A/N: So hey guys, this is gonna be quick - I hope -. I was really inspired the other day so I wrote this. The original intention was to make it a chapter-story with an awesome title and a perfect ending and all that kind of things. Now, I'm really like really in love with how this part turned out being. I mean, I'm not a fan of what I write, it's almost always mediocre and lame, but I really liked this and I thought that if I kept writing or adding a title and all that I'd fuck this up. So here it is. Tell me if you like it maybe? Or tell me that is shit so I end up being right. So that's it -longer than I thought-

Prologue

"Mom, Julie, I'm home!" Frank said as soon as he opened the door.

He thought it was strange that all the lights were off, since it was a Wednesday night and he knew his sister had her favorite show tonight.

Overall, he had had a bad feeling since he woke up and his alarm hadn't gone off, so he was already late for two of his classes. Apart from the extremely bad mood that it had created, his alarm never failed before. It was bad.

The lady of the diner in front of his work, who made the best sandwiches ever, was sick, apparently, so they had replaced with a new dude who couldn't even distinguish which was mayonnaise and which mustard. It was pathetic. So he started his work day already pissed off.

It seemed that today was the worst day ever, everything seemed to be planned to upset him. The printer had broken off and a virus had gotten into their computers. Plus, it started to rain on his way home. Halfway there, there was a crash, two people were harmed and one of the vehicles was no useless, there's no way that the damage caused by the accident would be fixed. That let him struck in the street for more than an hour. He was hungry and pissed off and he doubted that his sister had remembered to feed the dog.

When he was taking the last turn to his home, he almost crashed too. It was dark and an idiot had parked his car in the very end of the street, so if you were driving a little too close to the sidewalk, you would crash. Luckily for him, first time in the day that he could avoid it.

He was just so upset and pissed off that they, than even after he swore at the driver, who was still sitting in the car, didn't understand the fact that there was actually someone there in the car, apparently waiting for someone else.

So when he finally could park in front of their home, it seemed weird that no lights were on. Even if his sister's show was already done, then she would be reading or doing some shit with her computer upstairs.

After his father had died, his mother had to support the whole family and take care of her husband business. So during the day, she worked from home in the afternoons, slept a few hours and she left to work at the hospital at 8 pm. She worked as a nurse there with the nightshift. With his father's business it was more than enough for them to live, but working at the hospital was what his mother always wanted, it was what she studied for and what she lived for, to help people. It was one thing that kept her sane after the funeral.

Today, however, was her day off. She was supposed to be home with Julie. And him, if everything hadn't gone against him during the day, causing him to get home two hours later. They usually liked to play cards or some board game during this nights with homemade cookies and coffee that his mother would spend the afternoon cooking.

But none of them answered when he called. That was more than strange, it was worrying. His mother had a really light sleep and she'd always listen whenever they'd call during the night.

As children, all it'd take was a small "Mom, come here, please" and she'd be there for them. It didn't matter if they had nightmares, or they were sick or they wanted a glass of milk in the middle of the night, their mom would be there for them.

"Mom, where are you? Julie!" he called again, with no answer, just like before. He started walking again through his living room, all the lights were off but just when he was about to press the light button, he heard a noise upstairs. Something that he was not used to hearing at home, it was like a bump he had never heard before. It was not like his dog jumping from the bed, or his sister throwing things at the wall for some teenage problems or his mom hitting a chair while cleaning causing it to fall down. No. It was something different.

And then something clicked in his head. His dog. Zack. He was the first one, every day, to come running to him, no matter where he was, he'd always come to greet him when he got back from work. It didn't matter for him if he was eating or playing with Julie or being caressed by his mother. He'd always be the first one to come running to the front door and jump to him, throwing Frank to the floor and licking all over his face with his extremely big tongue. For some people that was simply gross, but for him, it was one of the best displays of love that his dog could make.

Zack had been the only permanent thing since his father had passed away. He could swear that his dog was the most intelligent creature in the world. A few days before his father's death, the dog wouldn't move from the bed side. He already knew what was going to happen and he was the one that stuck there all the time. Cancer had taken the best of his family and his dog was always there for him when he needed it.

He only noticed when his mom or his sister cried when Zack made his way to their rooms, jumped a little and opened the door. The next day, he would find the dog lying in the bed beside her mom or he would come into his sister's room only to find the dog lying on the floor with Julie's head on him. That poor creature was what kept everything in place, or at least tried. Those were hard times for all of them and Zack noticed that and did all he could to make it better.

But when he didn't come to greet him that was when Frank got paranoid. One thing was his sister and his mother, but the dog would always come. There was no way that his labrador wouldn't come to him as soon as he got home.

He took his mobile phone from his jean's pocket, carefully not to make any noise and he tried to lighten his way through the house.

And he wished he hadn't.

A few meters away from him, at the end of the stairs over a big puddle of blood, was Zack, lying on the floor with his once loving eyes still opened. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Who would be so heartless to do that to a poor animal? To a dog that the only thing that he did was give love to everyone around him?

