Home Is Hell
Some prisons have no bars. Some hells are quiet.
For Davis Shyaka, the perfect home was the perfect trap.
He was the perfect son-living a perfect lie.
To the outside world, he was the pride of his family: a disciplined, brilliant student destined for greatness. But behind the closed door of his bedroom, he was fighting a secret war against a private demon, a compulsion fed by the glow of a screen.
It never started as an addiction.
It began as a click - a simple, harmless curiosity after midnight. A way to pass time when the house fell silent and the world outside stopped demanding. But curiosity, once fed, became hunger. Hunger became habit. And habit became the chain.
He told himself he was in control. That he could stop whenever he wanted. But nights grew longer, and the glow of the screen became his only light. Compliments from teachers no longer reached him. The more they praised his discipline, the more fraudulent he felt-a boy polishing his chains so they would shine like medals.
He began to lie - not to others, but to himself.
"This is the last time."
"This doesn't define me."
"This isn't hurting anyone."
But it was. Quietly, invisibly, it hollowed him out.
Sleep turned into exhaustion.
Focus turned into fog.
Desire turned into disgust.
He no longer watched for pleasure-he watched because not watching hurt.
That's when he knew it wasn't curiosity anymore.
It was captivity.
Then the world stopped.
A global lockdown trapped him inside the very room where his war was being lost. What seemed like a final prison sentence became an unexpected battleground, forcing him to choose: surrender to the darkness forever, or fight for his soul.
Home Is Hell is more than a memoir-it's a raw, unflinching confession from the front lines of a hidden war. A vital warning for parents, a mirror for the lost, and a beacon of hope for a generation fighting in silence.
Because sometimes, the loudest wars are the ones fought in quiet rooms-between the boy you are and the man you were supposed to become