• I sighed as I silently slid my hand across the polished wood floors of my home, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the cozy dwelling. The sound seemed to float in the frigid air for a moment, before unraveling into nothing and leaving me in silence again. Not a sound could be heard, not even my own breathing, even as I strained to detect any sign of life. A footstep. A shallow breath. Anything to prove that I had not just done...that. Anything to prove that my family was still breathing, warm and alive, and simply asleep in the freezing night, curled comfortably in layers of blankets. I strained to hear my father’s great, heaving snores, muffled by nothing but the thin walls of our apartment. He’d always been the loudest family member, even when my siblings were infants. He was always so full of life. It pained me to see him, and the rest of my beautiful family, as mere humanoid shapes, haphazardly stacked in the corner and covered by a thin pink blanket that once belonged to my sister.


    I’m not sure how this happened. I swear I never meant to hurt them, it just...happened. It was like a dream, really. Everything was hazy and far-off, like i wasn’t even there. Just observing. Silently overseeing a monster do the unspeakable, as I was powerless to stop the destruction. A fly on the wall. That’s how i felt, right up until the moment where I sat myself in the middle of my living room floor, red dripping from my hands and chest and beginning to pool upon the floor, and looked up at the ceiling in silent contemplation.


    At first I was indifferent to the unusual silence, then scared, and finally… unsated. The immovable lack of sound persuaded me to pick up the phone, suddenly dissatisfied with the conclusion of my personal tragedy, and the now-quiet night. Straight faced, i dialed a 3-digit number and waited for the mechanical ring to be replaced with human speech.


    “911, What’s your emergency?”


    “Hello, miss?…”


    With a jolt, I awoke, breathing heavily as the events of my dreams flashed through my mind. I shook away the memory of laying down on the hardwood floor and closing my eyes as the sirens blared. “That wasn’t real..” I reminded myself quietly, before slowly rising out of bed. I tip-toed through the house and to the kitchen for a glass of water, careful not to wake my sleeping family as i filled the the crystalline cup. As I took a sip, my eyes wandered to the countertop, particularly to a gleaming knife, dirty with bits of food. I blinked slowly as my vision blurred and a strange feeling washed over me...