“Amy.” I whispered, I started to un-wrap the gauze from around my hand and peered at the long gash that ran across the back of my hand. I groaned. What did I do last night? I traced the cut with my finger as I walked around the house. The morning sun was bright and the air was warm; as if the weather was mocking my confusion and growing fear. I inspected myself, smoothing out the wrinkles in my pajamas. When did I put these on? I touched my face and my hair, which was wet, but I couldn’t remember ever having a shower. I held back my panic; Amy would never do anything to get me in trouble, we were a team, right?

I continued to look around the house for clues, clenching the mirror piece in my hand. I peered at my reflection in the mirror shard. My eyes were bright green; my hair was long and strawberry blond. I smiled showing my clean, perfectly straight teeth. The smile didn’t quite reach my eyes. I clutched my head in frustration, pulling at my hair.

I ran up the stairs, the pounding of my feet on the staircase echoed in the empty house. I turned left into my room, and stared blankly at my full length mirror. I saw only my reflection at first, and then my image spoke to me. Amy spoke to me. “What’s wrong Ally? I did it for us.” She said, smiling sweetly. Her voice seemed to echo in my head.

“What did you do!?” I screeched, and backed away from the mirror.

“You mean what we did. We are a team Ally, remember?” She whispered. “We have nothing to worry about now Ally. I took care of everything; they won’t hurt us any more.”

I collapsed onto the floor, my head was spinning. This explained every thing; the blood stain on the floor, the cut on my hand, every thing. I stood up slowly, stumbling down the hallway and into Judy and Andrews’s room. I groaned as the smell of blood hit me, making me feel sick to my stomach. The blood was every where. I took a shaky step closer, my heart hammered in my ears, loud enough to wake the dead.

I stood over Judy and Andrew; my parents. Their eyes were open, their faces frozen in twisted masks of pain and terror. A small groan escaped my lips; it quickly turned into a giggle. My giggle turned into laughter and echoed through the house, sounding shrill and sinister. They were gone, gone, gone! My whole body shook from laughing so hard, I fell to the ground as it all came back to me; stabbing them both and enjoying it so, so much, slipping extra sleeping pills in Judy’s water, and burying the evidence in the backyard. I kept laughing until I was gasping for air. I pushed myself up from the ground on trembling arms only to fall back down again as another fit of laughter took over. When I had finally calmed down enough I pushed myself up again and crawled to the bathroom across the hall.

The bathroom showed no reminder of the events last night, except for the broken mirror. I bent over the sink and threw up, which was painful considering I hadn’t eaten in two days. I shuddered and rinsed the vomit down the drain. I lay down on the floor and stared blankly at the wall. What now? I thought to myself, my parents are dead, and Amy and I had killed them. How long would it take for someone to notice the absence of Judy and Andrew? Surely someone would wonder why it was so quiet after so many years of screaming and yelling coming from the house. A little voice in the back of my head whispered; “Go back to sleep Ally, I have everything planned out. Everything will be fine as long as you don’t ever disobey me my love.” The voice was Amy’s.

“Okay Amy.” I sighed. She was right, every thing would be fine. I closed my eyes and fell asleep on the cold bathroom floor.

Flashback



“God Ally, you’re such a brat! Leave me the f*** alone!” With that my mom pushed me hard into the wall behind me. My head bounced of the wall, and I swear I thought I felt my brain hit the side of my skull. I bit my lip hard, as hunger overwhelmed my common sense.

“Mom, I’m hungry, it’s eight-o’clock, and can you please make me dinner?” I whispered my voice cracked making the rest of my sentence fade. She rolled over on the couch so that her back was facing me. I clutched my stomach holding back tears. The pain of hunger was almost unbearable. I hadn’t eaten in days and being only ten years old I couldn’t exactly do it myself. The shelves were too high, and I couldn’t work the stove. I turned and started to bang my head off the wall hoping that maybe the pain in my head would distract me from the ache in my stomach. I went on doing this for a long time, hitting my head harder and harder each time and the steady bang, bang, bang echoed through the house. I closed my eyes; listening to the noise somewhat took my mind off the hunger. Soon I began to feel tiny drops of blood steadily trickling down my fore head.

“Damn-it Ally!” My mom shrieked, she turned and grabbed a half empty wine bottle from the many sitting on the table and threw it at the wall, narrowly missing my face. The shards of glass flew every where stinging my face, arms, and legs. The cuts burned from the drops of alcohol that were still left in the class. I clutch my face and fell to the floor sobbing. “Look at what you made me do!” She said throwing her hands up in the air and storming out into the kitchen.

I stayed on the ground, not daring to get up. I jumped more than once from the loud noises coming from the kitchen. After a long while she came back. She threw a container of hot left over spaghetti at the floor beside me. I looked at it. The noodles were slightly burnt from being in the micro-wave too long and the container burned my fingers when I reached out to grab it.

“It’s hot dumb-ass.” My mom said, before lying back down on the couch. I held the container with two fingers as not to burn myself again, and tip-toed into the kitchen. Finally I sat on the floor in front of the T.V shoveling spaghetti into my mouth as fast as possible, ignoring the stinging pain from the shards of glass protruding from my skin and the pounding of the bloody bump on my head. This was a small price to pay for the antidote to days of hunger.

I leaned forward to turn up the volume on the T.V, my arms stung when I moved them. I scowled at the glass in my skin and set down my food. In the bathroom I used a pair of my moms’ tweezers to pull out the glass, dropping them onto the counter with little clinking sounds. Each time I pulled one out I winced. When I was done I laid on the bathroom floor, pressing my bloody forehead against the cool tile. I watched as tiny beads of blood raced each other down the length of my arms and finally rolling of leaving tiny puddles on the floor.

“I need help.” I whispered. “Some one . . . please, I don’t want to be here alone anymore.” I sobbed into my arm. I clutched at my chest; being alone hurt so badly.

I shakily stood up, and stared hard into the mirror. I shut the door with a click behind me and switched off the light. I stood there in the dark, listening to my own sobs. My reflection looked contorted and strange in the dark. And I couldn’t exactly tell what it was, but there was something different about my face. I switched the light back on and peered into the mirror leaning forward to see every inch of my face. I still had the same blonde hair, and vivid green eyes. But something was different. I brushed my hair out of my face. Suddenly I jumped back and shrieked in horror. My reflection didn’t move.

“Hi Ally, I’m Amy. You don’t have to be alone any more.”