Chapter 3 Mia

• There was a smell of blood. Where was it coming from?I sniffed again, and then sniffed again, taking in huge amounts of air just to get to where was this coming from. Then my heart sank. Fear and dread settled in. This can’t be happening. Exhaling deeply, I looked at my house. The smell of blood was coming from my house. What was going on? Without a second thought, I ran towards the door, opening it with such a force that I banged it against the door. When I looked inside, I froze, directly in my line of vision, a few steps away from me. My father was lying on the ground with a pool of blood surrounding him. He was lying in a pool of blood. I started shaking. I did not know what to do. Taking a shaky step, I walked towards him. This can’t be him. It couldn’t be him. I would not believe it. I took one step after another, shaking, breathing heavily. My eyes wide open. As I took the last step and the living room came into full view, I turned to see my mother kneeling. Close to her were two people in black. I could not see their faces, therefore I did not know who they were. I couldn’t say anything, so I could only say in language, “Mom, what’s going on? I could not even call her name. “ I kept on using signs, “Mom”, with my sign language, but she was looking at the floor. She was not looking at me. She was looking at the corpose of my father just a few meters away from her. She looked lifeless, her her was disheveled, her lips were dry and her cheeks were puffy. She was either crying or someone had beat her up. However, this was an emergency and yet I could not scream her name.
• What was I going to do? And who were those people sitting next to her in dark cloaks? What did they want from us? Did they kill my father?
• “ Yo, your daughter is here. Why don’t you introduce us.” One of them suddenly said, I could hear them but it was a bit muffled.
• Finally, she looked up. Her eyes were filled with tears. She was crying. Her eyes were red and bloodshot. When she looked at me, she said, “Mia, Mia, where were you?!”
• “I was calling you the whole time, very worried about you. Where were you?” She screamed. For the first time in my entire life, my partial deafness was breached. My mom’s screams as she cried and yelled about how worried she was about me. I heard all of them. I heard every single one of them. I did not have to read her lips to see what she was saying to me. I could hear it very well, loud and clear. But I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t respond with an equally deafening scream and the same level of hysteria like I woshed too. I sign-languaged her, though.~ Mom, what is going on? Who are these guys? And is that dad? I-is he dead~
• She did not respond to any of my questions.
• “ Mia, run. Run and never look back. Take your sister with you and run. Run right now. Listen to mom, OK? Don’t look back. Run.”
• The people beside her started laughing.
• “ Aww, that’s not fair. We asked for an introduction but look at what you have done, you have scared the little kitty.” And one of them was like, “do you think a weak little girl like her can make it far? I love the chase anyway. I think we can give her a head start. Let’s deal with this old hag first.” And as they finished speaking, I saw wolf claws emerging from the nails of one of the two guys and suddenly they struck my mom. I opened my mouth to scream, but I nothing came out. Her blood splattered everywhere. Her eyes were still bloodshot. Staring at me, they revealed a shock from the attack, as well as sadness and regret. What was she regretting? Saying her last words, she coughed out blood one more time. “Mia, take your sister and go now,” she stuttered. And then her lifeless body plunged to the floor. That woke me up. Adrenaline surged through my body. I ran to the end of the passage to go up the stairs. But before I could even do that, one of the guys blocked my way. I fell to the ground and started shifting my body weight using my hands as he was in front of me, walking slowly but surely in front of me. I couldn’t call out my little sister’s name because, as you know, I’m mute, so I did not know what to do and how I was going to get to her. I tried using my powers and found that they were blocked. I was trying to teleport. And then the sinister guy in front of me laughed again.
• “Do you think we would come to a witch’s house without being prepared? Why do you think they’re both dead? None of them could use their powers to save themselves, let alone save their own children. So what makes you think you could use your power here, you bunch of traitors?” I looked at him with fear stricken eyes, and he laughed more and more and said, “I love that look in your eyes. You should have thought about it before you betrayed us. Who do you think you are? These witches nowadays are so cunning,” he said. I shook my head trying to tell him that we didn’t do anything. I don’t know what he was talking about, what betrayal? Why was he calling us traitors ? what had we done? But he didn’t even bother looking at me just kept walking one step at a time towards me as I was shrinking back each time he took a step. And suddenly, I was already at the door. I almost fell and rolled down the stairs as I touched the tip of the first step. And then I realized he was doing this on purpose. He was driving me out so that I couldn’t save my sister, and there was no other way for me to go into the house. I looked at him. He laughed. “Well, little girl, seems like your road ends here. What do you say? Give us a little chase. Everyone else in this house will be dead anyways, most of them are already dead. So don’t even think about saving your little sister. Now run. Do as your mother told you, run, and let’s see how far you’ll get.”
• Frightened, helpless, I stood up, almost fell, and then I ran. I ran into the woods. I ran without looking back. At the back of my mind the whole time was the thought that I’ll come back for my sister. I’ll come back for you. I’ll come back for you. I’ll come back for you. I’ll come back for you, Kayla. I’ll come back. I ran. I ran, and I ran. At one point, I couldn’t breathe anymore. My chest was tight and painful. I was gasping for air. I had to stop. Panting, I placed my hands on my knees as I bent down a bit just to catch my breath long enough. I did not know what to do. What was I supposed to do? What had just happened? My parents were dead. My sister was still in there,trapped. What was I supposed to do? I took out my phone immediately, and then I saw those missed calls again. Why didn’t I answer her? My mom called me five times earlier. I should have answered. Then it sank in. It was my fault. It was all my fault. They were killed because of me. If maybe I had answered the call, what if they were asking me for help? What if something was happening then, and I didn’t answer? It was all my fault. It was all on me. It was my fault. I killed my own parents. I destroyed my own family.