Underneath The Hidden Stars

Chapter IX

Mira stared at the bloody words for a good few seconds before she realized the obvious. Someone had broken into her house, and then locked it back up. Plus, considering what was written, there's no way the intruder wouldn't come back or target her later. There was also a possibility that they had placed cameras in her home. Mira looked around, but decided to not touch anything in the living, just to not mess with any possible evidence. She went to her bedroom, took a blanket out of one of the drawers, a spare set of clothes from her closet, and picked up the picture frame in the hopes of taking it with, but noticed something was off about it. When she took a closer look, she realized that her mother's face was covered with the same red paint that had been used on the living room's ceiling. Startled, she threw the frame on the bed and left with the stuff she had picked up earlier. She went back to the safety office building and made herself at home on one of the sofa's in the lounge room. She went around all of the security posts, just to make sure she's completely safe and went to sleep.

Mira covered herself with a soft, fluffy blanket and closed her eyes. As she fell further and further into a deep sleep, memories started showing up before her closed eyes. She saw her parents shouting at each other, with her mother looking different than what she would later remember - her hair was messy and she looked pissed at her own husband's incompetence. As much as Mira's subconscious brain could dig up from her past memories, nothing seemed to explain why her mother would keep returning late and why she kept getting into arguments with Mira's father. As the fight ended and her mother slammed the door, multiple scenes from her childhood came and went, but one of them stayed on for longer. The beautiful level hall had stunned her first then. Both Mira and Terra were holding their father's hands and just looking around, completely slack-jawed, as their mother stepped through the door to the trolley and never came back. The father stood there, weeping as one naturally would, as his daughters stared at everything shiny they saw, completely missing the fact that their mother had just left their lives forever. Mira glanced at his eyes then, and after seeing his tears, questioned why would he cry, if he was a grown man. Her father looked at her, and started repeating her name, this time - without tears, he was completely serious. He said her name once more, and then again, before Mira finally woke up.

"Mira!"

"Hm, yes, what?" she said, rubbing her eyes and trying to hold back a yawn.

"Why in the world are you asleep here? Your home is literally 10 meters away, dear." and old lady said, with an extremely motherly voice.

"Oh, there was a- uh, a break in at my home last night-"

"Wait, what did you say, Fader? A break in?!"

Just five minutes later, around 10 officers were standing outside the apartment complex, with 10 more standing inside, and a whole detective squad standing in the middle of Mira's living room. Some of them stood there, with their lips pouted, and stared at the ceiling as if there was something unworldly hidden in the two worded message. Mira went up to her flat, hoping that maybe she could provide any necessary information that could help the investigation, but no one seemed to show interest in her. One of the detectives had already sent a blood sample to the laboratory, so the rest of them were just standing there, wasting time. Mira, pissed that nothing was getting done, took some gloves out of one of the officer's hands and went to pick up the picture frame from her room. Once she had it, she walked back to the living room and cleaned her throat, showing her need for attention. As the officers looked at her, she lifted the photo up and started speaking.

"Look at this photograph - it's a family photo, right? But my mother, who had abandoned my father, sister and I, has her face covered with the same blood as that," she said, pointing at the ceiling. "Now, can some of you genius detectives help me figure out what happened in here? Is my mother somehow connected, is there a- uh, is there a reason why anyone would target her or like... Just do something, please okay?" She finished, placed the picture frame on the coffee table and walked out of her apartment.