Streams of rain slid down the window panes, blurring Lizzy's view of the crowd of people that had gathered outside. The air was clouded by the pungent smell of blood and sweat, odours that Lizzy had grown to hate since she was a little child.
Lizzy gave out a trembling sigh, shaking her head at the horrendous memory that managed to sneak into her mind. She squinted her eyes, and caught sight of a tall figure speeding down the road in front of her house. She tried to make out the outline of that white-cloaked person, but he was hidden by the group that were seriously discussing about the fate of that particular house she was in. As her eyebrows raised in curiosity, she felt an inkling of familiarity in her. She recognized him. But as she tried to search into her memories further, a sudden flash of lightning made her jerk away from the window.
Her heart raced like a horse galloping, just like the time when her step-father came in her bedroom room with a cracked bottle of wine in his hand. Her emerald eyes widened in fear, and she twisted her head around, only to be met by the chaotic but empty living room, shards of green glass strewn all over the floor. The lightning and the state of the floor reminded her of how those pieces of glass had before penetrated into her skin and mind, creating now still bleeding scars she thought would never heal. She gently brushed her calloused fingers over them, wincing at the pain. Seeing that she had nothing else to do, the girl with the matted hair stood up, and wandered around what had remained of her house.
It was a total mess. The door frames were hanging on its hinges, the wooden floorboards had been splintered apart. Mirrors were smashed, the once-white walls smeared with scarlet blood. This was the life Lizzy had always lived. Only yesterday night, it became worse.
Lizzy entered her sleeping quarters and examined her bedside table. On it was a bottle of pink coloured pills, with a smiley face on its label. The previous day flashed before her, when both her parents were still alive, but not well.
"You know what, you can just take these if you hate seeing me do this," her father tossed a cylindrical object to the floor before her, and only then could she recognize it was a bottle of pills when it stopped rolling towards her. "Now stop whining."
"Help! Somebody!" a woman screamed at the top of her lungs. It was her mother. Lizzy's cupped her ears to stop hearing her mom like this, but even then she still could make out the words of her father.
"What beautiful music, I didn't know you could sing," her father inched closer to her curled-up mother, raising an arm.
Lizzy stood frozen as the scene unfolded before her eyes. Her father was about to do something that she couldn't imagine him ever doing. Her father's raised hand then lifted a little higher, reaching for a glinting object inside the smashed cupboard beside him.
Snapping back to reality, she remembered her father's words. Lizzy gingerly took the plastic bottle, and shook its contents, the rattling sound somehow soothed her mind. As long as she was alive, those memories of her father's cruelty would haunt her forever, so without a second thought she took out a substantial amount of pills and dumped them inside her mouth. She picked up a glass of water, and gulped everything down.
Lizzy looked up from the glass, and a being slowly formed before her. It was the one she'd seen running down the lane before. Now she knew why she had recognized him. The same man had come to visit her mother yesterday night, and now he was visiting her.
"Ready to go home?" The man had the softest voice she had ever heard, but there was an edge to it that made her shiver. She couldn't see his face, as it was surrounded by a halo of light, but it didn't blind her. Lizzy hesitated, but then nodded and she placed her small hand inside the man's outstretched one. The white figure pulled her into his embrace, where she finally felt warmth for the first time in her sixteen years of life.
Then, everything vanished from her eyes, her worries, fears, and finally her life.
