I stood there, hands stained with crimson red blood, blood of an innocent life. I felt the tears streaming down my face, the wet streams leaving a dry feeling to the skin they touched. I wasn’t crying though, because I was in complete shock of the sight that lay in front of me, tears were only escaping from my eyes.

There she was, lying as still as a mannequin. Her pale skin started turning pale blue and her eyes were lifeless, unable to see the soul that once lingered in her body. The once lively and shinny sky blue was now haunting to look at. Her sunny blonde hair now has blood streaks from the slit on her throat, now starting to crust to a scarlet red at the edges but, some blood still spilled and teared down her neck. The knife beside her is gleaming from the ceiling light and the garnet red blood shone brightly and sinisterly.

Right beside my dead mother I still stood. I could hear the sirens in the background, coming towards my house, getting louder and louder as they advanced. My step-father was crying on the bed, terribly upset. He wasn’t in as much shock as I was, but I was only six years old.

Then, I began to feel light headed and I fell to the ground, only remembering my step-father, Adam, cradling me in his arms, a worried look on his face, before my eyes closed to darkness.

I opened my eyes from my haunting memory that occurred only three days ago and looked at the abyss black, glossy coffin at the front of the room. My step-uncle, uncle Gary - in his black suit, red dress shirt and black tie, his face pale against his dark brown hair and chocolate colored eyes - was speaking about my mother, with a beautiful picture of her on a table by the closed coffin. Adam held me under his arm as tears suddenly started to fall down my cheeks. He rubbed my upper right arm in comfort.

After uncle Gary spoke, we all went to another room filled with black suits and clothes. There was food in many different arrangements, and drinks of different colors. There’s crackers, salad of some sort, chicken, potatoes and carrots with celery that are chopped in thin slices around a bowl of dip. There’s a range of brown pop with different labels and some expensive wine, even some beer.

Everyone laughed and cried as they talked amongst each other. I sat down on the large, white arm chair and stared at everyone as they would come up to Adam, saying how sorry they were and hugging him or shaking his hand. The occasional person would come up to me and kiss my forehead and hug me tightly, saying how tough it must be for me to be here.

I forced myself not to cry. Breathing deeply to keep myself calm, even though my throat was raw and sore from crying earlier. My eyes were feeling swollen and they stung from the air around me. I constantly blinked, and teared from the dryness of my eyes, not the fact that I want to cry from sadness. This made even more people come over and hug me.

Adam noticed I was looking tired and miserable. He came over to me and placed his hand on my shoulder. He smiled at me and then ran his hand over my hair.

“We will go home soon. Can you handle just twenty more minutes?” asked Adam, trying his hardest to smile at me, but failed.

I nodded my head, then he gave me a kiss on the forehead and went back to the table to keep talking to people.

When he was finished, we left after paying everyone who was in service, then drove home. For the whole drive home I just daydreamed of how different my life would be, now that my mother is gone and I only have Adam. I watched the trees whip by and felt kind of sad to be a human. If I was a tree or plant, I wouldn’t know who my parents were and I would only have to live through life ‘till someone came around and either took me from my place, out of the ground, or I died from withering away.

I sighed and Adam parked the car on the gray asphalt of our driveway. I got out of the car and as Adam went to the front door and started to fumble with the keys to open the house, I got the urge to get away. If only for a few minutes, I just needed to get away.

I turned towards a street that only my mother and I knew, remembering my favorite park’s down there. I started running with Adam still concentrated on his keys. I made it more than half way to the park, running past many houses that looked eerily familiar, when I heard Adam yelling at me. When I made it to the back entrance to that park that my mother and I only knew, I had to run through a forest.

As I ran through, the trees seemed to be large and dark, towering over me. Their branches were reaching out like they wanted to grab me, causing fear to consume my mind and make my heart beat faster. I ran faster and closed my eyes, feeling the wind pass by me as I made my way to the park. When I opened my eyes, I saw the park I had been trying to get to.

The greenish yellow grass was cut short and smelt sweet as though it was just cut. The trees and bushes surrounding the area were brushing together, whooshing in the small and warm beginning-of-August breeze.

There is a white gazebo with some bushes surrounding the areas that you can’t enter in and vines swirling up the pillars that held up the bottom-of-a-cone shape roof. There is also a small play-structure that consists of a slide, tunnel, monkey bars, a board ladder, tire ladder and a ramp in a large sand box. Beside it is two swings and a tire swing in a separate sand box.

I walked over to the gazebo, feeling how heavy my feet felt and hoping, no, pleading that Adam wasn’t anywhere close to me so I can just be alone. I need to think, I’m not myself right now, whether I know who myself even is or not.

I walked onto the empty gazebo and sat down on one of the white, stone benches. I put my face in my hands and I started to cry. I felt so lost, so alone, so dead. I just felt like I had nothing left in life, my mother and father died, along with all of their family. Even though their families were very small, consisting of one true uncle and aunt on my mother’s side and no grandparents or cousins, second cousins, et cetera.

“Why are you crying?” asked a worried, male voice.

I looked up from my doused hands and saw a boy, about my age, maybe a year older or younger. His ash blond hair is straight and messy and his pure hazel eyes, like topaz, were filled with worry and curiosity. He is wearing a plain blue t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of black runners. While I am still wearing the black, short sleeve dress that reached right under my knees with a pair of black dress shoes with a strap above the closed toe that I wore to the funeral.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, moving some of my brown hair from my face and tucking it behind my ear while my eye-of-the-peacock-green eyes were staring into his dazzling hazel eyes.

“I-I.” I stammered, trying to find the words in my head.

He sat down beside me and looked at me patiently. “Yes?”

“I just came from my mother’s funeral.” I whispered, feeling the tears at the bottom of my throat, wanting to escape.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? It’s not like you murdered her.”

“Well, I’m not sorry really. I feel bad for you.”

“I don’t want you to feel bad. I don’t even know you.”

“My name is Ryan. What’s yours?” he asked, putting out his hand and smiling warmly.

“My name is Maddie.” I said, taking his hand in mine and shaking it lightly.

“It’s nice to meet you Maddie.” he replied.

“You too Ryan.”

“See, now we know each other.” he stated while grinning.

“Ryan!” yelled a female voice from across the park.

His head darted to the right and looked at an average woman, probably in her thirties. Her blond, curly hair was in a slightly longer style than a bob and her blue eyes were searching around the park. Her pink t-shirt was bright against her tanned skin and her black capris with white sandals.

“I’ve got to go. But, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. You wanna come here after lunch?” asked Ryan kindly.

“Er, sure. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I replied.

“Yep! Bye Maddie.”

“Bye Ryan.”

He waved and I waved back, smiling to myself, as he ran over to his mother. Then, my smile soon disappeared when I saw Adam walking over to me with his pale lips in a straight line. His black hair has twigs in it and his black suit looked like some dried, crusted mud was covering certain spots.

When he was beside me, his dark brown, almost black eyes, were consumed with anger and worry.

“Why did you runaway like that?” he asked, trying to be calm.

“I’m sorry. I just needed to be alone.”

“And you couldn’t have done that in the house?”

“No.”

He sighed. “Come home. I was worried sick.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

We walked home in silence, probably beginning an awkward relationship between each other for the rest of our lives.