The Monster Within

Chapter 1

      I feel like it truly started when I was five. I had a normal life, and a happy family, but there was this man. He always came to the house. I guess he was a family friend. Whenever he was around my parents told me to leave, never let me hear their conversations. He always gave off weird energy. he had a weird look to me, but as a child, I just moved along and never really thought about it. I regret that now. Some years later on my eleventh birthday, everything truly changed. I was walking home excited for what was planned for the day only to have everything change when I opened the door. I wasn't happy, not at all anymore. I never would be for a long time.

I opened the door and saw the living room was wrecked. The TV busted, the lamp shattered on the floor in tiny pieces everywhere, and the couch flipped over with rips and. . blood. Blood all over the floor with one spotted trail leading upstairs and another leading to the kitchen. I followed the one to the kitchen tracing my hand along the wall trying to keep my balance and stay quiet. I was terrified. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, it didn't feel right. When I reached the kitchen I felt shocked and afraid. Laying in the middle of the floor was my father. He was limp, so lifeless, you could see the life was drained from his eyes, his face held a stern expression of fear and anger. He laid in a puddle of blood barely holding onto a knife with little blood on it. I was too scared to go near him. I sat on the floor trying so hard to contain myself, trying so hard to keep quiet just in case the killer was still in the house or near. I got up shakily, leaning against the wall even more. I was too scared to head upstairs, but I had to. I had to know what happened to my mother. As I slowly and shakily made my way up the stairs I felt sick, terrified, and helplessly hoping my mother was alive and escaped by hiding or by climbing out the window. But I was sadly proven wrong. When I went up the stairs the hallway and all the rooms were to the right. Just like downstairs. Two bedrooms and a bathroom. My parent's bedroom was the farthest room away. And in the doorway laid my mother, well, her feet were in the doorway but I already knew what that meant. She was lying face down on the floor bleeding out as she was in a position of reaching out for her phone which was lying on the small bedside table. There was blood on the corner of the table. I didn't want to see her face or the real damage the killer might've done. I just grabbed the phone and ran into the closet and called the police.

      I don't know how long I waited, crying in that closet until I finally heard some sirens. I jumped up and ran out clinging to the first person I could. It was a police officer. I guess they understood how I was feeling and knew I needed the hug because they hugged back just as tightly. We sat on the porch as the officer held me and I told this woman all that I knew. She didn't seem pleased with the little knowledge I had about the situation, but I didn't care, it didn't hurt me that I wasn't there to be counted as evidence. It hurt me that I wasn't there with my family. Couldn't say goodbye or die with them. 

  Years went by as I went in and out of different foster homes, some random people, and some were family. I was 15 when my grandmother was able to take me in and watch me. I was so thankful to finally be in a home I was familiar with, with someone I could call Family.

I'm 18 now, turned two weeks ago. My life finally feels normal, ok. I can never forget what happened to my parents and I don't enjoy celebrating my birthdays, I and Gran instead take a walk through the park to a secluded area and hold a picnic, we light two candles next to where we sit for my parents and when they go out we leave, I like it better. My school life is ok besides the fact that teachers pity me during family celebrations and bullies love to pick on me but it doesn't matter anymore. The only thing that I can't stand is how after two years the police gave up on trying to find whoever murdered my parents. My Gran put me in therapy a week after the incident but they don't help it makes me feel uncomfortable especially how quick they were to get medications shoved down my throat, but I go because my Gran thinks it makes me feel better. I know it's tough on her, she lost her Son, and it doesn't help that I'm his "spitting image". I have an ivory skin tone decorated with freckles all over my body, straight black hair I never let grow past my shoulders, and jade green eyes. unlike my father who was a lean man, I'm on the thicker side, 170lbs and 5'6. I've wanted to dye my hair but I think she's against it because I'm the last thing she has to remind her of them.