Unit—1 Opportunity
Morning did not arrive gently. It broke through the clouds like a promise trying to survive in a world that didn't deserve it. The pale sun climbed above the horizon, and the snow that covered the trees glowed faintly, turning green into white. Birds still dared to sing, as if they didn't know what kind of house stood beneath them.
Sofia sat on her bed, staring at the window. Frost traced thin veins across the glass. Her breath fogged the surface when she leaned closer. Somewhere inside her chest, a small spark of hope flickered, weak but stubborn.
Then she heard footsteps. Heavy. Familiar.
The main door opened.
George's voice rose through the house, rough and echoing against the walls. "I'm going outside. I'll come back in three to four hours." The door slammed shut a moment later, and the sound crawled all the way up to the second floor where Sofia stood watching him from above.
She gripped the railing. Three to four hours. That was time. That was a chance.
But her thoughts did not celebrate. They twisted with worry.
In this cold, where could he even go? Why leave now? And why tell the time out loud… unless he wanted me to hear it?
She understood something terrifying. George was not careless. He was the kind of person who planned suffering. If she had a plan, then he already suspected it.
That fear was confirmed the moment she tested her door.
Locked.
She tried the window.
Locked.
Every room. Every opening. Everything sealed like the house itself had become a cage.
Her first plan had been simple. Explore the house. Learn the paths. Find weak points. Now all of it felt like broken glass. If she escaped while he was gone, she could save herself. But if she escaped wrong… John would pay the price.
She sank to the floor, back against the bed. Thirty minutes passed. Maybe forty. The clock wasn't moving fast, but her hope was. It was shrinking.
"How?" she whispered into the quiet room. "How am I supposed to open anything… and then lock it again so he doesn't know?"
Because if her room stood unlocked when he returned, George wouldn't need to ask questions. He would know.
She searched anyway. Under the bed. Inside drawers. Behind the curtain. In every tiny corner like treasure might be hiding there. Nothing. Only dust and cold air and the feeling that the walls were watching her.
Hopelessness crept in slowly, like water filling a sinking boat.
Then a small memory flashed through her mind.
An idea.
It wasn't strong. It wasn't safe. It depended completely on luck, like flipping a coin in front of death and praying it landed right. But it was still an idea.
Her heartbeat quickened again.
She got up.
She walked toward the corner of the room, and it only depended on her luck.
Sofia's sake — Part 1
Sofia's eyes drifted across the dim corners of the room when something small and metallic caught the faint light. A hairpin. For a second she didn't understand how it got there, and then the memory returned like a whisper — she had thrown it there days ago and completely forgotten. Her heart thumped. It felt like the universe had quietly left her a chance and was now waiting to see whether she dared to take it.
Her fingers trembled as she picked it up. She walked to the door, knees weak, breath shallow. The lock stared at her like a cold eye. She pushed the pin into it and began trying again and again. The metal scraped. The door refused. Every failure felt louder than the last. She whispered to herself, "Don't stop… don't you dare stop." Minutes stretched into an hour. Her hands hurt. Her shoulders burned. But finally, with a tired metallic click, the lock surrendered.
The door opened.
For a moment she just stood there, stunned, almost laughing and crying at the same time. Freedom wasn't waiting outside. Instead another realization hit her like a slap. Every other door in this place was locked the same way. She wasn't done. This was only the beginning.
She stepped into the hall. Two rooms on this floor. Four on the floor below. Three stood already open and empty like hollow shells. Only one door mattered now — John's. But if she was going to help him, she would need more than courage. She would need something that could fight George.
A terrible thought came to her.
George's room.
Sofia slowly went downstairs. The whole house felt like it was breathing in the dark. Shadows clung to the walls. Cold air slid across her skin. Each step sounded too loud, echoing through the huge silent hall. On the left she saw the kitchen and windows with night pressing against the glass. In the middle stood the large table and the dead fireplace. On the right, a short passage led to a closed wooden door — his door.
Her heart almost stopped.
The door was already open.
Her first thought was simple and brutal. He's here.
She froze in the passageway, listening, eyes wide, waiting for footsteps, for a voice, for that horrible laugh. Nothing. Only silence. She swallowed and pushed the door wider.
