She was born into softness.
That was what people said later, when they looked back and tried to explain her childhood in one careless sentence. Born into comfort. Born with a silver spoon. Born lucky.
She did not remember the day she arrived in the world. She only knew the stories that followed. The pictures. The clothes. The way adults spoke about her beginnings as if they promised an easy life. For a while, maybe they were right. She had what she needed. Sometimes more than she needed. Smiles came easily then. Laughter too.
Then things changed.
Primary school was where the world quietly turned sharp.
It was not hell in the dramatic way people describe suffering. There were no flames, no screaming corridors, no constant fear. It was worse than that. It was ordinary. Subtle. Hidden behind uniforms and morning greetings.
There was a girl she called her best friend.
At five years old, friendship meant sitting close. Sharing secrets. Holding hands without thinking. Trusting completely. It meant believing that the person beside you would never hurt you because the idea of betrayal had not yet learned your name.
That girl knew her weaknesses.
She knew about the breathing disorder. The way her chest sometimes felt too tight, like air was something she had to earn. She knew about the fear of enclosed spaces, the panic that crept in when walls felt too close and doors too far.
She knew.
One afternoon, she used it.
The bathroom was small. Too small. White tiles. A door that closed with a sound she still remembered years later. A click that echoed louder than it should have.
Then laughter.
Not close laughter. Not playful laughter. Laughter retreating down a hallway, bouncing off walls, stretching into something cruel and endless. The sound stayed long after the footsteps disappeared.
She banged on the door. She screamed. She cried until her throat hurt and her lungs betrayed her. The air felt thick. Heavy. Like it was pressing back against her.
She did not know how long she was in there. Time had no meaning at five. Only fear did.
When the door finally opened, a teacher stood there, alarmed and breathless, asking questions that felt too loud. She did not answer. She could not. Her body shook long after she was carried out into the open.
That day did not end when the bell rang.
She hated the girl after that. She feared her more. At five years old, hatred and fear felt the same. They both lived in the stomach. They both made her quiet.
What did she know then? She was still a child. A child who learned too early that kindness could be a mask and laughter could be a weapon.
The trauma did not leave. It settled.
And then there were the flashes.
They began not long after. Moments that did not belong anywhere. A woman standing at the edge of her thoughts. Sometimes old. Sometimes young. Always with long white hair that seemed too bright to be real.
The woman never faced her.
She always stood with her back turned, like a silent guard or a secret she was not ready to understand. She did not speak. She did not move. She simply existed, appearing in quiet moments, lingering in the spaces between sleep and waking.
For years, the girl carried both things with her. The locked door and the unseen woman. One made her afraid of the world. The other made her wonder if there was something more, something watching, something waiting.
She never told anyone.
Some stories feel too strange to share. Others feel too painful. So she kept them both hidden, tucked behind smiles and good behavior and the careful silence of a child who learned how to survive without asking for help.
That was how it began.
Not with tragedy loud enough to be noticed, but with a moment no one thought would matter. Except it did.