RUN

Family

"RUN!" That's all I've been told my entire life, run from this, run from that, don't eat those funny plants or you'll die... That kind of stuff. My dad was very adamant about teaching me that stuff when I was young. I can still remember him telling me about the good and bad plants. He'd tell me about Willow bark and Winter-greens, how they were edible and make lovely tea. He said that Willow tea is a natural medicine, it can cure a cold, cuts, wounds, muscle pain, and apparently it tastes pretty good too. I loved my dad, more than anything in the world. I loved the things he'd teach me. You might think it's weird, but I actually enjoyed learning about nature, herbs and natural medicines. It was almost calming to know about those things, because in my extremely imaginative mind, I believed I would need those skills throughout my life, even if it wasn't right away, they would come in handy... And I was not wrong.
My name is Delta Rielly, I am 19 years old and my birthday is May 22. So I won't be turning 20 for six months and 3 days. I have two older brothers named Domeeko and Darran, but I call them Meeko and Ren for short. Domeeko is 22 years old, but acts like a 12 year old boy that hasn't gone through puberty yet. He's a total nut-case. He dresses like a slob, eats like one too. He doesn't have a job, a girlfriend, or a house. So he lives with Darran and I. He's all over the place except when he's around Darran. Darran is 26 years old and acts about 35. He works in the Police Force as a road patroller. He's a stern, tall, muscular, body guard like person. He tries to be like dad and takes care of us, he does a pretty good job at it. He used to be all laugh and jokes before the accident, but now he takes life a lot more seriously.
I guess I left out a big detail, I've been going on about my brothers and myself, but I haven't told you about my parents, or at least what happened to them. It's 2020 right now, so it would have been 2016 when the accident happened. Four years ago... It was a regular day, nothing special going on, it wasn't even a holiday. It was just a normal Tuesday at the house. Mom got up at 7:00, made our lunches for school, woke us up and then had breakfast with us before we left. The only thing that was different that day was that Dad had to leave early. My Dad worked for the Navy, he was a Marine Corps and knew a lot about what to do in sticky situations. He got called in at 5:30 by the Police because the Grocery store on Elmwood Road had just been broken into and robbed. It wasn't a big deal to us because my dad is used to working with a lot bigger problems than that. They usually call my dad every time a problem like this occurs because he is the only "larger police force person" in the area of where we live, so we all got pretty used to it. My mom was a beautiful, tall woman with light brown hair and blue-ish/green eyes. She worked at the Hospital as a nurse. She was very good at her job and taught me a lot of what she knew about medicines and being a nurse, that's why I decided to start working there as one last year. But anyway, back to the story. So, my dad was with the Police, and my mom, Darran and I were having breakfast. Darran drove me to school then went to his University while Domeeko stayed home sick. My dad got home from meeting with the police and talked to my mom about it. They decided to go to Costco for some groceries because we were out of milk and some other stuff. Domeeko stayed home while they were gone. All I remember next, was I was being escorted from my classroom to a police car that took me to my house. When I arrived there, Darran and Domeeko were already there. Domeeko was crying, but Darran just looked angry. Like he had some sort of cold rage for someone that did something wrong. I had no idea what was going on, but in my head I could only assume one thing. From the expressions on my brothers faces and the Police surrounding us, I turned white. I had this sick feeling inside my stomach like I could throw up. I felt dizzy all of a sudden, then there was nothing. Everything around me went black, and I was no longer in control of my body. I can only remember what took place after. We were still in my house, there were still police officers standing up in front of me, but Domeeko wasn't crying anymore, Darran was beside me propping me up, and I was on the floor with scratches up and down my arms, legs and face. When I finally came to, I was inches away from a broken glass vase with flowers in it. I looked down at myself and realized I was covered in bloody cuts on my hands, face, shoulder and left leg. It took me a minute to figure out that I had passed out and fell on top of our coffee table, crushing a glass vase with my stupidity. If I fell only a foot to the left, I would've landed safely on the couch with no injuries. I got over my incident pretty quickly though because once the Police man assured I was okay, he proceeded to explain what had happened. He started by telling me to sit down, so I did. Then he began stating our parents had been killed. I started to cry, but tried to hold it back. I asked him how it happened, and this is what he told me. He said "Your parents died from a car accident on Maxwell Road, they were stopped by a man with a gun. He continually pointed it at your father until they heard a train approaching. The man quickly took the opportunity to usher them onto the tracks and shot them both on site. He assumed it would be the perfect crime, because the train would dismember any remnants of the bullet wound, but he was wrong. We heard the gunshot go off and rushed to where it happened. After the train passed we could see the bodies, two, a man and a woman. They both looked about 40-45. We noticed a car alone on the side of the road and we looked inside. We found a Blackberry cell-phone and a purse with a wallet. The ID card read 'Jessica Marie Rielly', your mother. So we sent in a report and we got the confirmation of your father 'Dakota Liam Rielly' for the second body. I am truly sorry."
     When the police officer was done telling us that, he started to talk about foster care. He said that we probably won't have to be split up because Darren was 22 at the time, so he was technically old enough to be able to take care of us as an adult. I thought that was good because I didn't want to have to go into foster care and be with a different family. I would've hated it there, I was already under enough stress with my parents being dead, I didn't need that too. I looked over and I saw Domeeko's face, he was petrified. I could tell that he was probably thinking the same thing as me, only he probably would've only been worrying about the bad side of it. He'd be thinking that it would be awful to have different parents, and he wouldn't want to be split up. I didn't  want to be split up either, but I mean, if the judge ruled it that way, I guess I'd of had to live with it. There's not much I could do, I was only 15. I'm sure Darren would probably have fought it anyway, he wouldn't want to be split up. We're the last members of our immediate family, so he wouldn't have stood by it to let us go. We got lucky though, when the court hearing came, we got ruled to be together. They offered us two deals, (1) To let the Government take our house and they would buy us a smaller one for just the three of us, it would be payed for by the Government until I reached the age 25, and we would get a pay check every month for groceries and other things. And (2) was to stay in our own home and they would still send us a pay check every month for groceries and stuff. But unfortunately we would have to pay the bills of the house, which was fine to us. They only offered us the pay check because of where my mom and dad worked, they were citizens that helped our Nation. So I guess we have them to thank for that. Even though they were both generous deals, we decided to stay in our home, as one small, not so happy family.