She proceeded to brush her teeth and rinse with mouthwash about four times, then hurried to finish making dinner. Although she was a good cook, Tavia didn’t join her Father and brothers for dinner that night. She sat on her bed in her cotton Mickey Mouse pajamas flipping through an old photo album with pictures from back when her Mother was still alive. “I miss you, Mom” she whispered, as her eyes welled up with warm, salty tears that would soon be running down her angelic face. “You would have never let any of this happen to me”.
Tavia’s Mother had died in a horrific car accident not even a year ago. She found it ironic that her Father now drank so much, since it was a drunk driver that hit her Mother’s vehicle head on and left her in critical condition. She died in the hospital two days after being admitted, and it was only a matter of a couple months before her Father got heavily into the drinking, and everything went straight to hell. Tavia looked down at a picture of her on her fifth birthday, with her Mother smiling happily at her as she blew out the candles on her princess cake. What she wouldn’t give to turn back the clock and stop her Mother from going out that fatal night.
She tucked the photo album back into the drawer at the top of the nightstand beside her bed. She flipped the lightswitch, but she found the dark very unsettling ever since the stuff with her Father and brothers started, so she kept a little lamp on the nightstand on while she slept. She crawled under her warm duvet, which was the only comforting embrace she had these days. Her room smelt like lavender thanks to a candle she’d been burning earlier, and it was a matter of minutes before she drifted off into a deep, peaceful sleep.
She awoke suddenly in the middle of the night, noticing that the room had seemed to fill with an eerie feeling. The second thing she noticed was that it was pitch black; someone had come into her room and turned her lamp off. She quickly sat up and could make out a figure in the dark. The size of the figure automatically clued her into the fact it was none other than her Father. “F…Father?” she sputtered, the hair on her arms standing straight up with her sense of fear and panic. He Father just stood in the middle of the room, motionless and completely silent. “Father, why are you in my room?”, she tried to hide the shakiness in her voice. Finally she decided to turn on her lamp.
She gasped in horror at what she saw; her Father’s face and clothes were covered in blood, and a large kitchen knife in his hand gleamed in the low light. “Father, what happened?” she cried, her jaw hanging down to the bed and her body frozen in sheer terror. “You’re all the same” he mumbled. “Tonight was a bad night for that crap”. “What are you talking about? Where are Brad and Keegan?”, so many panicked questions muddled her train of thought. “You kids don’t respect your Mother and I, and I just can’t tolerate that kind of disobedience in our house anymore”. Had he lost his fucking mind? Maybe he had drank himself into some kind of halucinative state? “Father, Mother’s dead” Tavia squeaked, avoiding making eye contact with the madman. “THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT YOUR BROTHERS SAID, AND NOW LOOK WHERE THEY ARE!” he roared, and her entire body jumped at his enraged reaction.
The room suddenly became completely silent except for her Father’s hoarse breathing. His whole body heaved with every breath that he took, a sure sign that he was worn out from some kind of physical exertion. Tavia’s imagination was running wild with thoughts of what had caused her Father to be so worn out, and his choice of words plus all the blood equalled a pretty terrifying picture in her head. She finally decided that one of them needed to say something, the past ten seconds feeling like an eternity in the uneasy quietness of the room. “You should go to bed, Daddy. It’s late and you work tomorrow”. “DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!” he snapped back at her, his eyes beginning to dart back and forth rapidly due to his paranoia. “No….no…I have to fix this. You kids need to learn your lesson. To learn to respect and obey me…”. His voice trailed off, and Tavia was so afraid for her life that she still couldn’t move a muscle. He slowly started making his way over to her bed. “Daddy, what are you doing?” she gasped. “You need to learn your lesson” he repeated with a sneer. He raised the knife above his head and her blood curdling scream rang throughout the soulless house.
To be continued…
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