Guidlines

ONE

Who decides who lives and who dies. Its not an easy question to answer, to much responsibility for just one person alone. What must go wrong in someone's life for them to think that they have the right to decide. Abusive parents, bullying, maybe they were born like that and somthing snapped inside of them one day.

it will be a year tomorrow, 365 days since I lost them. It was August 10th 2009. It started off as one of the best days of my life. I left home at ten am. Tasha and Jordan were waiting outside of the house, music blasting from the speakers in the fold down top car. The sun was high in the sky already warming the air. It was hot even for the middle of summer. I didn't even kiss them goodbye. I was in such a rush, I just wanted to go out and have fun.

We met up with the others at the music festival, it wasn't a camping thing so we left the tents at home. There were seven of us in total including myself. The guilt inside of me is over powering. How I was having the time of my life while somthing so terrible was happening at home. There were so many people there, I got lost a couple of times but I didn't worry about it. We had our designated meet up area. The churro stand by the main stage. The others where so worried when I didn't meet them the first time. I was at the main stage so I wasn't far. Kings of Leon were playing and I just got caught up in the moment.

The sound of the music in my ears, the flashing of the lights in my eyes and the smell of the food both sweet and savoury in my nostrils. We danced for hours, sang along to the artists on the stage. My curfew was at eleven So we set out at ten. The roads were busier then we thought they would be, it only took us half an hour longer but I knew I was in trouble either way.

We pulled up outside of the house at half past eleven. We were going to continue the party at mine. I had brought thirty cans of cider and a bottle of vodka ahead of time. My parents were not like other parents. In their eyes it was better for us to drink in the safety of the house rather than get drunk on the streets and risk getting into some kind of accident.
Jordan parked his car in the drive way and we made our way across the lawn to the front door, laughing and joking still on a high from the festival. Not literally. Only figuratively. The laughs and jokes stopped when we reached the front door, it took me a minute to realize that somthing was wrong. The door was a jar and none of the lights inside were on. I pushed on the glass opening the door all the way.

I remember someone saying somthing like

"Gray, maybe we should call the cops"

They had seen the signs of trouble before me. The vase in pieces on the ground, the wooden table splintered, thrown across the foyer.

I didn't listen to whoever spoke, I wish I had now, I stepped through the fresh hold, the vase cracked under my right foot sending shivers up and down my spine. At least I wasn't alone. When I found them. We walked slowly. Tension filling the air with each passing second. Then I found her.

My mother tied to a chair, beaten black and blue. A long thin cut covering her throat. Her yellow day dress dyed red with her own blood, her cold dead eyes still open staring back at me. Things became foggy after that.

Someone who wasn't me called the cops.

They found my father in the kitchen, several knives wedged into his back, a trail of blood behind him, the detective said that he had tried to crawl away. My sister, they, they found her in her room, well not quite, she too had been beaten, her wrist was broken along with four of her ribs. Someone had taken her bed sheets and wrapped them tightly into a rope. One end had been tied around her throat and the other to the door handle. They had thrown her out of the window and watched as she struggled to hold on for life. They had set it up so that when the door was opened her body would lurch down a couple of feet.

I didn't see any of that. Intact they kept me as far away from all of it as possible. I had to identify the bodies. That was the hardest thing that I had ever done in my life.

They left scruffy out of the new report. The same person that had killed my family and cut into my dogs chest and sliced off his ears.

Personal, that's what they said. The way they were killed, the fact that they went after the dog. There was other evidence, like whoever did it was let into the house and didn't force their way in.

I stayed with Kian's family for a couple of weeks before child protective services came and dragged me to an orphanage. It wasn't like you see it in the movies, it was just a normal house. Three floors, eight rooms. A nine o'clock curfew. There was only seven of us. George was the youngest he was nine. I didn't speak to many of them. Clay was my room mate, that didn't make much sense to me. There was more than enough room for everyone to have their own rooms. Maybe they didn't think it was safe for me to be on my own. I'm not going to lie I thought about ending it all. Even tried it once but Clay walked in before it was done.

They put me on meds after that. The only other person at the orphanage that I spoke to was Sharla. She helped me alot. She lost her parents when she was young to a car accident. So she understood what was going on in my head even when I didn't.

So when she asked me out it was an easy yes. I spent seven months in that orphanage. Then spent the next five in my apartment. It was hard at first, adjusting to life without my family, I'm better now. I'll never be the same but I am better.

That's brings me up to date. We are all going away, Kian will pick me up in five minutes. My bags are packed and already by the door. It was a surprise to me. A plan that everyone was in on. A week in a log cabin on the middle of nowhere. Everything was booked so I couldn't really say no.

I hadn't seen Gen, Izzy or Dalles since that night, it would be nice to see them after all this time.

Of course Tasha and Jordan would be there to and they had invited Sharla and Clay along for the week too.

A couple of months back a police officer came round, waking me up with his big fists against the door. They had arrested a man for the muder of my family. One of my mother's old work colleagues. A love affair turned deadly he told me. He went to prison, sentenced on three accounts of premeditated murder and one case of animal abuse. It made me laugh, after everything he had done that they would add the charge of animal abuse to his sentence.

The buzzing from my intercom vibrates through the small space.

"Coming" i say into the mic pressing one of the buttons.

I wrap my hand around the heavy case and begin my decent down the stairwell. The air was cool on my skin as I step outside, the sky was still dark. Apparently waiting for sunrise is too late to set out to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Kian helps put my case in the trunk of his four wheel drive. Tasha, Jordan and Gen sat in the three back seats, looking half asleep. Making my way into the passenger side seat I see the second car in front of us. Or does that make the four wheel drive the second car.

It was hard to tell but I thought that I could just slightly make out the back of Sharla's head. She had messaged me that they were on their way but nothing since. I pull my phone from my pocket and type a quick message.

"I'm in, I'll see you at the petrol garage" hitting send I slip the phone back into its pocket and turn my attention to the back seat.

"Hey Gen"

"Hey Gray, how are you holding up" Gen says her voice cracking slightly. It was possible that she was nervous or even guilty that she went M.I.A after my family was killed.

"Im good Gen" i turn back to to look at the road and Kian starts up the engine.