It was a cool afternoon in October and I was walking through town looking for something to eat. Even though I had been in New York for almost a week now, I still hadn't found a good place to get some. In Jersey it had been easy, the dumpsters in the rich suburbs overflowing with untouched food. Here, in the Big Apple, it was a whole different story.
Hi, by the way! Let me introduce myself. I'm Eva, 16 years old. You're probably wondering why I'm dumpster diving instead of sitting at the dinner table while mom cooks dinner and dad reads the paper. That is because I live on the streets. Have been for quite a while now. Why? Well, that's a long story. But hey, it's not like I have a job to get to or anything so I might as well tell you!
I used to live in a perfectly normal house somewhere in the suburbs of Passadena, with my mom, dad and older brother. We had a normal happy family life, or so I thought. When I was nine years old my dad took off, taking my brother with him. I was devastated and couldn't understand why. Most of all, I missed my brother Ty. He was a few years older than me and always protecting me. I always felt safe when he was around.
A while after they left, mom changed from a dead body into a freaked out crazy lady and she decided that we were moving to Los Angeles. She never gave me a proper explanation why. It was always "Change is good" whenever I asked about it. That whole period of time is now a bit of a blur to me. Must have been the shock of everything.
Three weeks after the move, my world fell apart. I was in bed, when suddenly I heard a lot of noise coming from downstairs. Screaming, and things crashing apart. Scared, I walked down the stairs making as little sound as possible. I looked around the corner and saw two men, holding my mom. Something was off about the way they moved, too swiftly, too balanced, and they spoke in a language I could not understand. I clasped my hand over my mouth trying not to scream that instant. Weird enough, my mom talked back to them in that same creepy, hissing language. Then, the guy closest to my mom took out a huge sword and I could no longer stop myself. I screamed, from the top of my lungs. The men turned around, too fast to be humanly possible. They had identical glowing red eyes filled with rage. Again they shouted hissing words, definitely angry. "RUN EVA, RUN!" My mom shouted, tears in her eyes showing just how bad the whole situation was. Mom never cried. Ever.
I was frozen, unable to move even a fingertip. "RUN!" Mom screamed again, but she choked on the word as the guy with the sword slit her throat. I could move again; Adrenaline thriving me forward. The men of course ran after me, but a ran without looking back. Jumping over low fences and crawling under others without looking back. After what felt like hours, I finally stopped, turning my head in every direction to see if I was safe. The men were nowhere to be seen. The adrenaline rush came to an end and I crawled into a corner of an empty, molded shed. I fell asleep without wanting to, with tears staining my face. That was the last time I cried.
When I went back to our house the next day, it was burned to the ground. I knew I was taking a huge risk going back there, but I just had to see if anything remained. I only took one thing with me from the black ruins of our house: A long bladed dagger that used to be my moms and had been in her family for ages. The handle was decorated with swirling patterns and the blade was crafted out of a shimmering kind of steel. It felt wrong, walking around what might had been my mother's ashes, so I left. I never came back there.
