PROLOGUE:
❝ if you want blood ❞

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

IT was early. So early, that the sky was still black as pitch and dotted with minuscule stars.  The street lights were on, as the sun had not even begun to touch the horizon. A small neighborhood sat quietly in the dark, the residents of such houses still nestled in their beds, asleep. Their homes all looked the same from the street: tidy, with trimmed lawns and white picket fences, everything bathed in silver under the moon.

A tall, two story house sat at the end of the street. All the lights were out, except for one. In the upstairs master bedroom, came the faint glow of a late-night television program.

Sarah and James Hill laid side by side in their bed, though their backs faced each other like they were still fighting in their sleep. The pair made a lovely couple...but only when they could agree on something for once. The argument was something lost to the night now, as neither one of them would remember it in the morning. Beside the bed, an alarm clock read 2:56 AM in blaring, red letters. Sarah didn't get up for work for several more hours, but just as the last number turned from 6 to 7, she was awake. Her eyes snapped open, the way they would had someone yelled in her ear or shaken her awake, neither of which had occurred. Sarah stared at a dark bedroom ceiling, then at the tauntingly bright alarm clock at her side.

2:57 AM. Great.

She rolled over and closed her eyes again, expecting to be able to slip back to sleep at such an early hour. But, she didn't. In fact, she was suddenly aware of how awake she was.
At the foot end of the bed, on top of the dresser, a the TV was still on. A nature documentary about lions was playing, but the volume was turned down, so Sarah couldn't make out what was being said. She could only catch glimpses of the subtitles at the bottom of the screen.

[ As daylight fades and turns to dusk, the grassland comes to life once more. Some animals seek shelter from the night, while others find opportunity in the darkness, such as this pride of lions. They are hungry, and must hunt and eat soon. They follow... ]

James rolled over onto his back beside her just as the camera panned to a family of gazelle grazing nervously in the dark. Sarah looked away from the TV, thinking perhaps he had been awoken too, but snores suggested otherwise. She envied him for being such a sound sleeper, when she was not. Furthermore, he was hogging all of the blankets, cocooned selfishly to one side of the bed. Nice. Sarah grunted as she tugged a large  portion of the quilt back over her body and turned over to return to sleep.

However, something else roused her.

It was a sound, reminiscent of quiet footsteps against creaky floorboards. The house was old and the flooring had yet to be replaced, so it was easy to tell when someone was walking around when they shouldn't. The footsteps slowed at the bedroom door to a tip-toe, before scurrying like a mouse to the next door. Despite the hour, Sarah drew the covers back and slid her feet into a pair of slippers that were laid out beside the bed. There was a chill in the air tonight, so she snagged a blanket from the footboard and wrapped it around her bare arms as she slipped into the hall.

The house looked duller in the dark, shades of gray and black hiding the robin's egg blue paint and everything else hanging on the walls. Without the light of the TV, everything appeared much darker, so Sarah stood for several seconds, blinking rapidly, until her eyes were able to adjust. She looked right, then left, then right again, finding herself standing alone. It was quiet, perhaps quieter than it had been in the bedroom, even with the TV turned down. But it wasn't silent. Outside, crickets chirped and gentle winds brushed the side of the house with sleepy fingers; the windows creaked, as if the place were sighing. Most people would have found it creepy, but Sarah didn't. In fact, she found it soothing.

Footsteps creaked from one end of the hall.

Sarah and James Hill had a daughter. Cassidy. Her bedroom was the last room at the end of the hall, where the footsteps had faded to. She was 5, or would be, as of that evening. Sarah thought perhaps she was already up, looking for birthday presents hidden around the house, while her parents both slept. Willful child, per usual.

"Cass, honey, you should be asleep."

No response. Only an empty hall and a pregnant silence. Then, something moved. Sarah could have sworn she saw a shadow twitch out of the corner of her eye, slipping out from under the window at the end of the hall, but when she turned her head, it had disappeared into Cassidy's open bedroom door. She relaxed, smiling.

"Cassidy Louise, you better be in bed," Sarah called. There was no anger in her voice, only humor at the thought of her 4 year old trying to pull a fast one on her mother.

She reached her daughter's bedroom door and pushed it open from a crack. It was more well lit than the hall, illuminated by a wall plug in that decorated the room with pink stars. Like most children her age, Cassidy didn't have a set idea of the things she liked. She enjoyed most things that little kids did, princesses, dinosaurs, cars, barnyard animals, but they were often in phases. One day she wanted to have tea parties and wear dresses, and the next she would be wearing a plastic coat hanger on her hand and could only be addressed as Captain Hook from Peter Pan. Despite all of that, her one favorite interest was outer space. Cassidy could never get enough. She soaked up as much information as she could about galaxies and nebulae, begged her father night after night to read her stories about far off planets and astronauts on the moon. Her room was furnished with all sorts of outer space themed decorations and toys, her favorite being a spangly mobile that hung over her bed. It had the stars and a crescent moon, which sparkled in the gleam of her nightlight. The mobile danced in a light breeze from the window, which Sarah realized with a start had been left open. She quickly crossed the room to close it.

