The

The Welcome to Human Monsters.

The following was adapted from the memoir, Mother at Seven, the shocking true story of an Armenian girl's stolen childhood and her family's unspeakable cruelty and betrayal by Veronica Gasparion.

Veronica Gasparan was born in Soshi, Russia in 1981.

Veronica and her family are of Armenian persuasion.

Her life pivoted dramatically from the paradigm of a typical elementary schoolgirl to a life of imposition and hardship in April 1988,

for that is when her brother was born.

Her father was a doctor and her mother was a teacher, so they didn't have much time to look after their son.

Veronica's relationship with her mother had been good until that day.

When she and her father went to the hospital to pick up her mother and the baby,

Veronica could barely contain her excitement and was quite noisy and boisterous,

so much so it annoyed one of the hospital clerks.

When her mother was wheeled out with the baby, Veronica jumped up and made a bee line for them.

She couldn't wait to see her newborn brother up close. She was bursting with enthusiasm as she raved to him. Hello, my little baby.

I have waited for you for so long. Now you were going to play with me and eat with me and sleep with me

and watch TV with me. And her mother was not exactly charmed by this for she interjected with

you were standing way too close to him you are way too loud for him you were being quite

annoying and obnoxious so just move away so the baby and I can breathe. The metaphysical mist of venom muted Veronica.

Blood drained from Veronica's face, and she took a step backward in sync.

Her mother was like a grizzly bear protecting her cubs.

Only the threat posed by mother bears is widely known. Veronica had never seen that side of her mother before. Her father didn't even acknowledge her existence during this occasion. Veronica suddenly felt like she had no family at all. As time would tell, that feeling would be reinforced by experience.

Worse, now that her brother was born,

...