The Unexpected

Waking Up From A Nightmare

After that day I stayed away from my parents unless I was spoken to.  I didn’t want to go through that pain and feeling of loss.  I remember how disgusted I was of my parents because they stooped so low to hurt their only child as if she were just a servant who was doing everything wrong.  I went back to paying attention to my school work and hanging out with the few friends I had.

Years went by and soon my parents completely forgot about me until recently.  It was a month after my 16th birthday when it happened.  I was unlocking the front door after coming home from school as usual when the house was silent.  My face contorted into an expression of confusion, then curiosity.  I close the door behind me quietly, fearful and not knowing what to expect.  It was never this silent unless I was in trouble or if no one was home, but my parents usually came home around this time so it was unlikely.  I slowly walk towards their office down the hall.  As I reach the door, I see that it is slightly open.

That’s unusual.  They always close the door behind them.  Puzzled, I push open the door to find my parents sitting on opposite sides of the room facing each other.  My eyes widened as my brain took in that they were tied up with duct tape over their mouths so they couldn’t speak.  Both of them looked my way, with a furious look as if this was my fault that they were this way.  They were always blaming me for everything, whether I did it or not.  I crossed my arms and gave them a look of disgust, but then it hit me.  My father – a strong, evil man - was tied up.  Tied up as in he was completely and utterly helpless.  My eyes widened.  There is no way he could have done this himself, even if he wanted to.

“But how-”, I stopped.  Someone else must have done this.  My eyes widened more than I thought were possible.  “Someone else is here”, I whispered.  I whipped my head looking for someone else.  I froze as I heard a deep chuckle behind me.

“So you finally realized I was here.  Took you long enough”, the voice laughed.  I spun around and saw someone with black pants, a long sleeve black shirt, a ski mask, and latex gloves.    I could tell that it was a man by how deep the voice was.  I looked at their eyes.  They were a dull brown.  I broke away from the stare, turned, and ran around behind the desk.  I looked back at the stranger with fear in my eyes.  He was in the middle of the room with the door closed.  The bad thing about this room was that the only escape was the door since there weren’t any windows.  I tried working out a plan to escape.

“I know you are trying to think of an escape plan, but I won’t let you.  You aren’t going anywhere yet”, the stranger spoke.  I look up and watch as the stranger walks toward my mother on the right side of the room.

‘Yet’.  He’s planning to let me go?  Why would someone like him do such a thing?  That confuses me, but what did he want me to see?  I have to be careful.  I’ll try to get out when he least expects it.  I saw the masked person take something out of their pocket and all too fast I watched as he moved his hand with the object across my mother’s face.  It took me a second to realize that the object was a knife and that my mother’s face was now cut from her left temple to her chin.  I saw the tape was cut and I could tell her lips were cut open.  I watched as anger weald up in her and I saw a tear escape because of the pain.  I looked over at my dad who was grunting and struggling to get to his wife.  I look back at the stranger in shock.  I knew that that was the beginning of what he wanted to show me.

He plans to make me watch my parent’s murder.  My eyes widen in shock, frozen as I wasn’t sure if he was going to come after me when he was done with my parents.  I start backing up until I feel the wall behind me, not knowing what to think.  The stranger looked over at me with a blank expression.  This person was confusing me because I didn’t know what to do.  I felt different emotions, some of which I shouldn’t probably be feeling.  I felt frightened because I didn’t know what was going to happen to me, and yet I felt gratitude because he was giving my parents the kind of pain I have wanted to give them for years.  I didn’t want to hurt them because I knew I didn’t have the strength to, but I wanted them to feel the emotions I felt.