Kept in the dark

Chapter 1

A police officer came to our house today. My mom looked through the peephole, before straightening her shirt and opening the door. The officer greeted her with his badge, before engaging in conversation.

My mom offered the officer a seat on our sofa before they both sat down. The officer took my mom's hand and gave her a serious look on his face. They were talking for a long time, all in hushed voices. Dad came out from the yard, just having planted some Dahlias in our garden. My mom gave him a gesture to come over, and my dad sat next to Mom, as they resumed their conversation.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, I was finishing the rest of my math homework. I didn't really pay attention to their conversation, not having thought much of it earlier, but soon later it got some of my attention. I was still too far away to listen, so instead, I simply watched their expressions and attempted to read their lips.

I wondered what they talked about. I couldn't stop thinking about whether it was something bad. From the way Mom's expression changed into a horrified nearly tearing face midway through the conversation, I got worried. My dad gave Mom a supporting arm on the shoulder, but it seemed like he had trouble sustaining himself as well. My mom seemed anxious and panicky, like when she loses her car keys sometimes, and my dad had an expression that could've been interpreted as if his deepest fear had come true.

Around 20 minutes later, when the officer left, he gave Mom a small hug, gave Dad a pat on the shoulder, and then went on his way. Afterwards, Mom went to the washroom and wouldn't stop crying. Dad went into the bedroom and locked the door, leaving me alone. I didn't hear anything, despite having tried to, but I was quite concerned. I assumed that Mom and Dad didn't have the courage to tell me what was going on yet, so instead, I decided to simply ask the officer himself.

I peeked through the window and saw the police officer's car still outside. I unlocked the front door and bolted to the car. He was about to drive off by the time I got there. The police officer had a startled expression on his face when I knocked on his window, due to the fact that I arrived so suddenly. He slowly rolled it down.

"Hey, kiddo. What do you need?" He asked as he started to sweat.

He gave me a half-smile, as if everything was fine, as if nothing was wrong. As if he never came to our house in the first place, and my parents never started crying.

"Why did you come to our house? Did my parents do anything bad? Were you here to arrest them? My mom won't stop crying. Did someone get into a car crash?" I asked innocently.

I assumed that maybe one of our grandparents passed away or something at first, but it was still quite odd for a police officer to come to our house and tell us in person. So at that point, I was pretty much out of ideas to what could have happened.

The officer was silent for a moment and gave a nervous look. His eyes looked away from my gaze. I wanted to know what was wrong, why my parents were so distraught, but he didn't seem to have the heart to tell me. As if there wasn't even enough strength in him to let me know the truth, even though he's a police officer.

"We believe there was an incident involving.......your sister....." He said, hesitantly, the words barely escaping his lips.

He didn't want to break the bad news to me. I could see it in his eyes. The way his gaze quickly shifted to the ground below me. Maybe to do with the fact that I seem to be a young child. I'm quite short for my age, so I appear as if I were 9.

My sister. I only have one sister, or had. We were fraternal twins, and although we weren't identical like "normal" twins, we still got along quite well and she became one of my best friends. But Crystal disappeared when I was merely eight, and I haven't seen her since.