The Blood Kingdom

Flashback

It was a blur. A movement of color. Bloodcurdling screams. My parents. Lizzie. Emiko. Me. My brothers. They're gone. They're both gone. They took them. They ripped the covers off, gave them uniforms, and dragged them out. They struck my mom. They pulled her away from her children. Held my dad back and made him defenseless and helpless.

"NO!" "NO!" "PLEASE NO." "YOU CAN'T TAKE THEM." another scream. One from my mom. One from my dad. One from me. One from Emiko. They struck her. "EMIKO," I screamed feeling my raw throat from all of my screamings. Her head. My brothers. "MIKO. PLEASE.  PLEASE WAKE UP."

The world began to blur and I couldn't see through my tears. They're gone. She's not conscious. Lizzie? I think. Where Liz- no. no. no. no. no. no. "Mommy?" She says standing in front of her room door hugging her stuffed animal. Watching them take her brothers away. "We'll be back. I promise." He grabbed her pinky and kissed her goodbye. Hugged me for the last time and slipped his watch into my pocket. "I love you." The last thing they said to us.

I was 14 when it happened.
When my life was flipped upside down. My family was ripped apart. I felt my anger built up. I felt the terror in my stomach. I felt like everything was on fire and I needed to let it out regardless of who got hurt. "NO!" I screamed in a voice that didn't feel like my own. My voice echoed off the walls, shattering the windows, burning my clothes off leaving me in a sheer nightgown. My ears are bleeding, fire built up in my throat.

The guards crumbled to my feet. As if obeying my command to feel my pain, their ears are bleeding, eyes are bulging, and bile is building in their throat and burning their insides. "ASUNE STOP." My dad yelled I can hear him just out of my reach. "PLEASE." I hear my mom whisper. But all I want to hear is their pain burning through their bones. When I hear a voice "Don't let evil take root in you because of others and their mistakes." My eyes jolt open. I'm sweating and hyperventilating. It felt so... real. Like a memory that was locked out from my mind in the darkest corner aloud.

I jolt up to see my mom and dad staring at me with teary eyes. And Emiko already crying. My mom grabs my cheeks "are you ok?" She whispers. I do the only thing I know how to do. I nod. My dad comes up to me next and touches my arm sending a cool stream into me that calms me, and my body, down. But how?

I look at him and he looks away as if ashamed and says "I should I have told you. I should have prepared you for this moment and I am sorry that I didn't. I failed you as a parent and I failed to protect you." I look at him confused "You did everything you could for all of us." He looks me in the eye and says "No I didn't." The pain in my mom's eyes is unmistakable. Her voice is hollow and thick. Empty and full all at the same time when she says "You will rest" Then the world goes black.

Word Count: 566