IGCSE 1ST LANGUAGE

someone from my past

One... two... three..., I heard it. Four... five... six. There it was again. Seven... eight...nine. The booming

thud reverberated around my tiny room, the dilapidated walls of my childhood home trembling with

it. Ten... everything was silent. Dead silent. The beating of my racing  heart filled my ears, but

other than that I heard nothing.

I looked out the cracked window at the slum-like streets, but all I saw were potholes, ruptured pipes,

fractured lights, razor-sharp shards of glass and shadowy mounds that could have been the bodies of

humans or animals. That was exactly  what the neighbourhood looked like when I returned 

to my once lavish and cheerful childhood home a few months before. There was nothing unusual, so

the sound must have been coming from inside. Looking down at my frail hands and crooked feet I

realised that I was in no position to defend myself so I did what I thought was logical at that time. I

crawled under my worn-out bed and huddled at the very corner, praying it was out there wouldn't

find me.

It all started a few years ago when the government discovered that my father and I had a special

gene. One that they insisted was a mutation and a curse when it was actually a blessing. It was a

gene that screamed power. When they first coaxed us  into letting them extract this gene we

believed that they were doing this for our own goods, but then we found out that they were using us

.They were using the same gene that we possessed to create weapons of mass destruction, so we

fled. My dear father didn't make it out of the lab that they were holding us captive, but I did. My

freedom, however, came at a price. I had to watch my beloved mother die, taking a bullet

that was directed at me.

I heard the thud again, louder and clearer than before, but this time I didn't cower. I crawled out of

the bed and slowly made my way towards the living room where the sound seemed to be coming

from. I couldn't just run away from it like I ran away from every other danger I faced during the last

few years. I had to go face it. Taking one last look at my room with its then splintered floors and

faded beige walls I crept out ready to face whatever was lurking in the place that had been my

sanctuary for the months before.

I peered into the living room scanning it for an intruder, but there was nothing. I stood there for a

few more minutes until I saw her. She was crouched behind the threadbare crimson sofa with a pair

of shackles fastened onto her legs. She looked just like she had few years before with her raven hair

and olive skin. It was my mother. My mother who I watched die. My mother whose funeral I

attended. It was her, but I couldn't see the tattoo, the one she got of my father's initials, wasn't

there. She looked up giving me a feeble smile as her icy blue eyes connected with mine.

"Looks can be deceiving."

Those were the last few words my mother uttered a few years ago, before closing her eyes as blood

gushed out of her chest.

Those words rang through my head as I used all of the strength I could muster to throw the metal

chair in the corner of the room towards what looked exactly like my mother.