Dark Rose Origins

Chapter Three

   There was blood. Everywhere. Oh my god. It was everywhere. I was starting to hyperventilate, the rusty color clouding my vision and making its hard to breathe. Oh god. The smell. How long has this been here? I was just walking out of this door a few hours ago. I felt small hands on my shoulders, my own instinctively flying out to push whoever it was away. I rapidly stepped backwards, tripping over the doorframe and being sent sprawling down the stairs and out onto the pavement. I stared up as the red slowly faded, being replaced with a cloudy blue sky. I felt, more than saw, someone sit next to me, their leg brushing against mine. 

   "Why?" My voice was thick with emotions I couldn't describe. Hell, I still can't describe what was happening to me, years upon years later. 

   "Pardon?" The voice didn't belong to the cafe guy. It was younger, maybe somewhere around my age. He sounded confused, most likely wondering which part of this situation I was questioning. 

   "Why aren't the cops here?" I sat up, a few deep breaths stabilizing both my stomach and my mind. When we pulled up not ten minutes ago, the only cars here were the ones that were always here, with the exception of the guy from the cafe. With there being so much blood in the house, there was no way the cops would just dismiss this, and I didn't hear any sirens signaling they were on their way. No way anyone could have lived through losing so much, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know who that blood belonged to. But if they hadn't, that makes it homicide, and homicide is handled by the police and detectives and finding out who did this, right?

   "This is a private matter. We didn't want to involve the authorities until it was absolutely necessary."

   "How the hell is this a private matter? Mama and Dad haven't spoken to their families since before I was born. I'm the only real family they had, and I sure as hell don't say this is a private matter." It wasn't a lie. I didn't even know if either of my parents had any living relatives left. 

   "I can't explain yet. You just have to trust us."

   "And how do you suggest I do that? Everything was fine until your guy in there showed up at my job last night and then the next morning someone has been murdered in my home! He threatened me with a Beretta! Would either of you trust me if I pulled some stunt like that?" To say I was pissed would be the understatement of the century. Where were my parents? Do they know these people? They never had friends over, and Mama was just as unconversational as Dad, since she slept all day and couldn't even remember my name most days. 

   "Where are my parents? How do they know you people?" 

   The boy opened his mouth, probably to tell me that it's "private" when he was cut off.

   "He can't tell you," the man from the cafe was back. 

   "What do you mean he can't tell me? What can you tell me?" I was getting more and more frustrated with these two the longer they kept telling me that they couldn't really tell me anything. 

   "I can tell you that you don't want to go inside." Well. If he had known me at all, he would have known that telling me that would make me want to go inside. So I did, with a grown man following behind me silently, and a kid not much older than me stammering at my heels. 

   Now that I knew what was waiting for me inside, I was able to find some semblance of something maybe resembling courage, and stepped through the door, though I'm not sure if that ever would have been enough to steel me against the bloodbath awaiting us inside. To my right was the dining table where my father and I had just spoken this morning, his coffee cup still  there, though he was no longer seated at the table. Instead, my father was in pieces. Literally. I'm not sure what took over me in the moments that followed that discovery, but it felt like I was no longer there, my body moving though the motions without fully comprehending what was happening. Soundlessly, I walked though the kitchen and upstairs, absentmindedly noting that nothing looked out of place, except the my mothers door was closed. Somewhere inside my haze, I felt the realization that I knew what was up here. What was waiting for me. There was no blood here, and it was eerily silent, nothing but my steady breathing and my footsteps swishing across the carpet. I opened the door to her room, finding no blood and no Mama. Her bed was a mess, like someone had dragged her out of it. Which means....

   I turned around and went across the hall to the library where my father had spent most of his time, doing whatever my dad did, like playing solitaire or reading a golfing magazine. Inside the ancient wooden doors was a sight that still haunts my dreams, even on the best nights. There was my missing mother, tied to a bookshelf with her own entrails, a message on the floor in blood. We are watching. We will find her. 

   I heard something thud behind me, a strangely cry of sorts coming from the same direction. ai turn around to find the man from the cafe weeping, head in his hands, his knees to the floor. I feel myself float past him, a gentle hand touching his shoulder as I pass. I go all the way down, to the basement where I go into my room and rustle through my closet to find an antique suitcase my mother had given me for my first away competition. I filled it with the necessities: clothes, toiletries, various artifacts that meant a lot to me. To this day I don't know how my subconscious figured it out, but when I walked out of that blood-drenched door with one suitcase, two people at my sides, and keys in hand, I turned to take the last look I would ever see of my childhood home.