I was walking home from school when the cop car went flying past me, I thought nothing about it until I turned the corner and saw the car and a crowd surrounding my yard. I don’t remember when I started running but I was in a full sprint towards my house. When I got there I talked to the person in charge, Detective Cunningham. He sounded far away but he had mentioned something about my mother being found dead by our neighbors. He hinted towards the idea that she had been murdered. My mother was the only person I still had in my life, my father left us when I was a child and my grandparents have all passed. All of my other family lives on the opposite side of the country leaving me alone.

Everyone eventually left and I was able to go back inside after what seemed like a lifetime. The only thing I wanted to do was curl up in my bed and never come out. When I flopped down on my bed my head landed on something. Curiosity got the better of me and I pulled out a small box wrapped with a little bow that reminded me of a Christmas present. When I opened it up I saw a note that was addressed to me:

Lila,

I found you.

Chills went through my body after reading this note. I was terrified the killer had specifically been in my room! I started to have a panic attack asking myself a million questions a minute. How did they get in, who are they, why did they want to find me? I called the cops back and was relieved when they knocked on the door 20 minutes later. After reading the note, Detective Cunningham ensured me that I would have police protection when they were able to provide it. Hearing this put no sense of security in my mind if anything it made me panic even more. Normally people would be okay with this but my thoughts went from why could they not provide it all the time to why do I need the protection.

It has been a three days since my mother’s murder and the police are no closer to finding the killer, on the brightside the killer has not been in contact with me. I’ve barely gotten any sleep or eaten. All I have done the past couple days is laid in bed and stared at the ceiling. I jump at the sound of the doorbell ringing and hesitate going to check it. When I get to the door I expect it to be one of the detectives but it was a single object. My mother’s ring. I had never saw her with it off.

At this point I am in full panic mode, there was no note but I know exactly who it is from. I call Detective Cunningham and he arrives half a hour later with other officers I did not catch the names of. They took my mother’s ring for evidence which angered me but there was nothing I could do about it. The officers stayed for a while to look for more evidence but found nothing and left.

Before he left Detective Cunningham asked me to come down to the station at some point. He mentioned that it would be to ask questions about who my mother knew and what she did from day to day. They needed this so they could hopefully develop a profile on the killer. I eventually agreed even though it will be hard to talk about my mother so soon.

My phone has been receiving a lot of messages and calls the past couple days. Most are from people pretending to care so they can potentially get information that no one else knows. I have refused to talk to everyone no matter how sorry they are to hear about my loss. So I turn off my ringer and toss the phone to the other side of the room where I won’t be able to see it.

The past couple day have been super stressful so I decide to try and sleep. I eventually drifted off and dreamt about my mother. She looked healthy and full of life again. Raising me must have been hard to do on her own, she looks as if a weight has been lifted off her chest. I am sure she loved me but I do not think I ever saw her this carefree and happy.

When I wake up and go downstairs I expect to see my mother in the kitchen waiting to greet me but she does not. My heart sinks when I remember that will never happen again. I grab a frozen breakfast sandwich out of the freezer and put it in the microwave. I am bored while waiting so I start to look around when I see someone staring at me through my window. I let out a scream and run for my phone.

My front door slammed against the wall and I heard their footsteps thump against the floor as they ran after me. I got to my room and threw some stuff in front of the door for a small barricade. I went to the side of the room where I tossed my phone but I could not find it. I eventually found it under my dresser and dialled 911. Just as the operator picked up I felt a sharp pain on the back of my head and everything went black.

When I wake up I am in a small, dirty room made of concrete. My head is throbbing with pain as I get up to look around the room. There is not much in the room, just a small desk with books and a bed. Without anything to do I lay down on the bed, which is surprisingly comfy and slowly drift off to sleep.

I wake up to what sounds like an alarm clock. I run over to the desk and grab the chair as the door slowly opens. A tall, familiar man walks in with a smile on his face. He stops about five feet into the rooms and calmly explained that he was my father and admitted he had been with  my mother the day she died before I could even ask any questions.

He tells me that he wanted to build a relationship that had both been missing in our lives. When I recovered from that information I asked him why he had left when I was a baby and why he wanted a relationship so many years later. He then explained to me that he when he got home from work one day my mother and I were gone. He told me that she had left nothing there and had not even told him she was leaving.

I had not wanted to believe him but every time I had asked my mother about him she would ignore the question in general and get angry with me. He then told me he spent six years trying to find us so we could be a family again and that when he found us he called my mother and asked if they could meet up to talk. My father said that she refused to meet up so he went to go talk to her on the day she died. When she opened the door she started yelling at him to leave and walked back into the house. My father then followed her into the house to continue their conversation and my mother went crazy. He said it was like she had a mental break down.

When I was younger I remember my mother having to take pills and call someone frequently to talk. I never realized that as I got older she slowly made less and less calls along with not taking pills in general. Was there something wrong with my mother that I had never noticed? If so what was wrong? Hearing this made me question the relationship I had with my mother.

I asked my father to continue with the story. He told me that my mother threatened to kill him if he tried to contact me. My father then tried to reason with her but she would not listen to him. He decided to leave and that was the last he heard from her. The next morning he had saw a story about her death on the news.

After hearing this I was confused on how my mother died and could not process it. I then remembered the note and my mother’s ring that I had received. I asked my father if he was the one who had sent them to me and he looked at me puzzled and said ”I have never sent you anything.” I then started to panic, if my father had not sent the objects to me or killed my mother then who did?