"Tre! Jordan!" The voice of a teenage girl echoes throughout the quiet neighborhood, her name is Kaz. She's lived a standard life with a normal family. One this particular day she was playing an eventful but tiring game of hide-and-seek with her three nephews. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted their names once more before continuing to look around.
In her peripheral the large outdoor playset was visible, smirking she thought to herself that must be where the mischievous boys were hiding from her. She searched every corner of the play set without finding them. This game was droning one much longer than she intended to, plus the sky was quickly turning from a bright orange to a vibrant pink.
Wrapping her arms around herself she shivered as the crisp October air danced and twirled its way around her form and brushed her hair out of her face. Kaz knew she had to use her secret strategy to find the boys, every group has a weak link and theirs was their three- year-old little brother Xavier.
"Xavier, I have something for you!" She called out confident it would lure the toddler to her.
"What is it Kaz?" he spoke clearly as he ran into her arms. Kaz grunted as she picked Xavier up and spun him a circle while giggling and chanting that she found him.
"Xavier, do you want to help me?" She whispered as if someone else was listening. Xavier nodded his head, giving a bashful smile showing off his dimples in his caramel skin. Xavier pointed in the direction of the forest just past the lake. Kaz ran her fingers through his tight curls and smiled at him.
"Thanks Zay-Zay! Now go inside, when I come back with your brothers and then we'll drink hot chocolate and watch a movie."
Xavier's eyes gleamed with happiness, "Moana!"
Kaz could only roll her eyes, they've seen that movie so many times he's memorized all the songs. She still agreed and got Xavier inside so she can get his brothers.
"Auntie, there's a scary man in there. Don't get hurt." With that Xavier ran inside.
She dashed into the forest to find not bothering to take the little boy's words seriously.
"Tre! Jordan! It's time to come home!" Kaz walked around almost frantically searching for her nephews. She came to an abrupt stop when a tree branch tangled itself into her curls. A small laugh followed by t=a crunch of leaves was heard in the distance. Kaz smiled thinking it was the oldest boy Tre, he loved it when she made a fool of herself. Finally freeing herself she slowly trotted to what she believed to be the source of the sound. Kaz quietly slinked around a tree and jumped around to the other side expecting to frighten two young boys but instead she scared a squirrel. Exhaling in a frustrated tone she looked up into the sky to see the sky was a bold purple.
She turned around to look in another spot only to bump face to chest with a damp, clothed figure. A face only a nightmare could conjure up, she let out a scream only to be hit with blackness.
Several footsteps were heard throughout the night with beams of light sweeping the forest floor.
"Kaz! Where are you?" Kaz's older cousin Marea called out her her.
Thud! Marea hit the ground and gasped when her air left her body from the collision. She turned her head and shone her flashlight onto what caused her to fall. A loud gasp that was quickly covered with her mouth, Marea noticed it wasn't a what what had tripped her, it was a who. To be more specific it was her little cousin's bleeding and bruised body. Marea scrambled to the motionless body that belonged to her cousin. Hot tears streamed down her face and Marea shook with every sob, each tear making its own puddle onto Kaz's face filled with bruises, gashes, twigs and leaves. With shaky hands Marea cupped her cousin's body against hers as she continued to cry until it turned into blood curdling screams of emotional agony feeling the blood from a stab wound to the abdomen spill onto her sweater. Against her she felt a subtle rise and fall from Kaz's chest showing she was alive, but just barely. She laid the body down and quickly pulled her phone out of her pocket dialing nine-one-one. She told the operator that she needed a police squad an ambulance as soon as they could get them there, she was tense and the man on the other end sensed it.
"Ma'am are you alright?" he questioned.
"Absolutely not, there's someone in these woods that attacked my cousin and-" she paused, she had lifted her flashlight and saw a figure she did not recognize as anyone she knew.
"Hello? Are you there?" the operator became worried how she stopped mid sentence.
"And he's right here." Marea croaked. The flashlight she weld doubled as a stun gun, so she kept her thumb lightly over the stun button in case the figure attempted to attack her.
"Don't worry, all units are two minutes away from your location. Please do not attempt to fight whoever is there and I recommend you leave immediately." he calmly spoke.
"No, I won't leave my cousin here. I'll stay here until someone else comes here." Marea sternly noted.
"Two minutes? I can kill you in that amount of time." The unknown man sprinted in her direction ready to attack. Marea used her lack of height to get low and dodge the attack ten, taze him in his knee caps to prevent him from walking. The male convulsed in pain as he tried to move.
Marea dragged Kaz's body as far out of the woods she could until she saw flashing red and blue lights. She laid her cousin down and ran to the officers to tell them about the man that tried to attack her and the paramedics about where her cousin's body laid. Upon a gourney and in the lights Marea saw just how gruesome Kaz's mangled body was. On her hands and down her arms there were gashes and stab marks as if she tried to defend herself, her face was covered in small and large scratches most likely from twigs if she fell and a weapon, so many bruises covered her body there was barely any unharmed skin left including her face which sustained a black eye and more bruising. She really put up a fight against whoever that was that attacked her. The worst part was her stomach where there was a gaping hole as if she was stabbed and someone shoved something larger into the wound to cause more pain. Unlike the deep crimson spilling out from the other abrasions blood flowing from her stomach was a deepend pink, as if something white mixed with the blood.
"We'll see you as soon as you wake up." Marea cried, she only got a gurgle and a cough filled with blood in response. The ambulance hauled Kaz away to have tests and emergency surgery done.