[Forgive the bio and the short jumps between. Still fleshing.]

Melissa Parx had an ideal start to life as the third of four children to Peter and Christina Marie Parx. The Parx family were those "salt of the earth" kind of people. A Fishing Family. They trusted everyone. The parents and kids were good Catholics. Little Melissa, always called "Miss", was no different really. She went to church and loved her CCD classes, she loved her daddy and was taught to devote herself to her community.

Normality was good for the little Miss. Growing up around lush landscapes she was fortunate to have the beautiful ocean on her doorstep. Fond memories of sitting on the docks and waiting for Daddy to come home from that week's trip with a lot of smelly fish and imaginative stories were coupled with a constant intrigue of the water and the whole wide world around her, but at nine years old who expects the whole wide world to be bigger than a small town like Camden, Maine?

The summertime in Camden brought legions of tourists and Melissa loved them all. She was personable and sweet, and would talk to just about anyone about the ocean - repeating great tales of the sea or giving them facts about the waters that made those strangers just want to stay. She trusted too much, just like the rest.. and she smiled a bit too happily.

She welcomed everyone and that was part of where things started to go bad for the little girl. Miss Melissa never turned down a conversation because everyone was nice! Why should she?

It was one of the coolest summers on record and just around her birthday in Mid July. The little girl spent the summers stationed by the docks, feet swinging through the water, eating popsicles and talking to the fishermen and tourists. She was always in view of her mother or sisters and brothers so she was in no real danger. She played with the children that were visiting, and even that nice couple that came around every day and bought her an ice cream. She really adored them!

They were your average tourists and a young couple in love that was just starting out. Well dressed and educated, they had come to Camden to make choices about which children they wanted. That was perfectly normal. You decide which one you want and then you take them home with you. Decisions were good!

At first, they had a different target before they came across the bright nine year old sitting on the docks. When they found her, they did everything they could to lure her into their lives and get her to trust them. They bought her ice cream and listened to her boring stories about the water.. and would ask her to go on little walks with them - each day a bit farther until one day they just walked her too far out of reach. She was their daughter now.

The days that followed for the young girl were horrifying. She, along with her other "sisters" were locked in a damp, dark closet deep within a no-name house in very rural Maine. She was their property now. The nightly lashings and beatings... the screams, oh the screams of horror that howled their way through her ears for so many years, locked away in that closet. The couple bathed in sadism and christened their "kids" with the rule of 'sparing the rod..spoiling the child'.

Little Melissa never said a word again from the moment that malicious couple began their abuse, and kept her screams so deep inside of her head. She quietly, each night, tried to break free from the confines of that closet and once she had.. the savage animal took it's shape.

Slim, bare hands enclosed upon the throat of each of her siblings as they slept, and she took their last breaths, then using one of them to stab - stab - stab away at her "parents". Her "new" mommy and daddy were killed too, because over the span of the ten years they kept her from the ocean, which she loved. They kept her from her real family, which by now thought her dead.. and they took away her entire life.

There was no more Melissa Parx.

There was a court case, and being the only survivor, and now an adult, she was finally able to break free. Turbulent was her life and even though she thought once she escaped, it would silence the thoughts that ran rampant inside of her head, she couldn't have been more wrong. Jaunts up and down the eastern seaboard trying to make her way with odd jobs and doing what she could to survive.

She had a little job as a waitress, she tried being a secretary and even cleaning houses. The seedier side came easier to her. Using that pretty little body to make her way as a stripper, doing private parties and enjoying the look-but-no touching a little too much. Phone Sex, Cam Girl.. it was all the same and she was happy to oblige if it made her a few extra bucks. When she wasn't so in need of money she'd bar tend and blend into the background of whatever state she happened to find herself in. Miss kept to herself, made her money, got her kicks and when things got a little boring, moved on out.

There was one friend though that she met up in Portland. A girl named Alayna who herself fell on hard times. The woman always talked about heading on down to Hathian and that maybe Miss should come with. Though she didn't then, now was a different day and she finally hit the streets.

Hathian was where she was, and looked like it had a lot of her type down there. The lost and not so forgotten that just didn't seem like being found.

Hey, it may be the underbelly but she could maybe make a buck or two here and even score some of her all important meds that the doctors warned her she needed to be on.

Hell, there was even a church. Maybe it was time to find god.