When You Were Young

Chapter 1: Sweet Emotion

Y/N's POV

Screams fill the place I once called home. I threw my blankets over the bed like it was made and crawled frantically under my bed. Tucking away and hiding behind anything I could to get away from the edge. Old basketball shoes, a tennis racket far too small for me, and a container of clothes meant for a garage sale.

I lay paralyzed in fear. Tears stained my cheeks as I shook uncontrollably. Time passes so slowly as I lay there for what feels like hours.

After an eternity, I hear an unfamiliar male voice yell "Police!". I crawled as quietly as I could to the end of my bed to look for the man. "Is anyone in here?" I saw a policeman with a large flashlight and gun looking in my closet and around the rest of my room.

I began to scuffle out from under my bed when he pointed his gun down towards me. "Please help me." I cry softly as the man squats down to locate me. He swiftly holsters his gun and finds the space for his flashlight on his belt and extends his hand to me.

"Hey, what's your name?" The officer asks as he helps retrieve me from under the bed. "Y/n" I stutter out nervously.

"Y/n? That's a pretty name. Would you like to play a game with me?" The man said in a slightly cheerful tone to attempt to calm me down. I nodded my head. "Let's get you a coat on and grab your favorite toy and let's go outside." He said helping me stand up and leading me to my closet.

I pointed out my favorite yellow heavy coat on its hanger in the center of my closet. He grabbed it and handed it down to me to put on. After donning my coat, I climbed onto bed to grab my favorite small brown teddy bear.

He helped me slide on the shoes that I chose to wear and grabbed a blanket. I stared at him confused, although I was just 5 I knew most games, and I hadn't yet played this one.

"So for this game, I pick you up and you close your eyes as tight as you can, and I'll put a blanket on you. And when I say so, you can open your eyes and you'll be in a whole other place." He explained. "Does that sound fun?" I hesitantly shrugged my shoulders but walked over to him so that the game could begin.

With my eyes held tightly closed, the blanket was draped over my head and upper body. We began to quickly move out of my room and downstairs. My room was quiet but the living room was lively with noise. Radio chatter came from the officers chest called for the coroner. I felt people walk past us and other people talking.

"Looks like the male and female both have 5 stab wounds. One wound on each person hit the aorta, they didn't even have a chance." A woman's voice said.

'Stab wounds?' I thought to myself. 'Why would someone hurt somebody here? Everyone likes my house. My friends say it's their favorite house to play at.'

As my mind began to swirl, the officer pulled the blanket off of my head. "Hey, you can open your eyes now kiddo." I darted my eyes open and tried to scan everywhere I could see for more clues of where the game led us.

I saw red and blue lights in front of my house, but we were further away. I was sat in the backseat of a car that I'd never been in. "Y/n, I have to take you somewhere else for the game now." He said as he buckled the seatbelt around my small body the best he could.

"Okay, can I ask you a question mister?" I said shyly. "Well of course, and you can call me Dan if you want." I nodded and asked "Dan, what's an aorta?"

"Hey, you there?" Morgan asked waiving a hand in front of my eyes. I shake the memories away and wipe the lone tear away from my eye before replying. "Yeah I'm here, sorry about that."