Heirs: Code Lilith

Life in Prison

"Kiara?" Mom asked. "What's wrong?"

She took my into her loving arms as I cried silently. "Carmel's dead!" I sobbed.

She gasped, pulling her raven black hair behind her ears and said, "What happened?"

"I... I was just playing with him! And then he stopped moving, Mommy!" I explained, looking into her kind brown eyes.

"We'll hold another funeral!" she proposed. "How's that sound, Pumpkin?" She wiped away the tears in my eyes as I nodded. "I'm going to go get a shoe box, you stay here, alright?" I nodded again as she set me down and walked away.

Carmel was my hampster's name, who I accidentally killed.

My dad begrudgingly got out a shovel and dug a small hole next to my other pet's graves. There was Bob the golden retriever, Susan the black cat, Parsley the parrot, and now, Carmel the hamster.

"That's it," my dad said, crinkling his nose which moved his brown, wiry mustache. "No more pets. I'm not wasting anymore money if that child is just going to keep killing them!"

"It's not her fault, you know. Kiara is only six, she couldn't possibly kill them," my mom snapped. "We just happen to be unlucky with our pets, that's all." She took a deep breath and turned to me. "Kiara, would you like to say a few words?"

I let out a small sob as I dropped the small box into the hole. "Carmel was a good little hamster. He never squeaked at night and never bit me," I said. "I'll miss you, Carmel..."

"That was beautiful, Pumpkin," Mom said, kneeling down next to me. She put a sympathetic arm around me and said, "Let's go make another gravestone, ok?"

"Ok," I somberly said.

Dad just looked at us and scoffed, walking back into the house without a word.

My mom sighed, took my hand, and led me back inside.

~~~

It was two years later when things went terribly wrong. Dad, who had hated me since the day I was born, never let me have anymore pets after Carmel died. His hatred for me had grown more and more each year. I heard them talking about me a lot downstairs when I was supposed to be sleeping. Sometimes, I'd sneak down just to listen to them.

"Why aren't you ever nice to her...?" Mom asked, heartbroken. "She's only a child."

"I refuse to believe that thing is our child, Elizabeth," he hissed quietly.

"How could you say that about your own daughter?!" she yelled. "Kiara has done nothing wrong!"

He laughed darkly. "Something is not right with that girl. Everything she touches dies. Don't you think that's weird?! For all we know, one of us is next."

I hear a small clap. Mom had slapped Dad. "Don't you say another word against your daughter, Victor!"

"She's not my daughter," he said firmly. "If anything, our daughter is possessed by some kind of demon. That is not her."

"A demon?!" she yelled. "Who do you think she is, the Anti-Christ? So what if all our pets died? So what if our garden won't grow? That has nothing to do with Kiara!"

"You're blinded by your own stupidity!" he shouted back. "It's all because of her, Elizabeth! Everything was fine before she was born!"

"Well, if you don't like it here, then leave!" she shrieked.

She made threats like this all the time, but neither one of them ever left.

I had no idea what was wrong with me, if anything, to make my dad hate me so much. He'd go for days, even weeks sometimes, without talking to me. He never once told me he loved me.