July 12, 2005, Charleston, West Virginia
"Leon was sent to live with a wealthy couple, Noah Parsey and Tamm Parsey, whose pristine appearances masked a household of rigid discipline. On the surface, they offered everything a child could need, money, security, and opportunity, but beneath that polished exterior lay a suffocating environment of control. From the very beginning, Leon's life was dominated by rules. Too many rules. Every action, every word, and even every thought seemed governed by unspoken expectations. If he failed to meet them, the punishment was swift and merciless. I was homeschooled, not out of care but to keep me under their creepily watchful gaze. The lessons weren't just academic; they were a constant reminder that failure meant pain. Over the years, I have gained lots of intelligence, not because of this harsh treatment but because I studied the world around me. Everything my parents tell me is useless and not good enough for important knowledge. I soon gained more intelligence than my parents, which made them confused and resentful.
Soon by the age of seventeen, I had almost died when my father took a whip with a razor end and slashed my back open causing me to bleed out badly. Over the years I wanted to report them to the police, but I wasn't allowed to leave the house. I was trapped in this damn prison. If I tried to leave, I would be left in the freezer room for 10 minutes, then come out shivering and with almost frost-bitten skin.
I barely knew many people outside or ever got to be out in nature. I have only gone outside the house at least once a week either to go to the doctor or if one of them had to go somewhere else since I couldn't be home alone. I barely met any people or made friends for that matter, I thought I missed so much in the world. The only other people I knew were Dr. Clad, my doctor, the housemaid, and the gatekeeper. The maid and gatekeeper knew how I was treated, and did nothing about it, so I didn't trust them.
A few times I saw other children, their parents were kind and warm unlike mine. I watched as they hugged their kids and took them to fun places like restaurants and places of entertainment. Seeing this grew a hatred for the relationship between me and my parents.
Every day when I woke up, my father would send me to the attic to clean. The attic was dark and smelled of rats. I had to find all the rodents. Every morning, without fail, I woke up to the sound of my father's booming voice, commanding me to head up to the attic. It didn't matter if I was exhausted, sick, or unwilling, the routine was unyielding. The attic was a place of shadows and filth, reeking of decay and overrun by rats. The air was heavy with the stench of rodents, and their tiny claws echoed as they scurried between the piles of forgotten junk.
My task was to clear the attic of every last one of them. To my father, I wasn't a child, I was their rat exterminator. I would crawl on my hands and knees, setting mouse traps filled with poison in every corner of that wretched space. But the traps didn't always do the job. Sometimes, I'd find the rats still alive, their small bodies twitching and struggling. That's when the real horror began, I had to finish the job myself. With trembling hands and a heart that hardened a little more each day, I became their executioner, or rat exterminator. That attic wasn't just dark—it was vile, suffocating, and filled with the echoes of my misery. Yet no matter how thoroughly I cleaned, the rats always returned, and so did the daily ritual. I knew their place was filthy, and there was no way it was my fault.
When I finally escaped that pit of filth, I was rewarded with a meal, small but deceptively elegant, as if to remind me of their wealth. I guess it was supposed to be "nice," though I could barely tell. Hunger gnawed at me constantly because eating wasn't a right, it was a privilege I had to earn. To eat, I had to work myself to the bone, and even then, I had to wait until they decided it was time.
Life wasn't just cruel, it was calculated. And every day, I wondered how long I could handle it.