A small child-shaped mass was huddled under the blankets. It made no movement as Sarah crossed the room, likely pretending to be asleep to avoid getting in trouble. She stifled a laugh, instead finding a straight face as she sat at the edge of the bed, gathered in a blanket of her own.

"I know you're not asleep," She said to her daughter's still form. "What have I told you about getting up at night?"

Silence greeted her once more. If Cassidy heard her, she made no effort to show it, only kept her blankets pulled well over her head. Not even a hair peeked out. Sarah was surprised and impressed; normally she didn't keep up the rouse this long. "Cass, that's enough. You know the rules."

When there was still no response, Sarah wondered if her daughter might actually be asleep and was indeed, not faking. However, her daughter usually wasn't a sound sleeper, like James, so it was strange that none of her words or sounds had woken her up. Sarah, despite her best intentions, drew back the covers to get a look at her daughter's face.
The bed was empty. The shape that she had previously mistaken for her child was a few balled up pillows that had been shoved under the blankets, not her daughter. Sarah drew back, confused and alarmed. The rest of the room was empty, so where was Cassidy?

"Mommy?"

A little girl's voice floated faintly from outside the room. Abandoning the lump of pillows, Sarah got to her feet and hurried towards the door. When she peered out into the hall, she found Cassidy standing at the opposite end near the stairs. She was still in her nightgown and rubbing her face tiredly, digging the palms of her hands into her eyes. A blue stuffed bear hung from her arm—Neil, the resident astronaut of the house and her daughter's favorite toy. Sarah heaved an exasperated sigh and walked towards her.

"What are you doing out here, huh? I thought you were in bed," She said, bending down to her daughter's height.

Cassidy gave a little shrug and reached out for her mother, expecting to be picked up. With a few careful movements, Sarah had lifted her off the ground and situated her against her hip. Cassidy wrapped her arms around her mother's neck and laid her head down, wearily.

"They woke me up," Cassidy yawned, tucking her chin against her mother's neck. A crease formed between Sarah's brows.

"Who did?"

An odd smell drifted into the hall, reminiscent of rotten eggs. It was just as quiet as it had been earlier, but the silence no longer felt inviting. Rather, it felt hostile, cold. Goosebumps ran up Sarah's neck, across her arms and down her legs. Cassidy picked her head up long enough to stare at something behind them both. She pointed at something unseen.

"They did."

Slowly, Sarah turned her head. In the sliver of light from the main bedroom, something wicked grinned at her from the shadows, all teeth and eyes and sharp anticipation, like a predator lying in wait. The tenebrosity was broken by the sound of something wet splattering to the floor and some small object rolling across the hardwood to her feet. It bumped her toe and Sarah realized, nauseously, that it was her husband's wedding ring, speckled in blood.

The night swallowed her whole before she could scream.

In the bedroom, the red letters of the alarm clock flipped from 2:59 AM to 3:00. Beyond the empty bed, the hushed voice of the nature documentarian narrated the movements of a lioness as it prowled through the grasses. The body of a young antelope dangled from its jaws. Even in the night vision of the camera, it was easy to see the dark blood that stained the animal's fur.

[ In the end, the gazelle is no match for the predator's raw strength and power. The chase has paid off and the lioness will feed, keeping her alive to see another day. ]

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

Flashing red and blue lights lit up a drive at the end of a quiet suburb. A small group of people donned in bathrobes and slippers had gathered behind yellow police tape, whispering and theorizing about the presence of the police. A lone officer directed traffic past the house, detouring cars to an adjacent road and away from the emergency. Many drove slowly just to ogle at the scene. A black Chevy Impala slowed to a roll to join the remaining traffic. As it came upon the police officer, the passenger, the younger of the two, rolled the window down and leaned his head out to talk.

"Everything okay, officer?" He asked. gesturing to the scene. The man in the drivers' seat ducked his head to look at the house, which looked gloomy behind the police tape and lights.

The officer grunted. "That's not exactly any of your business, is it? Keep a move on."

The passenger was quick. He reached into his pocket to retrieve a badge, which he promptly flashed to the cop: Colorado State Police. Commanders, more specifically. Just as quickly as the badge had appeared, it disappeared back into the depths of the car in a flash of black and gold, but that's all that was needed. The officer blinked, before clearing his throat.

"You make quick work," he commented. He nodded towards the house. "It's a mess. Breaking and entering, attempted double homicide, kidnapping—"

"Kidnapping?" The driver interrupted, sounding surprised.

"Yup. Sick bastard breaks in, carves up the parents and leaves 'em for dead, then kidnaps the kid." The cop rubbed his beard, almost pensively. "A little girl, I heard. Poor tyke."

The younger man nodded in acknowledgement. He shared a glance with the driver, a knowing look passing between the pair. But whatever it was, it passed in an instant. The cop didn't seem to notice, rather gazing over the hood of the Impala at the line of cars forming down the road.

"Thanks," the passenger said. The cop nodded and waved them through.

As the Impala rolled away from the curb, it slowed long enough for the pair to peer beyond the gaggle of onlookers and police cruisers gathered out front. There wasn't much to look at; the two-story building appeared completely normal with the exception of all the commotion outside. However, as the car turned to follow the detour, the younger man spotted something laying on the front lawn.

A blue, stuffed bear—a child's toy—stained red with blood.