Serena rolled onto the unyielding stone floor, a dull ache throbbing insistently at the back of her head. "Where am I?" she murmured softly, the words barely escaping her lips. Gradually, her senses began to sharpen as she squinted through the thick fog of confusion. The blurred outline of gray bars materialized around her, pulling her into a hellish nightmare from which there seemed no escape, other than the inevitable fate of death.
Two police officers stood outside, their backs turned to Serena's broken form as they engaged in a grim conversation.
"Do you think it was The Oracle?" one asked, glancing uneasily towards his partner.
"Unlikely," the other replied, shaking his head. "This isn't his usual style."
"Then who else could have committed such a brutal act?"
The second officer's gaze shifted toward Serena, who lay still and vulnerable, and he mentally noted the absence of injuries on her body.
"The house was engulfed in flames, with her parents dismembered. Yet she remains untouched, on top of her mother's arm?"
"She's been unconscious for days," the first officer countered. "Evidence suggests she's innocent."
"Do you forget that the place was burned to the ground? We can't let that psychopath roam free."
Her parents are dead? The realization hit her like a cold wave, intensifying the shock that gripped her heart. She had tripped over her mother's dismembered arm, an image that engraved itself into her mind. Tears streamed down Serena's face; each drop a reflection of the despair she felt within. She lay there, lifelessly on the cold stone floor, engulfed in despair, the weight of her loss settling around her like an unrelenting barrier of helplessness.
The soft sounds of Serena's quiet cries reached the guards, striking a chord deep within them. A pit of guilt settled slightly within the second officer's heart as he looked at the fragile figure before him. "Serena Williams, you are under arrest for the suspected murder of Miranda and Lark Williams," he announced, his voice stern but laced with an undertone of compassion.
As the cell door creaked open, the officers approached her, slapping a pair of cold silver bracelets around her lifeless wrists. The weight of the cuffs seemed to amplify her tears, as they forced the weeping girl to rise from the cold stone floor, her body shaking not just from the chill, but from the overwhelming reality of her situation.
She only wanted to tell them about her day. Her father had only just returned... in his old gray Ford. Please, say this whole thing is a lie. Just another nightmare in her growing head?
The interrogation room was a bold contrast to the chaos raging inside Serena Williams's mind. Dimly lit, with gray walls that seemed to close in on her, the space felt like a prison in itself. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a cold glow that did nothing to alleviate the chill creeping through her veins. A metal table stood firmly in the center, its surface unyielding, reflecting the gravity of the situation she found herself in.
Serena sat in one of the plastic chairs, her wrists still aching from the tight grip of the handcuffs that had been placed on her just moments ago. She wiped her tear-streaked face with trembling fingers, still caught in the aftershock of the horror she had discovered when she returned home. The weight of the accusation hung heavily in the air: murder. The word itself felt foreign and unimaginable, as if it belonged to a different world—a world she was desperately trying to wake up from.