Then, just as quickly, we’re inside that same house. Focusing on a close-up of a girl who stands before a window she’s supposed to be cleaning—but is staring out of instead, her face soft and dreamy.

She’s tall for her age, narrow shouldered and slim. With gleaming dark skin and long lanky limbs that seem to go on for miles before ending in a pair of skinny ankles that peek out from the hem of her plain, cotton dress. A garment that’s so well worn it’s obviously been mended again and again. But it’s pressed and clean, just like the rest of her, and even though I can only view her in profile since she’s turned to the side, I see that her long dark hair spirals the back of her head in a complicated series of knots and braids.

Though it’s not until she turns, turns in a way where I can clearly see her face—that I look straight into those deep brown eyes and realize—

I’m looking at me!

I gasp—the sound of it echoing off the rounded white marble walls as I stare into a face so young and so beautiful, yet marred by an expression that’s saddened way beyond her/my years. And a moment later, when a much older white man appears, the meaning of it all soon becomes clear.

He is the master. I am his slave. And there is no time for daydreaming here.

“Ever, please,” Damen begs. “Just hand me the remote, now, before you see something you’ll regret—something you’ll never be able to erase from your mind.”

But I don’t hand it over.

I can’t do that just yet.

I’m compelled to watch this strange man I don’t recognize from any of my lives, take great pleasure in beating her—me—for the simple sin of dreaming of a better life.