I sighed, tucking a stray piece of dark brown hair behind my ear. I had been forced to go to my grandparent's house for the day, even though my grandmother was gone and my grandfather insisted on working on every vehicle in sight. I toyed with my black music=love wristband, thinking. My parents were probably at home, having a wonderful time without me there. My dad wasn't a bad guy, it was my mother that didn't like me. She blamed me for everything. When she made a mistake, it was always my fault, never hers. Sometimes I wished that I could just live in my bedroom, shutting myself out from the rest of the world. In my bedroom, no one could judge me, or call me goth. No one could hurt me there, it was my own place where I could be myself. I do consider myself goth or emo sometimes. I do have a tendency to wear a lot of black, and I do listen to sad music a lot and cry myself to sleep, well…every night. But I'm not an all out goth. I just wear black clothes, I don't go to extremes and have ten piercings in each ear, and on my face. Or chains everywhere. My mom wouldn't let me wear chains anyways. I tried to wear one chain on my jeans and she immediately chastised me, claiming that only people who end up "in trouble with the law" wore chains. Personally, I believed that it was a symbol of my individuality, and that people who cause trouble wear chains is a stereotype. I try to look past what people look like, and see what they are really like before judging whether or not they are a friend or a foe.
I sat in my grandmother's favorite chair, watching the thin, wispy clouds outside the window float across the sky. Watching the clouds always made me more relaxed. It made me forget about all of the turmoil in my life. Put the drama at home, school, and everything in between together and you've got an emotional rollercoaster sandwich. I got up and paced around the room. The creaking sound of a door opening and closing made my eyes widen. The closet door across the hall had just opened and closed by itself. Swallowing the lump that had embedded itself in my throat, I power-walked to the front door, yanking it open and running outside into the cool, spring air. I could hear my grandfather's power tools screeching against metal in the garage. I figured that since no one would notice, I would run home. My house was only a tenth of a mile down the road from their house anyways. I ran as fast as possible, my brain screaming at me to get home to the safety and solitude of my bedroom. When I finally shut my bedroom door behind me, I gasped for breath. I was safe. But I had spoken too soon. A pile of old Christmas lights in the corner of my room began floating, appearing suspended in mid air, then dropped to the ground with a thud. My hands began shaking. I bit my lip to keep from screaming in terror, then ran into the living room. Turning, I saw a dark shadow run into my bedroom down the hall. It ran down the hall, and hid behind the wall in the entryway. Fighting the urge to scream, I ran to my mom who was sitting on the couch reading the Saturday newspaper.
"Are you okay?" She asked, "you look sick." I shook my head, my eyes so wide that my contacts began drying out.
"They're coming for me!" I screamed, "They're COMING!" Running into the kitchen, I saw the shadow inch closer to where my family, where everything that was important to me, was sitting.
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" I screamed. My mom jumped up, and grabbed my left wrist. She began speaking, but was immediately silenced as the figure stepped into view.
"Oh my gosh" was all she could say before a loud crack sounded. I was thrown backwards onto the kitchen floor, the cold linoleum making goose bumps appear on my arms and legs. I shivered, then flinched as the figure began firing shot after shot, each bullet piercing my lungs and rib cage. After about five shots, I did the only thing I could think of to do. I screamed. All the terror of knowing I was about to die and not knowing my tormentor had built up inside of me, and I let it all out in one blood curdling scream. A pool of fresh blood oozed from my wounds, sticky on my back and my palms. I heard my mom's tormented cries echo in my mind as my vision faded, and the only thing I heard before I entered death's embrace was the echo of pain in my stomach where the bullet's had pierced my flesh.