Abuse is insidious. Like a silent serpent, it slithers into your soul, spreading its venom. Be it substance, sexual, physical or emotional, abuse wraps you in a constricting embrace, crushing the hope, the joy - and sometimes the life - from all it touches. It traps you in a prison from which few escape. For most who live through it, the poison left in their soul most often spreads out, affecting all who touch them; turning the abused into the abuser. 1968 - A year of violence, war, unrest and fear. King and Kennedy are assassinated. There are riots in all across America. Thousands of young American men are killed, maimed and wounded in Viet Nam. Thousands more live in fear of the Draft. Amid this turbulent time, in Simi Valley, on the outskirts of Los Angeles, a group young people are bonded together by mutual backgrounds of abuse, tragedy and violence. Together, they must learn to break the coils that surround them and forge new futures - or be condemned to a cycle of destruction.