There are those monsters which as children we all fear. The ones that make noises in our closet while we sleep, or knock on our windows, or lurk under our bed waiting for us to put our feet down. As we grow up we realize that these monsters are the way in which our imagination has transformed the sounds of a house settling or the wind pushing a tree branch. We become accustomed to recognizing the shadows that fall on our bedroom walls at night as shadows.

There are those monsters which as we get older we recognize as monsters. These are not tentacled, fanged or clawed creatures. They are the realization of addiction, neglect, poverty and apathy taking a physical form. They are the lure of drug abuse and criminality. These are the real monsters we face.

Some people have the luxury of discovering this difference, of moving from the world of childhood fantasy into the world where real monsters lurk, over a length of time. Some people however do not. They are forced to confront those very real monsters of world before they yet have the capability to distinguish entirely between the real and the imaginary. They are forced to grow up at a very early age. This is the story of one such person.