I remember it as if it were yesterday, when really it was almost eleven years ago. My first clear memory.

The air was thick and smelled like burning rubber. I could hear babies crying down the hall, guys yelling at my aunt, my mom crying, and my dad trying to yell for me to run to him. My mom and I were walking up white stairs that were so rotted away I thought we were going to fall through. I was holding McDonalds in one hand and my mom was holding my other hand so tight I felt like it was going to crush. I just kept quiet and tried to understand what was going on. We were only walking up one flight of stairs to get to my apartment, to my dad and my aunt Mandy, but it felt like it took hours just to walk up the stairs.

As we got to the top, I saw three big guys run in front of us, one looked at me and smiled as if to say “haha we’re going to hurt someone you love, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” I saw my dad try to fight them off and tell them to leave, but he just got pushed to the side as they picked up my aunt Mandy and carried her away, down the flight of rotten white stairs. My dad chased after them while my mom picked me up and ran in the apartment. I can remember so clear crying and pounding on the door, because I thought I could help. I thought I could save my auntie and my dad, and everything would go back to normal. But I couldn’t. My mom wouldn't let me see out the window, but i remember her crying. I remember the sound of her voice screaming “please be okay!” Finally I saw her face go blank. She looked as if she saw a ghost. She picked me up and told me “I love you, stay right where you are and lock the door behind me.”

My mom ran outside and I followed after, wanting to know what was going on. I remember seeing my dad, blood all over his shirt, getting off the side of the street. I looked around and saw the three guys running the opposite direction from everything, and my aunt crying over my dad, saying how sorry she was. There were cops everywhere. My aunt and my dad got taken to the hospital in an ambulance. That was the last time I saw my Aunt. I don’t know why, or how, or where she went. I just know right before she got in the ambulance she was fine. She told my mom and I she loves us then got taken away. When we got to the hospital, she was gone. Nobody said she died, or got put in jail, or taken away. She just was gone.

We went in my dad’s hospital room and I just started crying. I don’t know why, because he was fine, but holding it in for all the time I just snapped. Then I watched as my mom brought him to tears, yelling it was all his fault. She said it was over with and that he would never see me or her ever again. They broke up, but I still saw him every weekend.

I am always told never to hate anyone, but how can anyone expect me not to hate the people that tore my family apart and flipped my life upside down for so long? I still have no idea what happened or why the big guys did what they did, but my mom and dad are both okay still, and I know somewhere out there, my aunt is okay too and that is all that matters anymore.