The tiredness was getting the best of him, along with his ability to think fast. If his dog was there, then that meant that… No. He couldn't think of that. That never happened. He forbade himself to let that thought cross his mind. He had to remain calm.

As he got closer to his now dead dog, he could see foot marks on the stairs. Foot marks made with Zack's blood. Whoever son of a bitch did this, he was going to pay.

As quietly as he could, he followed the steps upstairs. Seeing the blood there made him sick. He couldn't help the need of throwing up in any minute, but he managed to put himself together.

Once he got to the top of the stairs, he faced the corridor that lead to their three rooms and the bathroom. The first one on his right was his parents' room.

He leant down a bit so he could look through the key hole. No. There was no light inside. It was almost safe to go in there. His parents' room always meant that. Safety. They could run there whether they had a nightmare, or if there was a monster inside their closet or even if a horror movie had scared them away.

He opened the door carefully trying not to make any noise. He took his phone again to see something. Here it was darker than everywhere else.

He didn't remember his mother using white sheets in a long time. More specifically, since his dad died. She had always hated the color white. It reminded her too much of her job. Even though she loved what she did, Linda Iero hated to bring his job back home. She didn't want her children to know everything about a world where everything was illnesses and death and most of those happened over white sheets. She had always associated white with hospitals and that was the main reason why no wall or furniture of their house was that color. Especially not her bedroom.

Frank thought it was safe enough to close the door and turn on the lights. He had to see this. He only knew that those were white sheets because in school he had learnt that red was never read over a surface of any color… except white.

His mother was lying on her bed. The pillows all scattered through the floor along with pieces of the lamps she had in one corner of the room. Her dead body was all sprawled over the mattress with her eyes opened and empty of all the light and life they once had.

He couldn't even cry. It was so disgusting to see what someone had done to her that he couldn't even think of crying. It seemed something stupid to do. His mind was running with horrible thoughts but still not understanding fully what was happening.

It was just like the day his father had died. He knew it was going to happen sooner or later, the doctors said it all the time. He hated seeing his father suffer so much from this bed but in the end, he knew that it was going to be better for him once he died. He wouldn't be in so much pain. But even with those thoughts on mind, when the day finally came, he couldn't understand what was happening.

It wasn't after they buried him and got home that he got a glimpse of what happened. When he went through the corridor and the opened door showed an empty bedroom, he got it. His father was gone. There was not going to be more talks about football and they weren't going to watch together the races on TV and they wouldn't make any jokes to his mother together never again. And that thought was the one that brought him to tears for over six weeks.

He understood partially what was happening. He knew that his mother was not breathing anymore and that her heart was not going to beat ever again. He knew it.

But he still needed time to get what was actually going on in that room. His mother was naked over the bed. He could tell that not because he could see his mother's private parts, but because he couldn't distinguish any other piece of fabric over her body.

And well, body was a way to describe it. What was lying on that bed wasn't a body, not anymore. It was a pile of flesh and bones and blood sprawled over the white sheets. She had been mutilated up to the point where he could say it was his mother because her hair was still intact. Her black hair was something that he could not mistake. Her fingers where all cut off from her hands so were her ears.

He felt like he was going to throw up but he didn't. He couldn't imagine someone who had the guts not only to see this but to do it. To kill someone and then start mutilating the dead body over and over again until there was nothing recognizable from it.

Blood was everywhere, but he realized that it was not done just because. He noticed how everything seemed to be in a specific place in the room and that made him even sicker. It was almost as if it was something artistic. The blood on the floor seemed to be arranged, like if the sick maniac who did this had brought a brush with him so he could paint with blood. The mere thought made him want to vomit again. It was not some random painting, it was blood. His mother's blood. It was his mother who was there in her very own bed, lying dead. He could never let his little sister see this. She would die from sadness and repulsion. It was enough for her seeing his father die eight months ago, she didn't need to see this too.

Suddenly it clicked in his mind. Julie didn't answer either when he called. Oh no, Julie. He thought. As fast as he could, without making any noise, he turned off the light mumbling a soft "Sorry, mum. I'll always love you" and opened the door, without looking again at the dead body on the bed.

He started walking on the corridor again. There were three rooms left: the next one was his, but he didn't bother opening it, he knew that his sister wouldn't be there. The next one was the bathroom and the last one was Julie's. He decided for the last one. If his mother was in her room, then, following this maniac line of thought, Julie must be in her room too. When he opened the door, the light was on already, but there was nothing weird in it, except for the fact that it must have been turned on when he was already in the house, because room because from the outside he saw that it was off.

Her bedroom was just as he remembered it. Two walls painted with a bright green and the remaining two where of a pale purple color. Everything was so colorful in there that he couldn't even think of his sister being dead. No matter where she was, it was something that he didn't want to cross his mind. She was always so alive.

