Destiny

Destiny

         It was dusk; the sun was setting into beautiful colors of red, pink, blue, orange, and purple. At Parker’s Lake, dogs were catching Frisbees, couples were eating chocolate covered strawberries, and Alex and Tiffany were lying on their blanket on the top of the hill.
         “Hey, Alex?” Tiffany asked, still on her back with her eyes closed.
         There was no answer. Alex had fallen asleep after an exhausting day of working at the dance studio. She had let the sandman sprinkle his magic sand over her entire body, letting it drift away back into her dreams.
         “HEY! Sleepy head! Wake up!” And Alex woke up suddenly as a football hit her head.
         “Ow! What was that for Tiff? I’m up.” She got up off the blanket and stretched her arms up to the sky.
         “I suppose we should head back before it gets dark and mom and dad come home,” Tiff said.
         “Yeah, I suppose. Let’s go baby sister.” They walked back to their bikes and rode back home. They got off their bikes once they were on their driveway and saw the lights on in the house, but once they got the garage door opened they didn’t see their parents’ car. Not thinking much about it, they continued on into the house. The door slammed behind them as they took of their shoes. Together, they walked into the kitchen; not a sound could be heard, dead silence.
         “Hello? … Mom?... Dad?...” Alex called out through the house, hoping her voice would carry up and down the stairs. But there was no answer.
         “That’s weird. I guess we could have accidently left the lights on before we left,” Tiff said, trying to convince herself more than to convince her sister.
         “I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right. I’ll go check upstairs and you check the rest of this floor,” Alex said, a slight fear in her voice. Alex climbed up to the second floor and went to check her parents’ bedroom first. Nothing. Then she went to check the study. Nothing again. All of a sudden she heard a scream coming from downstairs. She took off for the stairs, almost tripping down the last few steps in a horrific frenzy to get to her sister. She turned the corner from the kitchen into the living room and had to stop to cover her mouth as she entered the living room.
         “Stay right where you are. Don’ move or I shoot her,” said the man standing next to the rocker in the right hand corner. He had one hand covering Tiff’s mouth and his other hand was holding a gun at her head. Alex’s breathing began to get heavy and she started to cry softly.
         “Who are you? What do you want with us?” Alex had the courage to say. She saw Tiff slowly shake her head, not wanting her sister to say anything to the stranger.
         “Ha! You don’ know me. And I didn’ want anythin’ to do wich ya i’the first place, bu’ ya came home early. I was going ta take some of yo’ things, but yo’ sister here caugh’ me and now I can’ let you go an’ rat on me,” he spat out. Alex decided to try to take a few steps closer in order to get a good look at the man, “Stop! Don’ ya come any closa or I shoot you! I swear!” he yelled, but with a shake in his voice. She stopped and finally had a clear view of who this guy was. He had a scraggly beard that went up and around his mouth and chin. His eyes were brown as well as his hair. He wore a dark blue flannel shirt, buttoned up, and tucked into a dirty pair of black jeans. His hair was misshapen and greasy.
         “Please! Let my sister go! Take me instead!”
         “Ah! Ya mus’ be da olda sista. So ya and your sister get along eh?”
         “Yes! She’s all I have! Please! I beg you, let her go!” Tiff struggled in his arms and tried to escape, but he was much stronger than a fifteen-year-old girl.
         “Oh no ya don’ missy! Ya better not struggle wich me or I shoot. I swear!” he threatened. There was the sound of a car pulling into the garage. Their parents could be heard shutting the car doors.
         “Uh oh. Mommy and daddy are home. It look like this’ll have ta be a family event. Now don’ you dare say a word till they discover us unless you want yo precious sister to die,” he whispered as the door into the house in the kitchen slammed shut.
         “Girls! We’re home!” their mother called out. Alex heard them walk through the kitchen, stop, and call out again. She looked at Tiff, whimpering with a tear-stained face, and then back toward the direction of the kitchen, trying to quickly decide what she should do. If she screamed for her parents then he might shoot Tiff, but if she does nothing then they all could die. She acted on her gut feeling and screamed.
         “HELP! MOM! DAD!” She could hear them running in her direction, but then she also heard a gun shot as she turned her heard back to Tiff. She saw her sister fall to the ground, blood leaking out of her stomach.
         “NOOOOOOO!!!” Alex and her mom both screamed at the same time, rushing over to Tiff and practically fell on top of her bloodstained body. Tears began to flow heavily from her eyes as she bent over her sister’s body. Her mother was hugging her daughter’s limp head in her arms, sobbing as hard as Alex ever heard her sob. When she finally looked back at the man, he was fighting with her dad. And then another Bang!