George's room was shockingly normal at first glance. A bed. A chair. Plain walls. But then the strangeness began creeping into view. Clothes stitched together with wire. A necklace made of teeth, cleaned and threaded like trophies. And on the wall, a huge map covered with pins, circles, strange notes. Lines drawn like veins. Plans. Something enormous was being prepared here.
Her gaze moved to a small wooden box. Pills. Bottles. Labels she didn't recognize.
Then she saw the bunch of keys.
For a moment she couldn't believe it. Keys. Just lying there. Out in the open. She stared at them, almost suspicious. She knew George. Cunning, cruel, careful with everything that mattered to him. Would someone like him really just… forget?
Or was this something worse — a trap?
Sofia didn't have time to doubt. She grabbed the keys, her pulse racing in her ears. One hour and fifty minutes were already gone from the night. She had to move fast. She fixed everything she touched, pushed things back exactly where they had been, erased every sign she had ever entered this room. If George suspected anything, John would die, and so would she. There was no space for mistakes.
She ran back into the hall.
Only one thought filled her now.
John.
Her feet flew up the stairs. She didn't feel the cold anymore. She didn't feel fear. She stopped only when she stood in front of his door, shaking, clutching the keys so tightly they dug into her skin.
How was she going to make him trust her?
That question hurt even more than the lock.
She breathed in slowly and began trying keys one by one. Metal turned. Failed. Turned again. Finally, another soft click came and the door opened. The smell of blood and medicine spilled out. The room felt heavy, like sadness had weight.
She stepped inside.
John lay on the bed, wrapped, restrained, broken in ways that no one his age should ever be. The boy she loved. The boy she had betrayed. His eyes were dull and exhausted, but the moment they saw her, something inside them sparked alive.
"Yo… you…" John whispered, his voice cracked like shattered glass.
Sofia froze. Her throat locked. For a second she forgot how to speak.
"Hey… John… remember me?" The words stumbled out, wrong, weak, ridiculous. In her head she screamed, What is wrong with me? Why did I start like that? This is the worst way possible.
She tried again, but her chest tightened until she could barely breathe. The guilt was a storm inside her. She saw everything she had done, every moment she had stayed silent while he suffered.
"John, you are…" She couldn't finish. Her voice broke. Tears blurred her vision.
He wasn't angry in the way she expected. He wasn't shouting.
He was crying.
"Why… Why me?" His voice cracked apart. "Why me?" He lay there, staring at the ceiling, eyes begging for answers that didn't exist. Why this pain? Why this life? Why all of it?
Sofia felt something tear in her chest. Her heartbeat raced so hard it hurt. She wanted to hold him, to touch him, to disappear from guilt, to scream at herself. Her legs trembled. Her mind went blank.
And then, in that moment, she remembered.
Unit–3 REMEMBER
There was a day that never left Sofia's heart. A quiet afternoon when the house finally felt alive instead of cold. On that day, her father, Jord Wings, wasn't home. He had said he was going out to "buy a slave." Those words should have been heavy, but to Sofia they meant one thing — hours of freedom.
Those were always the best hours of her life. The hours when Jord wasn't in the house. No shouting. No fear. No eyes filled with hate. It was just her and her mother, Victoria. For those few moments, they were not prisoners. They were simply mother and daughter
Sofia remembered her mother's smile that day. Not a fake one. A real one. The kind that reaches the eyes. Victoria laughed softly at something unimportant, and the sound felt like sunlight filling the room. It was the first and last time Sofia ever saw her mother truly happy.
They sat together on the floor, close enough that their shoulders touched. Sofia rested her head on Victoria's arm. The world outside didn't matter. The rules, the pain, the fear — all of it disappeared for a while.
Then Victoria spoke.
"Remember this for your whole life," she said gently. "One day, you might face something so dark that your mind goes blank. You won't know what to do next. When that moment comes… don't listen to others. Not like me. Listen to your heart. Listen to yourself, honey."
Her voice trembled at the end, like she knew what future was waiting for Sofia.
Sofia didn't answer. She just wrapped her arms around her mother. Victoria hugged her back tightly, as if she wished time would stop and freeze that moment forever.
That memory burned inside Sofia's mind.
And now, she is trapped in George's house and her mind conflicts, standing between fear and escape…
those words returned again.
Remember.