Fear and Grief.

That was all she remembered from that night: that wretched night that had ruined everything, changed everything. But then again, if she really started thinking back, she could remember the blood too; bright red against the beige tiles of the kitchen floor as it pooled there, and then a darker red when it had dried. She could also remember waking up in a cold sweat as was usual after one of her "dreams" to the sound of plates breaking and furniture being hurled across the room.

The dreams had stopped now. It had happened suddenly and without any obvious reason, but she was not complaining; those dreams had kept her awake for hours. Sometimes they didn't even allow her to go back to sleep. She would keep seeing the same thing behind her eyelids and it was so terrifying that going back to sleep was never an option. She kept seeing the cloaked figure with the hood pulled over its head, a knife dripping with blood clutched in its hand: a hand that ended with razor-sharp claws and was pale as death.

That night had been no different. She had had yet another dream and had woken up with beads of sweat clinging to her forehead and her heart hammering inside her chest. But this time instead of the silence that usually greeted her when she woke up in the middle of the night, she woke up to the sound of breaking glass and china. She remembered stumbling out of bed, the floor cold as ice under her feet. She had known something was wrong the moment she had opened his eyes, known that it wasn't just her parents arguing this time. This was something bigger.

She had rushed downstairs, nearly tripping over her own feet in the process. When she got downstairs, it had been too late. Her parents lay sprawled on the floor of the kitchen, and blood had pooled around their bodies. The gory sight had almost looked like a work of art, the unmoving bodies pale and prominent against the bright ruby red blood that surrounded them. She had looked on in utter horror and shock as the blood continued to drain out of the bodies. She might have stood there for hours, transfixed and frozen in fear had her attention not been captured by the sight that greeted her when she looked towards the kitchen doorway. She blinked, as if that would erase the image of her parents lying dead surrounded by their own blood from her mind. It took her breath away and caused a chill of fear to run down her spine; fear that returned whenever she thought about that fateful night.

There had been a figure standing there and it was definitely not human. She remembered the pointed ears, and eyes that looked like they belonged to a cat, shinning bright green under the light of the fluorescent light. She remembered gazing into them and feeling as if they were looking right through her. His mouth had been drawn into a cold sneer and when he noticed her looking back at him, it had curled into the cruelest grin that she had ever seen. And she had known; known right then that this person, whoever he was had murdered her parents.

She had called out, her voice suddenly louder than she ever remembered it being. Her blood had been rushing through her veins at the speed of light and he wanted nothing more than to have her hands around the throat of her parents' murderer. However, the stranger had merely lifted a pale hand in farewell and had then vanished right before her eyes.

Several hours later, there had been a knock on the door and it had taken her a couple of minutes to get her wits together to stumble across the living room and to the front door. It had been old Mrs Watson from next door, and when she asked where her parents were, she had looked her right in the eye and said, "They're dead." She still remembered the hollowness that she had felt in her chest at that moment; as if someone had ripped her heart out and left a gaping hole in its wake; a hole that might never be filled again. She remembered the bone-chilling numbness she had felt as Mrs Watson's eyes widened and her mouth fell open. She had taken several deep breaths before speaking again, and had been the one to call the ambulance even though she had stood there shaking her head and had told her over and over that the people she had lived next door to for over ten years were now dead.

The ambulance had come, its sirens wailing and blue and red lights flashing in the distance. The paramedics had taken one look at the bodies and confirmed what she already knew. Her parents had been murdered at the hands of someone else. When the police showed up, she had met them out in the street and they had declared the house a crime scene and put yellow tape all around the front door. She had resisted the urge to tell them that nobody living in the neighborhood would care enough to even come close to the house, so the tape was really not necessary. Everyone living on that street was either too old or too busy to care about two people who had never bothered to know them. Mrs Watson was an exception.

When they asked her to come to the station to answer some questions, she had agreed mostly because she had no intentions of going back into that house; where the metallic smell of blood still seemed to be hanging in the air, and it was not like she had anywhere else to go. As far as she knew, she did not have any other family member in the country. Her parents had always avoided talking about them and she had never asked why.

As soon as they had asked her if she had seen anyone enter the house, she had blurted it all out; how she had seen a strange man who wasn't entirely human, and how he had vanished into thin air. She had told them that she was sure that the man was responsible for his parents' deaths. But they had not believed a word, dismissing her arguments as that of a distressed child who had quite possibly been seeing things that weren't actually there after seeing her parents lying dead in front of her. This sort of thing was common among kids who had had a traumatic experience, they had explained with pity in their eyes.

After searching the house from top to bottom and finding nothing, the cops had lost interest in the case. They had looked through their records and found no living relatives of Mark and Anna Branks and that was how she ended up in foster care the next week.

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A/N
Okay so this is my first time writing something like this so please let me know if it's good! I'll try to update soon :)
P.S. I might change the name of the story if i think of a better one. Oh and i know the cover sucks so if anyone wants to make me one please do it. I'd really appreciate that.