• She ran all throughout the neighborhood frantically searching for her mother. Her screams of desperation were never answered by her mother’s familiar reassuring voice. No, she was gone. Gone for good. As the child ran through the streets her active imagination began to run wild with the fears that she was once able to push to the deepest part of her mind, but they had grown stronger with every step. “MOTHER!!!!!!!!! WHERE ARE YOU?!” Her voice echoed in the dampened night. “MOTHER!!!!!!” She screamed louder, half expecting Abby’s soothing voice to light the darkened landscape and make the rain among everything else stop. “If only she popped up behind me.” The worried child thought as she constantly looked behind her to see if her mother’s outline might appear, so she would be able to once more embrace the warmth of her mom’s consoling hug.

    It was past midnight when Monica returned to her somber home. As she opened the door she braced herself against the door, a waiting the hellish yelling of her father. She heard nothing. No screams from her siblings, no heart wrenching yelps of agony from anything. Even the stairs didn’t creak from neglect. “This is odd…” She thought to herself a little bewildered. “Monica!!” A the shrilly voice of her three-year old sister cheered from behind her. “Sammy?” Monica said startled by the sudden joy she heard in her little sister’s voice. “Where is every one?” She asked Sam as she turned around to face her. “They’re gone.” Came a deep resounding voice, not one of a three-year old child. Monica turned to see her father covered in a blood-stained white overcoat with that wild-eyed look he always had. She hadn’t seen her sister, but in the place of her was a tape recorder. “…dad?” She asked cautiously, she feared he had done something with her brother Johnny and her poor sister Monica. “Yes, it is I, and now your next.” He seemed surprisingly calm. “Dad? What are planning on doing?” She asked as she backed away slowly. Her hand searching for the railing of the stairs. “Oh nothing. Or at least it’s not going to matter once it happens. After all you want the pain of me as your father to go away right?” He said still very calm but moving toward her as she inched away from him. His left hand started to raise up, in it he held a butcher knife. “Dad, I don’t want it to end like this.” She said once her hand had finally found the railing. “It feels wet, almost slimy.” Monica thought with a confused look on her face, she looked down to see what it was, it confirmed her fears. She saw her hand speckled with blood. She looked at the railing and saw it drenched with blood, and along side it in the dark she made out the distinct outline of her mother’s body draped over the railing. “Why hadn’t I noticed that before?” She thought to herself. “She was the easiest to kill.” He said motioning the knife toward Abby’s limp body. “Your mother was too easy, so I had to… ‘play’ with some one else.” “He’s so calm, so serious, but why would he want to kill me?” She thought to herself. “What of me?” She asked him curiously. “You? You, oh how your mother tried to protect you,” He replied nostalgically, remembering earlier years. “Your mother believed that you were to fulfill the prophecy. She told me that should I harm any one, be it any one but you.” As he said this, he dropped the knife absent mindedly. Noticing this, she asks with great care “So I’m to live?” “Yes you are to live, only if you are as your mother believed you are. Since I wish to be rich with gold, and other fine and fanciful things. You will become my wife.” He said starting to smile at his wonderfully amazing scheme. “And if I decide to not be wed by you?” Monica asked daringly. “If not, then you’ll wind up next to your dead mother’s grave. Between her and your dead little siblings.” He answered sadistically, giving way to a tiny smirk at his genius choice of words. “She must surely be scared now.” He thought to himself. Then she suddenly felt a warm hand grab her leg. “AAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!” Monica’s shriek of terror rang out all through the two story house. “Scaredja didn’t we Monica?” Asked a voice that seemed to come from below her. “Yes you guys did!” Monica said with a laugh, relieved that nothing bad had happened. Once her mother’s familiar voice hit her ears, her sister turned on the light. Then right after all four of her family screamed in unison “APRIL FOOLS!!!!!!!!!”