Seeing as she wasn't anywhere to be seen in her room he decided that maybe… just maybe she was in his room. He realized that he had nothing to lose, so there was no point in trying not to make any noise. He was halfway to his room when he heard a noise from the other side of the corridor. The bathroom.

There you are, bastard. He thought. Frank hurried to the bathroom but just before he opened the door, he could hear a low mumble on the other side.

"Yeah… got it... just a minute…. Hold on… don't you fucking yell at me, Michael Way… oh sorry, name thing. I'm almost done. Wait a minute. Yeah, whatever…"

That was it. The car outside. It was this dude's. Oh my God. How couldn't he figure this out before? How was he so stupid? He thought to himself.

He decided that there was no more time for this. It was now or never. The guy could be armed, but he didn't care. What else did he have to lose? He gathered all the courage he could, even though it wasn't much and he put his hand on the door handle. On the count to three, he said to himself.

One…

Two…

Fuck it. He opened the door with a sudden blast of energy.

He didn't know how he managed to take on the whole image, but in less than five seconds he was horrified by what he saw.

Julie, just like his mother's body, was mutilated. He knew it was her, again, because her light brown hair was hanging lifeless in front of her face and this time, she had her fingers still attached to her hand, with her fingernails painted of a bright green and yellow. She always had that thing for weird nail polish colors. Julie loved doing her nails. Every week, she had a different design. She was an artist at that. But again, the word artist had a different meaning here.

All the tiles on the walls had a few drops of blood in a way that almost seemed to follow a pattern. His sister was hung from the bar that held the curtain to the bath tub. None of her limbs where cut off, but the amount of blood that was scattered everywhere was just as bad. It was as bad considering that, just like he had thought, almost jokingly, this psychopath had, in fact, a brush in his hand and was finishing doing swirls of blood in the other wall. The whole scene seemed to be taken from a horror movie. He couldn't believe that someone in fact could be doing this to innocent people, but apparently, someone could.

He had opened the door so suddenly that he hadn't realized that the amount of force he put into it was enough to make the wooden door hit the sink, alerting the intruder of his presence. This man was, in fact, out of his mind. As soon as he turned around, Frank could see his eyes. His pupils were big, almost taking all of the color in his eyes and the lids were wide open, revealing a look of completely craziness. His grin showed to lines of small teeth in his mouth and he could easily tell that he was a great smoker. Frank also noticed that there was no blood in his face nor his clothes, but his hands were completely drenched of it. Drenched in his mother and sister's blood.

Suddenly, something seemed to click in his mind. As fast as he could, he dropped the brush to the floor and managed to get something form his pants pocket, smearing some of the blood over the clothing. A swiss knife. No. Frank couldn't let him kill him. Even though a little voice in his head told him to let him kill do it, that he had nothing left to lose, Frank couldn't do it. He had fought against it all his teenage years and he wasn't giving up now. He came closer to Frank who had absolutely no clue of how to react to that. He had never taken any class of self-defense and he didn't know how playing the guitar could help him now. Of course, Frank had been in a couple of fights in high school but the other had never had a swiss sharp knife in their hands.

Apparently, he wasn't a great fighter either, and Frank could tell by the way he threw himself at him. H managed to move slightly to the left and almost instantly, felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder. The intruder almost got to the door. No. Frank couldn't let him escape. It was not happening.

Frank threw himself back at the other man, this time, getting to punch him in the right eye, managing to create a little cut there that started bleeding in that same moment. Now, it looked like some of the craziness had left this guy's eyes and was replaced by panic. Frank knew that this wasn't good either. People that are scared tend to do stupid things.

In what looked to be a final attempt, the other man threw himself back at Frank, causing another wound in this shoulder. He had an 'X' of deep and sharp red lines there and it hurt like hell. This distracted Frank, long enough to let the other man escape.

Frank was about to follow him when a movement caught his attention on the corner of his eye.

Julie. She wasn't dead.

Frank hurried to his side and slowly lifted her head, putting all his effort trying to harm her. Slowly, she opened a little bit her eyes, green orbs watching weakly into Frank's. She tried to talk but no sound came from her lips. She was extremely pale and her eyes looked almost grey and dull. She had big dark circles under her eyes and her tears had mixed with her own blood.

Again, she tried to say something, but this time something came out of her lips. Frank tried to hush her again, putting both hands in her face and now allowing the tears to fall down his cheeks. He never thought he'd see his sister dying. It was one of his worst nightmares. Julie had always been so full of life that he could never imagine her dying. Now, he didn't have to imagine anything. She was dying. Her breathing was harder every time and he knew that calling an ambulance would take away the few seconds he had with his sister. He didn't need to be a professional to know that she couldn't be saved because of the great amount of blood she had lost.

Before he could stop it, Frank's sister was babbling again with her last breath trying to tell him something. He couldn't imagine what would be so important for her to say.

When she finally gave up, Frank still had his hands on her cheeks, his mind still running about what her sister had been trying to say. In the end, his brain seemed to cooperate, giving him the word Julie had been trying to make him understand.

Gerard.