I woke up to my alarm blaring in my ears. Groggy and lethargic, I shuffled my hand around my bedside table to turn off the cacophony. Once it was off, I yawned and slouched back into bed.
It was the first day of school. I wished I had an excuse not to go.
Anastasia wasn't on my bed with me anymore. She must've been hungry. I had forgotten to feed her before going to bed.
Annoyed with the predicament I was in, I dragged myself out of bed, feeling like the sunlight seeping from my curtains were too much and like my throat was too dry from thirst to sleep more anyway.
I trudged down the stairs. A weird metallic scent filled the air downstairs. I wondered if perhaps Anastasia had dug through the trash in search of food, so I ventured off to the kitchen.
"Anastasia?" I called as I turned the corner.
A gut-wrenching scene reached my vision. I suddenly could not breath. Bile stung the back of my air-sucked throat. Tears welled in my eyes, stinging my vision.
I fell to my knees, crawling towards my mother's body.
She lay immobile on the tiled kitchen floor, a gaping and messy hole where her heart was meant to be. The same fate Angelica Wang had met.
Whoever had murdered Angelica had also murdered my mother.
I was sobbing so uncontrollably that I almost didn't notice the red paw prints leading to the corner of the room. Anastasia was grooming her fur and her paws. The poor tabby had accidentally stepped into the pool of blood.
I approached her gingerly, hoping to snatch her out of the crime scene before she could get any more soiled with blood. She did not flinch. She merely meowed at me, her whiskers also coated in red.
I suddenly couldn't take it anymore, and puke pooled out of my mouth. It churned with the blood on the tiles. My stomach also twisted uncomfortably.
I had to run to the bathroom – to get away from my mother's corpse. To clear my head of this horrifying sight.
But the image of her horror-stricken face was stamped permanently in my head. Her lifeless body, her empty eyes, her clothes, and skin coated in crimson, the blood pooling around her body.
I clung to the toilet seat as more bile poured out of my mouth. I let everything out. Vomit. Screams. Sobs. Cries. I was helpless.
I had to call for help. But my throat was stickily dry when I dialed 9-1-1. The call attendant beckoned me for an answer on the phone, but all I could do was cry. All she could hear were my sobs. All she could do was trace the call and reassure me as I tried to find my voice.
First, they found my mother. Then, they found me.
I was laying on the cool tiles of the bathroom floor, my curly hair sprawled over the floor, eyes unmoving, warm tears slowly dripping down my face.
A police officer approached me gently. I sensed that she genuinely wanted to help me, but I couldn't bring myself to talk to her. Her words went in one ear and out the other. Everything was numb. Everything was loud. Everything was quiet.
All I wanted was my mother to comfort me. I foolishly wanted her to comfort me about her own death. I wanted her to come back to life and tell me this was all just one big cruel joke. I wanted to go back to my childhood.
I wanted to play Barbies with her again. I wanted to laugh while watching silly romcoms with her again. I wanted to bake cookies at an ungodly hour of the night with her again, flour everywhere, in our hair, in our fingernails, on our noses.
It was pointless, useless to wish. To want her back would not bring her back. This was my new reality. I would begin a new somber chapter in my life. I would never be okay again.