As light came filtering in through the windows, I woke up with my head pounding heavily. My head was spinning and my vision was blur. “Where am I?” I thought to myself. As I looked around, I realized I was in an environment that I was very familiar with. I was in my bedroom. But there was something different; the room was strangely messed up. Piles of books and papers were covering the maroon carpet of my room. I used all my energy to sit up straight and felt the headache coming again as if someone was hitting my head with a club. I winced.

Then I looked down at my clothes and stared. There was a dark red stain on my shirt. I took a sniff on it hoping it was just paint. But I was so wrong. It was blood. Human blood. I checked my body for any injuries but all I had was deep cuts on my face and bruises on my arms and legs. There was no injury other than that. “Whose blood was on my shirt?” I whispered to myself. Even though it was just a whisper, I could hear my voice bouncing off the thin, shoddy walls of the room eerily. I began shuddering with fear. An icy cold feeling began to creep up my spine.

Then my mind began to put the two and two together. As I began recollecting on the events that happened last night, my heart began to beat faster and faster. I resisted the pain in my head and continued to think. And then tears rolled down my cheeks. I began crying hysterically. It was too late. I could not change anything now. And then all of a sudden I hoped I was dead. Nothing in this world seemed right to me anymore. I stood up shakily. I felt like a zombie. I was already dead inside.

I did not want to go downstairs. I did not want to see it. And my questions began racing into my mind. Is my baby okay? What happened to him? I knew it was hopeless to put hope into my heart. He’s dead. There’s nothing I could do anymore. But deep down inside I prayed that my assumption was wrong. My heavy footsteps down the stairs could be heard echoing through the empty house. I walked down step by step slowly and reluctantly.

As I stepped into the living room, my mind was attacked by visions of last night’s tragedy. My arms flung around as if to push away those visions. But they attacked mercilessly. The living room I was always familiar with was different. I felt my spine tingling in the tense atmosphere. There were pieces of glass everywhere as if a crystal bomb had just exploded in there. Then I began crying again. I fell down onto my knees, onto the pieces of glass. But I did not feel a thing. I did not care anymore. There was blood everywhere in the room. The sourish smell made me want to throw up. Then I saw a trail of blood on the carpet leading to a mutilated head. I cried and screamed in a mixed feeling of distress, agony, pain, anger and guilt. I crawled over to the lifeless body in a pool of blood quickly.

It was a small body. It was a baby boy. He was only 2 years old. He was my son. And he was dead. His tiny hand hands were nailed to the floor. His legs were tied together with a piece of wire and I could see the wire cutting through his delicate soft skin. His head was all smashed up that I could not even make out the shape of his face. Upon watching it, I felt sick and my stomach felt like it was tied in a knot to prevent me from throwing up. My eyes began welling up with hot tears again. I wondered which horrible person did this to my baby as memories began seeping into my head. I began burning with fury and my heart was full of revenge. I wanted to tear the murderer apart with my own hands. I wanted him to feel the pain my baby had felt. I wanted him to die and burn in hell. But then a sudden feeling of insecurity swept over me. I was all alone. I had no child. No husband. I felt weak. I could do nothing…

The sky was pale blue and orange as darkness began spoiling the beautifully painted picture of the sky. I unlocked the front door and heard my baby’s incessant cries that broke the peace of the lovely evening.

I went in and saw my husband making silly faces to baby Mikey. I laughed at Tom’s pathetic effort. I picked up my beautiful son and began cooing at him. I gave him a bottle of warm milk and the crying stopped. My husband sighed in relief and smiled at me. But I could sense that he was worrying deeply about something. I began to wonder.

“Is something wrong?” I asked. “Nothing. Work must be stressing me out,” he replied gruffly.

I was not pleased with his answer. If trying to make Mikey stop crying was one thing Tom couldn’t do, lying was another one. I went up to him and asked him again, “Is something wrong?” He could sense the serious tone of my voice and my hazel brown eyes staring right through him.

“Yes. I am in a big trouble. I have no money to pay Sam back. He’s coming to ask for it later. I tried collecting as much as possible but I had to pay for Mikey’s food and medicine. I owe him one hundred thousand dollars and I only have 10 dollars in my wallet now,” he told me and I could see his eyes turning red. I stared at him. I knew Tom borrowed some money from Sam but I did not know it was this much. I knew we were in trouble. Sam was no Mr Nice Guy. When it comes to money, he would do anything to get it even if it meant spilling blood.

I wanted to console Tom but I couldn’t even afford to console myself. I was shaking with fear. I needed to protect Mikey. Sam could be coming here any moment now and there was nowhere to run. Sam had contacts everywhere and running away would only make the punishments worse.

Suddenly there was a loud rude knock on the door and a lot of shouting. The door was kicked down and three big burly guys came barging in. My first instinct was to grab little Mikey. He started crying again. I pleaded them not to do anything as I saw Tom getting punched and kicked. He was groaning in agony on the floor like a helpless cripple begging for mercy. I screamed, “STOP! STOP!” but it was as if I was screaming to the wall.

Then I froze in fear as one of them took out a gun. There was a loud bang and my ears started ringing. I was too shocked. I looked at Tom’s lifeless body as blood began seeping through his white shirt. The other two guys came after me and I stood up. My legs were shaking and I could not run as fast as them. Before I could go up the stairs, one of them pulled me and hit me down onto the floor. I stood up again despite the pain and began climbing the stairs. The two guys began chasing me and the guy with the gun was shooting at me. I managed to dodge but sadly, it wasn’t quick enough for one of them to snatch little Mikey away from my tight grasp. Without a second thought, he stabbed Mikey’s small stomach with a knife and blood came spluttering out onto my shirt.

I screamed and began attacking the guy like a wild animal. He grinned and said, “It’s useless, Lucy,” in his deep voice. He was like an animal, killing without feeling. There was a struggle between the both of us but it was not for long as his body was three times the size of mine. He pushed me against the door of my bedroom and the door was forced open. There was a sharp pain on my head and then darkness. The last sentence I heard was, “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of little Mikey.” There was nothing else to be heard but I could sense him grinning at my lifeless body as if it was just a game and he had won.

I sat in the middle of the living room around the glass with Mikey’s dead body in my arms. I stared at the knife on the floor. It had blood on it. I felt so alone. I picked it up and looked at it. Then a smile broke over my face as I whispered, “I’m coming soon,” to Mikey in his ear.

And then there was a sharp pain in my chest. I began to lose air and I saw blood gushing out. As I smiled, I could feel my last tear roll down my cheeks. And the game was over.\