Lilian walked the broad streets one last time before heading home to the house of a multitude of problems. It wasn't that she didn't want to return to her family or that she couldn't handle all that they constantly put her through, it was just that she was tired.
She was tired of the cursing. Tired of the slick jeers that were released beneath low breaths when they though she wouldn't be able to hear them. Tired of the hopes and expectations. Tired of the crying at night alone in a basement they dubbed her room.
She was also tired of the work. Tired of the cleaning. Tired of the running around on feet that were calloused and bruised. All while trying to keep a smile that was so painful to have. She was tired of the love they shared for each other most of the time. She was sick of them hoarding it amongst themselves and never even showing her the thing she wanted to be able to treasure.
She was in pain and they didn't care. She was doing well though, 100s on her report cards, money in her- no their pockets, and a bed to sleep in. What did she have to stress about. She had everything a person could want.
She walked up the steps of the home that didn't resemble a home. The empty shell of what once was. She shoved her key into the lock seamlessly and turned it. Before opening the door, she forced another false smiled upon her face, "I'm home!" she said jovially.
She knew no one would answer her back though. They never did. A mother who cared not for her daughter. A father who wished she were a boy. A brother who was the golden child of the family even though he had been to juvie four times and had dropped out of school. And a younger sister that was spoiled so rotten that she smelled like something died inside of her.
They all pressed their problems, worries, and stress onto her and were ignorant they were even doing doing it. She paid the bills, she cleaned, she cooked, she got them that flat screen tv, she was the one with the scholarship she had to throw away to take care of her family.
She was the one they kicked out, only for her to come back at their beck and call. She was the one who continuously worked her ass off, just to barely get by while they lived as luxuriously as her paychecks would allow. She was the one that kept coming back due to her showing love to a family that didn't love her.
After a while she began to accept that this was her fault. She had shown them her skills and her weaknesses and they were making full use of her nd she had nothing to show for it as she stepped into the kitchen and prepared dinner as usual.
An hour later she stood to the side of the dinner table and watched them eat as they happily discussed nonsense like how her mother went shopping, how her father went to his friends house and gambled her money only to walk away penniless again, about how her brother needed more money for his new and improved Ponzi scheme, which her mother happily funded, and how her sister had punch some poor little girl in her class for her drawing looking better.
Liliana stood quietly as they each got up from the table eventually and left empty plates behind, with her sister saying that the goblins that lived in the walls made another poor dinner tonight that she was forced to stomach once again.
Said goblin took her time eating what was left, washing the dishes, and mopping before heading to her room in the basement. As she tried to flicker the lights, she realized the bulb had gone out once again. She had no choice but to head into the darkness quietly.
Once she reached the bottom, she moved next to her mat on the floor and flicked on the lamp that sat obediently next to it. She turned around, about to undress when she saw a shadow standing quietly in the corner near the foot of her mat almost beneath the stairs.
She felt her blood freeze as she watch him smile. The man stepped from the shadows with slow, measured steps. As he gained ground and came within range, she threw a right hook at him. Her act of violence caught him completely unaware as her face gave the impression she was frozen in fear. As the man was shock she put her foot in his stomach making him double over.
Once he was down, she scrambled with grace towards the stair, she made it to the door when she realized it had been locked from the other side. She felt despair fill her in that moment. She had heard the click every night and never realized it was her being locked down here.
What she didn't know was that every night her father would bring her sister to lock the basement door because the little girl always said she was hearing noises and scared that there were monsters down there. Once her father locked the door, he would always take her back to bed, completely forgetting the live person that lived down there.
Liliana turned slowly as she heard the hard breathing at the bottom of the stairs. She looked down to find the man staring at her with that same feral grin. It seemed that he knew as well as she did that even if she screamed and begged...
No one would come for her.
She felt indignance well in her chest as the man walked up the steps towards her. Suddenly she found the situation laughable. She had worked her ass off for years since anyone would hire her. She had worked the hardest in her family. She staved off friendship, love for another, and lust.
Even the man in front of her was someone she had rejected time and again. She fell tears roll down her face as she felt the humor touch her heart and a smile grace her lips as a howl of laughter escaped from her.
The man watched a manic glint flare in her eyes as realization seemed to dawn on her. She grabbed her stomach and howled with laughter. Thoughts flew through her mind as she settled on one thought. She had never given up.
She looked the man in his eye as the laughter came to an abrupt stop. Nothing but a smile graced her lips as she jumped on the man, hugging him as they both flew down the stairs head first. She hugged him tightly as they both smashed their heads into the wall opposite the stairs.
Liliana blacked out immediately, but the man's skull seemed to be thicker. He laid in shock as he stared at basement ceiling. He laid there until the next morning and the door was unlocked by Liliana's mother, who screamed at the sight that laid at the bottom of the stairs.
As her scream echoed throughout the house, the rest of the family came running. The brother, sister, and father stared in shock. Then they ran to call the police. Even then they only spoke of the man and not the female body that laid with him.
Once the police arrived they watched at they them received ambulances for two people and not just one. They all looked around in confusion at who the second was for before coming to the realization there was another body in the basement which none of them had seen.
The dead body of a girl who had paid their bills, bought them that flat screen tv, who had cooked them dinner every night, not out of pity, but out of love. The girl who had taken care of them wholeheartedly without complaining. The one who had not slighted them out of a single dollar even though they were her paychecks.
The dead girl who always worked even when her feet bled, her back ached, or even when she was bullied for being so perfect. The girl who threw herself at her would be murder who lived. The girl who eventually just resigned herself to fate.
Yet, they all stared at the body thinking the same thing, though in different iterations. There was someone living in the basement? Must have been a stray.
Though the girl in question, at this moment, was currently opening her eyes once again. She woke with no pain, no grief, though she felt incredibly weak, just the smiling face of a young boy in front of her. He looked on with what seemed to be concern in his eyes,
He watched as she lay there stiffly, and she watched him back, confused at who he was. She soon got her answer as tears welled in the boy's eyes and he screamed a word that constricted her soul, "Mom!"