My eyes unmovingly stared at the ceiling. Thoughts rolled through my head on how I should react knowing my mother was going on one of her drunken rampages throughout the house. I was a floor above her, the second floor, and she was in the kitchen.

Shattering glass echoed up the stairway and into my bedroom. Another mess to clean in the morning.

"What did I ever do to him! Why can't he just come back!" Mother screamed and then tumbled.

My father had passed due to the shed catching fire. Nobody knows what had caused the shed to catch, but the police suspected it to be a tragic accident. After the incident my mother's health went down. She caused a scene at his gravesite and announced he was faking, and they were killing him by burying him alive. Ever since then she refused to take her anti-depressants and anti-psychotic medications prescribed by our doctor. Mother had told me the doctors were trying to control her and my father was murdered.

I don't know what to think.

"He's not dead! They're killing him! He's still alive!" Another glass hit the ground.

I wish something else had happened that night. That the accident hadn't occurred and he was still alive. In fact, I was there that night it happened. Two years ago, when I was seventeen years old. I remember my mother's screams...shrill, high-pitched, blood-curling screams...All the fire...the entire shed was engulfed by the deadly flame and my fathers charred body...

I closed my eyes tightly as my fingers curled into my hair so I couldn't relieve that terrible, life changing night.

"God Dammit! Gabriel! Please don't leave me!" My mother cried out as she fell to her knees in front of the fireplace. In her hand she held a box of matches. Her fingers clenched the box so tightly that it began to crumble. Tears streamed down mothers pink, puffy cheeks as she inhaled deeply and let out a scream of agony.

Quickly, without thought, I got up from my bed and locked my door. I didn't need to think about what I was doing because this was habitual now, knowing after mother had her episode she would then blame me.

And I was right...but...also wrong that night...

Mother did come up the stairs, however this time it was different. Deep breaths could be heard beyond the wood and her shadow casted beneath the door. She didn't say a word. Not a single word. Instead, I heard a sharp swipe and then a flicker. I stood, staring at the floor as I watched what was happening in front of me.

Mother began to erupt into laughter right before flames began to lick the doorframe and then burst as it ate up the wood.

My eyes widened in absolute terror and I fell backwards onto my floor, scrambling backwards until my back was pressed against the wall on the other side of the room.

"If...If they're going to take him away...then..." she giggled, " then we might as well join him!"

I could feel my heart sink when I fully understood the situation. "Mom!" I cried into a plea, "Put out the flame! You're going to kill us!" I frantically looked up to my bedroom window.

"They all say that he's dead! But I know better!" She yelled, "We'll be meeting with him shortly hunny!"

My lungs inhaled the smoke and I could feel myself suffocating. My body broke into a coughing fit as I struggled to unlock my window. I don't know when my window was finally open, but I unconsciously looked down from the height and jumped leaving my mother in the burning hell she caused and myself injured with nobody to help. I don't know what led up to this moment. Was there a way I could have helped mother? I'm not sure. But as I laid there on the ground, my ankle sprained, mother let out one last blood-curling scream that I'll never forget...

And then everything faded into darkness.