BLOOD ON THE FLOOR
1625 Words
The moment the police officer looked at me with pity in his eyes, everything inside me broke.
Not completely yet; but enough for fear to sink its claws into my chest.
"Miss..."
"Where's my mother?" I demanded.
The officer glanced away. He couldn't look at me.
That was all it took. My stomach dropped.
"No."
I shook my head.
"No, no, no."
I tried pushing past him. He grabbed my arm.
Not roughly; but firmly.
"Miss Morgan, please—"
"Let me go!"
My voice cracked.
People were watching me.
Some of them were neighbors.
People who had known me my entire life.
People who suddenly couldn't look me in the eye.
A horrible feeling crawled up my spine.
The kind of feeling that tells you your life is about to split into two parts. Before and after.
"Where's my mother?" I asked him again.
He didn't answer me.
That terrified me more than anything.
That's when I saw Kelvin.
He was standing near the apartment entrance.
His face was pale. His eyes were red.
For one terrible second, I couldn't breathe.
Kelvin never cried.
Not even when things were bad.
Not even when we got eviction notices.
He didn't cry when he broke his arm at fifteen.
Yet now...
He looked destroyed.
I shoved past the officer.
"Kelvin!"
His head snapped up.
The second he saw me, something inside him cracked.
"Kira."
I had never heard his voice sound like that before.
He sounded completely broken. I ran toward him.
"What happened?"
He didn't say anything.
"Kelvin."
He couldn't speak
My heartbeat thundered.
"What happened?"
His lips parted.
Then closed again. Tears filled his eyes.
My chest hurts.
"No."
The word came out as a whisper.
"No."
Kelvin grabbed my shoulders.
As though he was afraid I might collapse.
Maybe I would have.
"Kira..."
"No."
His eyes squeezed shut.
And then he said the words that destroyed my world.
"Mom is gone."
Everything around me stopped.
The noise. The crowd. The flashing lights. The air.
The world.
All of it was gone.
"No."
The word slipped from my mouth automatically.
Because there was no way that sentence could be true.
No way. My mother couldn't be gone.
I had hugged her three hours ago.
Three hours. Nothing felt real to me.
That's all. She had smiled at me.
Told me she was proud of me.
Told me she'd see me later.
People don't disappear in three hours.
They just don't.
"No."
My knees gave out.
Kelvin caught me before I hit the ground.
"No."
Over and over. I kept saying the same word.
Because my brain refused to accept anything else.
"No."
Tears blurred my vision.
"No."
This wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening.
"She's gone, Kira."
I looked at him.
And for the first time, I saw the truth.
He wasn't lying. He wasn't mistaken. He wasn't confused. Our mother was dead.
And nothing would ever be the same again.
---
The next few hours passed like a nightmare.
Everything felt unreal.
Like I was trapped inside someone else's life.
Detectives kept asking questions.
Paramedics were moving around.
Our neighbors whispered.
People were crying. I heard voices.
But none of them made sense.
Because my mind kept replaying the same memory.
Mom smiling. Mom laughing with us.
Mom telling me she loved me. Mom hugging me before I left.
That was the last hug. We had the last conversation few hours ago. Everything we had ended three hours ago.
Eventually, Kelvin and I were taken to a quiet room inside the building.
A female detective sat across from us.
She looked kind. I hated her for it.
Kind faces only made tragedies feel more real.
"I'm Detective Harper."
Neither of us responded. She sighed softly.
"I know this is difficult."
No. She don't get it.
Difficult was failing an exam. Difficult was being broke. Difficult was losing a modeling audition.
This? This was hell.
"When was the last time either of you saw your mother?"
"Before I left."
"What time?"
"Around seven."
She nodded.
"And your mother stayed home?"
"Yes."
"What about you?" she asked Kelvin.
"I was out with friends."
His voice sounded empty.
"When did you return?"
"A little after ten."
The detective wrote something down.
"What happened then?"
Kelvin looked away. He looked so broken.
For several seconds, he couldn't speak.
I reached for his hand.
He squeezed my hand so hard.
Finally he answered.
"I found her."
The room fell silent. The detective lowered her pen.
"I'm sorry."
Kelvin laughed. A horrible sound.
Humorless and broken.
"I keep thinking maybe if I'd come home earlier..."
My heart shattered.
"Kelvin."
"If I'd just come home earlier..."
"Stop."
His eyes filled with tears.
"I could've helped her."
"No."
