Ballet on Glass

The Beginning of the End

**

Years have passed.

I'm twenty years old, Nora's a year younger.

And Declan is fifteen.

Or at least he will be on Saturday.

"Are you coming home for the birthday party? A lot of people will be there."

Dad sounds tired, but still laces his tone with enthusiasm. I feel bad for the man who had to age two times faster because of weeks of sleepless nights.

I bet Mom looks worse. Everyone that saw them had a hard time believing both my parents were in their late thirties.

"I'll try, but no promises. I have exams and all coming up."

I'm not sure Dad can tell it's a lie. A shameless, blatant lie.

I don't care either way. He should know I won't be coming home for any celebration if all I get is press for getting on Declan's case.

All because I can't seem to forget that night.

Sometimes, I have nightmares because of it. Declan's sinister grin paints itself on my windows and bathroom mirror occasionally too, whispering only God knew what.

Maybe I should go to the birthday party. I need to know my brain isn't playing tricks on me.

Declan has to explain what exactly he's been trying to tell me, real or not.

*

I place the car in park and turn off the engine. The house is crazy quiet for a fifteen year old's birthday party. One porch step at a time, I walk closer to the front door and push it open.

I don't see the people Dad claimed would be here.

All I see is thick, red blood everywhere.

On the curtains. All over the leather couches and floral patterned recliners. On the kitchen counter. On my old bed. On Mom and Dad's bed, too, alongside Nora's pale and bloody corpse.

Tears block my vision temporarily, then the door jams shut, trapping me in my parent's bedroom.

I refuse to be scared or hurt by what my eyes are telling me.

"Mom? Dad?" I call out desperately.

"Yes, honey?"

I run towards the sound of Dad's voice in the bathroom and crash to my feet at what greets me from inside the bathtub.

Dad's lifeless gray eyes stare at me from the pool of blood he's swimming in. I can only see one of Mom's eyes, but the rest of her frame has drowned in her blood.

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror with his hands completely red and dripping with blood is Declan's average boy frame.

Just as he did as an infant, he turns to me and sports the same eerie grin he had on fifteen years ago.

"I told you, didn't I? I told you..." he says.

Then... I was next.