that he would get arrested and fined but he said he had people who would take care of anyone who started a law issue. When he was leaving after filling two gold watches, he added:

"Besides, its only illegal if they find out."