My voice was firm despite the pain.
"No, you couldn't have known."
"But what if—"
"No."
The word came out stronger this time.
Because if Kelvin started blaming himself, and
If I started blaming myself too…
We'd never survive this.
The detective cleared her throat.
"There was no way either of you could have predicted this."
Nobody answered her.
Because predictions didn't matter anymore.
Mom was still gone.
---
The funeral arrangements began the next day.
I hated every second of it.
Picking flowers. Choosing music. Looking at photographs. Signing paperwork.
None of it felt real.
How could people expect me to plan a funeral for someone I still expected to walk through the front door?
At one point I found myself staring at Mom's favorite coffee mug.
I kept on staring at it for ten straight minutes.
Because my brain couldn't understand why it was still there when she wasn't.
"Hey."
Kelvin sat beside me.
I didn't look up.
"Hey."
Neither of us spoke for a while.
The silence felt safer than conversation.
Finally he broke it.
"You should sleep."
I let out a short, bitter laugh.
"I don't think I can."
"You haven't slept in two days."
"Neither have you."
He shrugged.
"I'm not the stubborn one."
That almost made me smile. He always uses that to tease me. I'm stubborn. We both know he's worse than me.
Then the smile disappeared. Just like everything else.
"Kelvin."
"Yeah?"
"What if they never find who did it?"
His expression changed instantly.
For the first time since Mom died, anger flashed across his face.
"They will."
"What if they don't?"
He did say anything.
The answer was obvious.
Because it happened all the time.
Cases went cold. Killers walked free.
Justice never came.
The thought made me sick.
"No."
I stood abruptly.
"What?" He asked.
"No."
I started pacing.
"If they don't find the person who did this..."
My hands clenched. I was filled with so much anger.
"I will."
Kelvin stared at me.
"Kira."
"I'm serious."
"You don't know what you're saying."
"I know exactly what I'm saying."
Because something within me had changed.
It was permanent. Since Mom died I changed.
Now, I understand why most people become nonchalant after someone they lose someone close to them. Some become bad people. Some become hard-heartened. Some change completely.
I understood that fully now. The old Kira wanted success, fame, dreams, and a better future.
The new Kira wanted answers.
I wasn't stopping until I got them.
---
Three days later, Detective Harper asked to see us.
The second we entered her office, I knew something was different.
She looked nervous. Kelvin noticed it too.
"What's going on?" he asked her.
Harper folded her hands together. She offered to sit.
"There are a few things we haven't told you."
My pulse quickened. My heart suddenly began beating faster.
"What things?"
She hesitated. Then she opened a brown file Infront of her.
"The robbery theory doesn't fit perfectly."
I leaned forward.
Finally, someone else saw it. The robbery theory was only a cover up.
"What do you mean?"
"There were signs suggesting your mother's attacker may have known her."
Every muscle in my body tightened. Kelvin sat beside me. He wasn't saying anything.
"Knew her?"
"We're still investigating."
No. That wasn't enough. Not anymore.
"What aren't you telling us?"
Harper looked down at the file. Then she back at me.
"When officers arrived, your mother was still conscious for a short period."
The room spun. Conscious. This meant Mom had been alive.
For a few moments, she'd been alive.
My throat tightened. I leaned closer towards her table.
"Did she say anything?"
Harper nodded slowly.
My heartbeat raced faster.
"Yes."
Kelvin and I exchanged a glance.
"What did she say?"
Harper took a breath.
"She was struggling to speak."
I gripped the armrest.
"What did she say?"
"She tried giving us a name."
The room went silent. A name. Mom had tried identifying her killer. Every nerve in my body came alive.
"What name?"
“What did she say?”
Harper looked directly at me.
"It wasn't complete."
I didn't care. Any little information could help.
Anything was better than nothing.
"What name?"
The detective's voice dropped.
"The only word we could make out was..."
My pulse pounded.
"...Victor."
I leaned back into my sit. Kelvin was speechless.
The room went silent.
The name hit me like a punch. I looked at Kelvin.
Victor.
I knew that name. Of course I knew it.
Even though I'd never met him.
Even though he abandoned us before I could remember his face.
There was only one Victor connected to my family.
And that was my father.
The man who disappeared nineteen years ago.
The man who had never once called.
He never visited once. Never once cared.
Now, I had a reason to wonder whether he was still out there.
Watching, waiting, and hiding.
And somehow he might be connected to my mother's death.
- Writer