         “Dad!! No!!” she screamed with every last breath she could muster and ran over to him. Her mother finally looked up from Tiff as well and looked over to her husband, now also lying on the floor, blood flowing heavily from his chest.
         “Why are you doing this?! Please stop!!” Alex cried out, but the man either didn’t listen or didn’t care. There was another shot and she realized her mother had been shot as well as she looked back over to where Tiff’s body lay and saw her mother’s body lying on top of Tiff’s. The man flew from the room and ran out the front door. Alex was now extremely angry as this man, the one who took her family away from her forever. She managed to get herself up off her feet and started to run after him. She stumbled a little as she ran out the door, her hands leaving a bloody hand mark on the door as she used it for stability.
         “Somebody! Help! Please!” she cried out to her neighborhood in deep agony in the middle of the street until someone finally turned on their front lights and came out their door.
         “What is going on Alex? Oh my goodness! Why is there blood on your hands?” her neighbor from across the street, Mrs. Hanson, asked her with concern and shock. Alex could not speak, she could only stutter. She tried to get the right words out, but she couldn’t. So she pointed to her own house and Mrs. Hanson went running into the house. Alex heard her scream and then watched as she ran back to the front door and stopped, hand over her heart.
         “What happened dear?! I’ll go call the police!” And she ran back into the house. Alex was so emotionally overwhelmed that she found herself dropping to her knees and then onto her side. She could hear the sirens and saw lights flashing, but everything suddenly became darker and every sound became less distinguishable and more muffled. The last thing she saw was someone in a uniform crouch down to her and then it went dark.

         The sun was shining through the curtains and Alex slowly opened her eyes and noticed that she was in a bed unknown to her. She became confused and jumped up as Mrs. Hanson came into the room.
         “Honey, honey! Lay back down. You need your rest.”
         “Where am I? What happened?” Alex asked impatiently, almost in tears again.
         “Just lay back down and I’ll tell you everything once you are more rested and calm,” Mrs. Hanson told her.
         “No! Tell me now! Where is my family? I had the most terrible dream!”
         “Honey… that wasn’t a dream… Your family … has been murdered. You witnessed it all.”
         “So it wasn’t a dream? ....” Alex said calmly, coming to a realization as tears began to make her eyes glisten in the light as she tried so hard to keep them back.
         “Oh honey … I’m so sorry. You must rest now though. You’ve just had a traumatic experience. And then I’m sorry to say but I must bring you to the police station later this afternoon so they can get a full story on what exactly happened,” she explained to her. Alex gave a slow moan and rolled back over to go back to sleep.
         It wasn’t until around noon when Mrs. Hanson went to go wake Alex up to bring her to the police station. It took every inch of strength in her body in order to get herself up and moving so she could try to help the police. Mrs. Hanson drove her there and when they arrived, there were already two policemen there to greet them.
         “Hello, Alex. My name is Howard. I’m the Sheriff here. How are you doing?”
         “I don’t know. How would you feel if this happened to you?’ she said sternly.
         “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t easy for you, but we can’t help you if you don’t help us,” the Sheriff said. 
         “Come on honey. Let’s go and get this over with,” Mrs. Hanson said to her. They followed the policemen into the station and into a small room with a table and three chairs.
         “Alex, you can just take a seat there. Mrs. Hanson, please wait outside until we’re finished,” said Howard. Alex sat down in the chair and stared blankly across the room, waiting for the questions to start coming. The other policeman sat down in the chair next to her and the Sheriff sat in the chair across from her.
         “This is how this is gonna work. Officer Jake here and I will be asking you to try to remember what exactly happened last night. So then what had you done before you came home?” Sheriff Howard said. It took Alex a few seconds to finally speak up about what happened the night before.
         “My parents had gone out that night and they told us they wouldn’t be back until about nine o’clock. So Tiff and I decided to go to the park to relax a bit and just hang out. We biked there. I fell asleep for a little bit until Tiff woke me up and warned me that we had better start heading back before mom and dad got back. So we started biking back at around eight thirty or so. We got home about five to ten minutes later,” she explained.
         “Okay. Good. What happened when you got home?” Howard asked.
