~~~
SOPHIA WATCHED IN sheer horror as the nineteen-year-old familiar-looking stranger plunged the knife out of her mum's abdomen while she just stood at the bottom of the stairs watching everything. To say she was scared was an understatement.
They were just done having dinner-their small family; Her dad, mum, and herself she'd just gone upstairs to her room to get a broken doll that she could show her dad when she heard the sound of glass breaking. Clutching her broken doll, she rushed downstairs only to see her mum being stabbed by an unknown stranger and lying dead on the floor.
Her eyes searched for her dad but he was nowhere to be found.
Had he been killed too?
"You rascal!", Sophia heard her dad's voice before he finally came into view. He gripped the stranger's collar and glared at him. "What did you do to my security team? What did you do to my wife?",
"I did what should have been done a long time ago", The killer replied without any hint of remorse in his voice. "And I'm ending this whole bullshit here", The killer took Sophia's father by surprise and stabbed him in the chest and a small gasp left her lips. She watched as her dad's eyes filled with horror and his lips parted when the killer pulled out the knife forcefully and stabbed him again, making him cough blood until he fell with a loud thud on the floor, with life slowly slipping from his eyes.
From what Sophia's eight-year-old instincts told her, her dad sounded as if he knew the young man who had just killed him before that day.
Sophia's sobs from where she stood caught the attention of the killer and he glared at her with his dark and piercing eyes which were devoid of any emotions. He looked oddly familiar but she couldn't place out where she had ever seen him. Not when the whole light in the house was dimmed. The stranger didn't look away from her and it sent cold shivers down her spine.
Was he going to kill her too?
"Soph-", She heard his voice as he calmly walked towards her. She was shaking and her lips were quivering. She knew her end had arrived as well but something told her to run.
When the murderer extended his gloved arms towards her, she ran back upstairs to her room, unsure if it was even safe for her. She hid in a corner and curled herself in a ball as the image of her mum's dead body on the floor and her dad's horror-stricken eyes flooded through her mind while unstoppable tears streamed down her face.
Her parents were gone and she was too young to be an orphan.
~~~
"No please-mama-papa-don't go", Sophia whimpered as she clutched onto the sheets with her fists. Her eyes were clenched shut and tighter than they should've been for someone sleeping while beads of sweat trickled down her face. "Please-",
"Wake up, Soph", Someone shook her shoulders softly and her eyes flew open immediately. She sat up on her bed and began to search her whole room with fear evident in her eyes as she thought her parent's killer was there in the room with her. She hugged her knees as tears streamed down her face. She was a crying mess and her hair was probably sticking out all over her face. "It's okay, my dear. It's just the nightmare", Her grandma pulled her into her arms as she rocked her back and forth.
"Nana-", She cried and looked up at her grandma with her big doe eyes. "He-he-he isn't coming, right? He won't come near us, right? He won't-he won't kill us the way he he-killed Mama and Papa, right?",
"No, my dear", The woman patted her eighteen-year-old granddaughter's back softly. "He won't find us",
Sophia clutched onto her grandma tightly as the images flooded her memory. For the past ten years, she spent every single night of her life having nightmares about her parents' mysterious killer and she kept on wondering who he was. The tone in his voice while he spoke to her dad that night made her feel like her parents knew their murderer and maybe he had an unsettled score with them.
"Here, have milk", Her grandma brought a glass of warm milk to her lips. Whenever she woke up every night after the nightmares, she always drank warm milk to soothe herself and help her calm down.
Sophia quickly drowned the whole glass of milk down her throat before her grandma took the empty glass from her lips and placed it back on the tray by her bedside table.
"It's going to be alright, dear". Her grandma whispered.
"Thanks, Nana", Sophia said too.
"Would you like to go back to bed?", Her grandma asked.
"I'll try today", Sophia whispered as she laid down on her bed and nuzzled herself in her blanket. She knew sleep had eluded her but she couldn't stress her grandma by telling her.
"Should I stay in here with you?", Her grandma asked.
"Yes, please", she croaked out.
With a small smile, Sophia's grandma slid into bed next to her and pulled her in her arms. "Goodnight, dear" " the older woman whispered as she stroked Sophia's hair.
Sophia closed her eyes in an attempt to sleep but instead, all she saw was the dark and piercing emotionless eyes of that killer staring at her and she hated it.
Over the years, Sophia had engraved every single feature of his eyes in her memory because he was someone she wasn't sure she could ever forget. In other cases, it might not be extremely hard for people to forget the face of the person who murdered their parents but Sophia's case was different. Instead of forgetting the unknown murderer, she seemed to remember him more as each day of her life passed by. Who would ever forget the face of the person who made them an orphan?
As she thought about all these, she went down the memory lane of how her life had been for the past ten years since she lost her parents. That night when she ran to her room from the killer, he didn't follow her and a small part of her was grateful while the bigger part of her wished he had killed her along with her parents. At least she wouldn't have gone through the trauma she was going through. With a small sigh, she remembered how she stayed glued to that spot that night until the next day when her grandma took her away from the house while her parents were laid to rest.
Growing up after experiencing such was hard for Sophia but with her Nana, she was able to scale through some parts except the nightmares part. Her grandma made sure she went to school and at the age of eighteen, she was already a college student so she had to work out her ass by working in a small coffee shop to assist her grandma with a few expenses.