Prologue - Life Before

Susan, at 24, was still homeless, still jobless even after getting kicked out of the orphanage at 18. She, even after taking up the government job of cleaning the streets, was still not able to get her basic needs like food and shelter. After her parents died in a car accident when she was 5, her life had been miserable.

The accident is still crystal clear in her mind for it had occurred in her dreams, again and again, a nightmare each time. The calm moment before a SCREECH, a CRASH, a THUD, the sound of pieces of glass meeting each other with a 'tink', the air whooshing in and out of the windows, the feeling of lightness, slowly the world goes upside down and then CRASH. As the metal scrapes the road, she hanged upside down and screamed at the sight of a big piece of glass sticking out of her mother's hair and blood dripping from her father's mouth.

Lucky she was, to have survived such an accident. Though she did have a broken bone or two and a few scratches, it was nothing compared to what she saw, the bloody bodies of her parents entering the ambulance. After that her life had been filled with grief and sorrow. She still cries about it along with the frustration of all the other struggles she had to face in her day to day life.

Susan was a pretty girl, with soft blue eyes and wavy brown hair; she had a gentle look on her face and strong calloused hands. Life has its own difficulties, she would think, Goodness might come later. And that goodness came to her when, one fine day, a strange man asked her if she would be willing to be a waitress. And that changed her life forever.