         “Well, before Tiff opened the garage door I noticed that some lights were on in the house. I didn’t remember leaving any on when we left so I figured mom and dad were already home, but when she opened the garage the car was still gone. I felt like something wasn’t right and when we went inside we didn’t hear anyone. We called out to mom and dad to see if they were home, but there was no answer. I told Tiff to go look around on the floor that we were on and I was going to look upstairs. I went up the stairs and checked all the rooms, but I found nothing. And then I heard Tiff scream,” she started to tear up and stutter, “So I ran back down the stairs and into the living room where I saw him holding her by her mouth with a gun to her head,” she whimpered and looked down, tears streaming down her face.
         “You are doing very well, Alex. What did this man look like?” asked Officer Jake.
         She slowly looked back up, closed her eyes for a few seconds before she opened them again and said, “He had a scraggly beard that went up and around his mouth and chin and his eyes and hair were brown. He wore a dark blue flannel shirt and tucked into black jeans and his hair looked greasy.” She was surprised that she could remember what he looked like so vividly. It was getting harder for her to talk about it. It was as if she was reliving the whole night all over again. Her body began to tremble and rocked back and forth. She could no longer speak clearly. “I – I – I’m sorry. I can’t do this!” she was able to get up and ran out of the room. She ran past Mrs. Hanson and out of the station. She could hear people running after her and calling her name, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. Some kind of outside force seemed to be pushing her along. She was pushed all the way to the park where she and Tiff had been together just one night before. She found the spot where she had fallen asleep before and slowly walked toward it. Once she got there, she lay down and looked up to the sky, with her hands behind her head. Emotional and physical fatigue enveloped her and her eyelids became heavy until they finally closed.
         “HEY! Sleepy head! Wake up!” And Alex snapped up as a football hit her head.
         “What the..?” her voice sounded shocked. Her eyes looked around and there was Tiff, walking over to sit next to her. Alex was dumbstruck. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She looked around her. It was dusk; the sun was setting into beautiful colors of red, pink, blue, orange, and purple. Dogs were catching Frisbees; couples were eating chocolate covered strawberries.
         “What’s the matter Alex? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost. Did you have a bad dream or something?” asked Tiff, kneeling next to her sister.
         “Uh, yeah I guess. Whoa. I just have some extreme déjà vu right now,” Alex finally managed to say, a small fear sounded in her voice.
         “Do you want to tell me about it?”
         “No. Just forget about it. It was really crazy.”
         “Ok, if you’re sure. We had better start getting back to the house before mom and dad get back then.”
         “Yeah, you’re probably right. Let’s go.” And they started to bike back home. They got off their bikes once they were on their driveway and, once again, Alex noticed that there were some lights on inside the house still. She really hoped that her parents were home this time, but when Tiff had opened the garage door their parents’ car was still gone. Alex simply just stood motionless on the driveway, remembering everything that she had just experienced.
         “What’s wrong Alex? Come on,” Tiff urged her sister. It took a few minutes before Alex could make herself take her first step toward the house. She tried to think positively and that maybe it was all just a coincidence. She followed Tiff into the house and closed the door.
         “Mom? Dad? Are you home?” shouted Tiff throughout the house. There was no answer. Alex tensed up and took a deep breath. She decided that this was no coincidence.
         “Tiff, stay with me. Do not leave my sight. I have a really bad feeling about this,” she warned her sister.
         “Oh come on. What could possibly happen? I’m gonna go watch some TV in the living room,” Tiff said and started off toward the living room. 
         “No! Tiff, don’t!” Alex screamed and ran in front of Tiff just as she was about to step into the living room. Bang! Alex fell to the floor and found herself covering her chest. Blood had started to seep through her shirt at a rapid pace. She felt Tiff at her side immediately and heard her sobs. She looked into the living room and saw a man run quickly out of the house, looking alarmed. She looked back at her sister and then looked down at her wound, the pain now quickly taking control of her body. Her sister’s screams and cries became drowned out, though she knew that the screams were loud. With her head laid back, her eyes slowly closed and then slowly opened back up.
         “Tiff … get mom …” she breathed and then stopped.
         Sirens could be heard only minutes later, only they were minutes too late. Tiffany had called the police and her parents came home shortly after the police arrived. What they saw was a tormented sister, a pool of blood, and one very brave girl, a girl who sacrificed herself for her family. The police questioned Tiffany once she had calmed down a bit.
         “She was acting weird when I woke her up when we were at the park. She said she felt like she had déjà vu. I didn’t think anything of it and neither did she and then she got a strange feeling when we arrived at home again,” Tiffany whimpered and then sobbed out the rest of her story, “She tried to warn me not to go into the house, but I didn’t listen. I’m so sorry mom! I should’ve listened to her.” She fell into her mother’s frail arms and together they sobbed. They sobbed for a beloved daughter and a brave sister.