a nine-year-old girl who's kidnapped,

her hands tied behind her back, knees and ankles bound, a tape over her mouth. The man removes her blindfold so she gets to see him stab her mother. A knife in her abdomen. Out. Clean. Her eyes are still open when she slumps to the floor. She could simply be in a daze, if you ignore the pool of red growing on her white dress.

Mummy. She screams. All she wants to do is run up to mummy, stop the blood, hug her tight, nudge her, maybe she'll wake up. She screams, but it's muffled by the tape, it hardly does her heart any justice. Her body yearns to tear open, tear open, to expose the flesh and heart. But she's bound. This rope holds her body together but her soul falls apart. Her body is no longer a part of her. It's a prison. She's wailing inside this prison, pounding at its concrete walls. Her shackled body is a confine, her soul struggles to burst out. She just witnessed a man stab her mother. She can't even scream.

(That must be how it feels like to be paralysed, too. Just saying.)