Chapter 1 - The Strike on the Tile Floor
The bright kitchen was filled with light, but the air turned ice-cold in a fraction of a second.
Sixty-year-old Harold stood near the red cooler, his grey hair neatly brushed, wearing a crisp blue button-down shirt and beige trousers. His face twisted into a mask of pure, explosive rage. He yanked a heavy dark leather belt from his waist and swung it menacingly through the air.
Three-year-old Oliver flinched back in terror. His tiny feet slipped on the slick white tile floor, and he fell backward with a sickening, heavy thud. His little head struck the edge of the cooler before hitting the hard ceramic ground. He went completely limp, his eyes closing as darkness took him.
"You don't touch that without asking!" Harold roared, towering over the unconscious toddler without an ounce of remorse.
The boy's mother, a blonde woman in her early thirties wearing a blue t-shirt and denim shorts, burst into the kitchen. Her face turned ghost-white as she dropped heavily to her knees beside her small son on the floor. Her hands trembled wildly as she touched his pale cheeks.
"Oliver! Baby, please open your eyes..." she whispered, her voice cracking with pure panic and devastation.
Harold stood over them, his arms folded stiffly while he held the leather belt tightly in his right hand.
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"He shouldn't have taken the soda," Harold sneered, his voice completely callous and unbothered by the motionless child at his feet.
👉 What brutal truth was Harold trying to hide inside that red cooler when the little boy opened it?
