Special Blood

Bankruptcy

Let me tell you my story properly. My name is Ava. Yes, just Ava! And up until recently, I was literally the happiest, luckiest, and most spoiled girl in the entire universe! I swear!

I had everything a girl could ever dream of! My closet was bigger than a supermarket! I had shoes that could fill up a whole swimming pool! I ate food so delicious and expensive, it tasted like magic! My parents loved me so much, they would literally catch the stars and put them in a box for me if I asked! Life was perfect! It was like eating a giant mountain of strawberry ice cream every single second of the day! Sweet, cold, and absolutely amazing!

But hey, they say good things never last forever, right? Especially when you are the main character in a big dramatic story like me! Trouble is always hiding behind the door, waiting to jump on you like a crazy cat!

And boy, did trouble come! It came like a huge, heavy tsunami wave that swallowed everything!

It all started on a very dark and gloomy day. The sky was grey and crying buckets of rain, just like my heart was about to cry. I was coming home from shopping (yes, I was still buying things because I didn't know our money was gone yet! I am so clueless sometimes, haha!).

I opened the big front door expecting to smell my mom’s delicious cooking or hear my dad laughing at the TV. But nope! The whole house smelled like worry, sadness, and old wet socks! The air was so heavy you could almost touch it! It was scary!

I walked into the living room and froze instantly. My feet stopped moving!

My parents were sitting on the sofa holding hands tight. They looked like they had seen a ghost! Their faces were white as paper, their eyes were big and round like saucers, and they looked so tired and old!

"Mom? Dad? What's wrong?" I asked, putting my shopping bags down slowly. "Did the cat run away? Or did we run out of chocolate? Because that is a tragedy but we can fix it!"

My father put his head in his hands and let out a huge groan that sounded like a dying whale! Ooooooohhhhh...

"Ava... my sweet child..." my mom said, her voice shaking like a leaf blowing in the strong wind. "We have... we have a very, very BIG problem."

Turns out, it wasn't just a problem. It was a DISASTER! It was the end of the world!

My father’s big company, the thing that made us rich and famous, crashed! BOOM! Just like that! It fell down like a tower made of cards that someone blew on super hard! Gone! Poof! Vanished into thin air!

We lost all our money. Every single cent! We owed so much money to other people, it was like a mountain of debt so tall it touched the sky!

"We are bankrupt, Ava," Dad said finally, looking at me with eyes full of pain and tears. "We have nothing left. The house, the cars, everything will be taken away by the people we owe money to."

I stood there with my mouth wide open. My brain literally stopped working for a whole minute!

Bankrupt? Me? Ava? The girl who used to throw away clothes just because I wore them once? Now I have no money? Is this a joke? Is this some kind of prank show?

"No way! No way!" I shouted, shaking my head wildly. "Tell me this is not real! Tell me you are acting! It's not funny guys! Stop it right now!"

But it was real. It was painfully, horribly real.

And then, to make it even worse, the door burst open!

BAM!

The sound was so loud it made the windows shake!

In walked the bad men. Oh my gosh, they were terrifying!

They were huge, tall, muscular like giant trees! They wore black suits and dark sunglasses even though it was dark and rainy outside! They looked like walking monsters with mean faces!

"Mr. Wilson!" the leader said. His voice was deep and rough like stones grinding together. "Time is up! Where is our money?!"

My father stood up trying to look brave, but he looked like a little mouse facing a hungry cat! "Please... give us more time! Just a little bit more time!"

"No more time!" the bad man screamed, hitting his hand on the table so hard things jumped up! "You promised! If you don't pay tonight... we take the girl!"

THE GIRL?!

They looked at me! Their eyes were greedy and scary!

I hid behind my mom instantly! My heart started beating like a drum machine on fire! THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP! It was so loud I thought they could hear it!

"Take me? Take me where?!" I stammered, feeling my legs turn into jelly. "I am not a thing! I am a human being! You can't just take me like I am a bag of rice or a sofa!"

"You are the payment!" the man sneered evilly, looking at me like I was a piece of meat. "Come with us nicely, or we carry you out and make you suffer!"

I was so scared I wanted to cry! I wanted to run away! I wanted to turn into a butterfly and fly far far away! But my feet were stuck to the floor like glue!

This was it! My life was over! I was going to be taken by bad guys! I would never eat pizza again! I would never wear pretty dresses again! I would be locked in a dark room forever!

I closed my eyes and tears started rolling down my cheeks like waterfalls! Goodbye world! You were nice while it lasted!

Just as the scary man walked towards me to grab my arm...

A voice came from the entrance.

A voice so cold, so deep, and so powerful, it made the air in the room turn into ice!

"I think... you are disturbing my future family."