Dominoes

Darkness

  The underlying darkness was brightening with the presence of flames. I had nothing left to lose. My family, scattered around the floor, blood pooling around them, and their eyes being wide open with terror. My bloodhound, whimpering to the side, slowly dying because of his broken bones and massive blood loss. My home, slowly burning to ashes. The air smelt of gasoline and blood. It was horrifyingly beautiful. I was lying on the floor, completely paralyzed.

  Me and my family had just been relaxing in the kitchen after breakfast...my mother braiding my hair, my father reading a novel, my little twin brothers bopping each other on the head with a plastic hammer like cute barbarians, my older sister polishing her gun, and our pet bloodhound, Mikee, napping on my legs. Our peace had been disturbed though when we had heard glass shattering from the living room.

  My father had pulled out his gun from under the couch, loaded it, and went to go see what had happened. All we heard was a choking sound, a few sickening snaps, and something splattering like paint, which we would later learn was my father's blood staining the walls. Mikee was barking and howling, but his cries stop after a loud thud. My mother told us to stay there, and told my sister to protect us. We all heard the same thing, and ran toward the living room.

  My father...he had been ripped apart.... His torso was lying on the couch, blood bleeding profusely where the neck and lower part that connected the legs to the torso were, and his lower body thrown into the fireplace. His throat had been bitten into savagely, the blood still flowing onto the couch. My mother though, she had gotten the worst of it. Our family's sword that we kept hung over the fireplace...she was pinned to the wall with it, her throat ripped apart, multiple cuts and bruises all over her body, and a empty hole where her heart was.

  The culprit, a man with a mask, was sitting on the single chair that my father had built, holding something red, thumping, and bloody in his hands. It had taken me a while to realize that it was my mother's heart. He chuckled when he saw us, squeezing the heart quickly, making it explode in his hands, blood flying everywhere. I was going to be sick. '"Kura-chan! Take Takumi and Ayato and run-KYA!"' Misaki, my sister, had started to say, but her words had been cut off when she was suddenly slammed to the wall, a hand holding her throat.

  "Nuh-uh-uh. If you want to see your sister live for a few more precious minutes, it'd be best if you didn't run." The man had purred. Seeing as it was that I was only 4, and had a little more intelligence since I was in training to be a hunter, I obeyed. I kept my little brothers huddled behind me though, ready to attack if I had to.

  In the end, they all died anyways. My sister had been completely drained of her blood, tossed to the side like trash, the twins had been decapitated, their hearts beign crushed under his foot, their internal organs lying here and there, and I was left with broken bones, half drained. Why couldn't he have just killed me and left them alive?

  Was I dying now? Or was the agony of the change just getting to me? Maybe it was the poison running through my veins that made me want to vomit. As long as I died, I didn't really give a damn. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn't force them shut. So now I could feel the agony of poisonous blood running through my veins, but I couldn't move a muscle? Great.

  I felt so numb emotionally though. So detached from the world. As if I could kill without guilt, as if I could be in the sun without feeling its warmth. In a way...it felt so good. To be numb. To escape the pain of reality. To ignore the fact that I was all alone now.

  The heat of the flames was slowly getting to me. Why couldn't I die yet? I couldn't hear the whimpers of my bloodhound anymore, so I assumed he was dead. I was on fire. Not on the outside, but the inside. Everything was burning. Why couldn't it stop? Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop! I shrieked mentally, wanting to writhe in pain.