Footsteps in the Night

Chapter 1

Hi. I'm Lila. I'm 19 now. This is the story of what changed my life. I will explain it by telling you each hour.

4:00 pm

I get home from school. My dad picked me up. I have a snack and begin on my homework. So far so good.

5:00 pm

Still working on my homework. Cornell notes...ugh. I finish that assignment and start my math homework.

6:00 pm

Homework is done. Eating dinner with my family. I fight with my brother, as usual. After dinner, I go upstairs to my room and write in my diary for a while. Then, I flop down on my bed and I read.

7:00 pm

I go downstairs and begin a movie with my family. It's a comedy.

8:00 pm

Movie is still going.

9:00 pm

Movie finishes. My brother and I head upstairs to get ready for bed.

9:30 pm

We are both ready for bed. Bedtime now. Good night, Mom. Good night, Dad. Good night, Bro Bro. I get in bed and try to sleep.

10:00 pm

I' m still awake. I hear weird creaking noises from the stairs. "It's the house creaking," I tell myself. It sounds different though.

11:00 pm

I wake from a light sleep and realize it is because I heard a noise from my brother's room. I get up, with a flashlight and baseball bat, and creep out of my room and into the hallway. His door is open...? Why? I walk slowly, my heart pounding. I turn off the light and look into his room. My brother is asleep. Someone is standing over him. I am parelyzed with fear. I shine the light at the "someone".

It's not my dad.

Or my mom.

I scream at the top of my lungs and the "someone" whirls around. It is a man who I do not know. My dad is yelling "Lila! What's wrong? I'm coming up!" I hear his footsteps on the stairs. My mom is close behind. They run up and turn on all the lights. The man is cowering over by my brother, who looks terrified. My dad tells my mom to go get a phone and call the police. I stand there, not sure what to do. My dad looks away for just one second to tell me something. Faster than I can react, the man pulls out a gun and drills my dad through the head. He falls.

I think I scream.

My brother screams, loud.

My mom comes running, just fast enough to see the intruder put a bullet in my brother's forehead. She is very pale, but tries to think clearly. She picks up the baseball bat while the man stares at my brother's body. My mom smashes the bat into the man's gun arm. He drops the gun and I pick it up. It's very cold. I realize that this is the gun that killed my father and brother. I drop it and he picks it up again and shoots my mother in the knee. She screams and collapses. She does not suffer for long, thought. He shoots her in the neck and she is still. I scramble to my feet, I was not aware that I had fallen, and run. I do not know where I am running, just that I must get away.