TASTEFUL REVENGE

The day was finally here, the day Irene looked forward to all year, her 18th birthday. It was the day she got to have all her parents full attention, her parents were always busy and had series of nannies and family members looking after her, but today she got to have them all to herself and she was so grateful for it. ‘And now you blow the cake’ her mum squealed with so much excitement looking over at her and signalling for to move closer to the cake and cut it. She leapt forward with a wide smile on her face, excited to cut the cake and proceed to the next agenda of the night. ‘Cut the cake at the last letter of your name’ her dad said excited and gave her mum a huge smirk as he won the bet about who got to do the name calling for the cake cutting. Her mum just rolled her eyes and gave a get to it look. ‘ I, R, E...’ her dad paused then just looked at her and her mum dead in the eye without saying any other thing, looking at them mischievously. Irene was expecting something like this. That was how her dad was. She wanted to let him have his way, but she was so impatient to get to the gift opening already. ‘Dad just call it already’ she said impatiently, and her dad seemed to get the drill and just went ahead with it. ‘Nnn’ ‘Eeeeeee’ then she moved the cake down and there was the first slice. Her parents leaned in and gave her a tight hug. ‘Happy birthday sweetheart’ her mum said as she rubbed her hair repeated . She reciprocated by hugging them back, but the hug seemed to be going on longer than she expected, and she was growing impatient and just wanted to see what her parents got her. ‘Okay enough now the gifts’ she let out to let her intentions known, and her parents immediately disengaged. ‘Right the gifts’ her mum and dad said as they scrambled in different directions and came back with the gifts they had prepared for her. They both held two gifts, one big gist and one small gift. She took her mum’s gift first. She was so excited to see what was in the big box, so she opened it first to see a really old rusty book in it. ‘What is this?’ she asked, confused. Her mum seemed to notice her countenance and placed her hands on hers, and squeezed them gently. ‘A manual’ her mum said softly. She looked confused and wanted to ask more but just decided not to push it. She opened the smaller box and saw it contained a necklace. The necklace wasn’t really her style, but she didn’t say anything and just asked her mum to put it on her. Then she proceeded to her dad’s gift. She crossed her hands, hoping to see the latest iPhone in it or the bag she had always dreamed of having. She opened the big on first, and it was almost the same as her mum’s, another manual, except this one had a different shape and size, and now she was so confused. She took a deep breath and hoped the last box had something she actually wanted. She opened it and was utterly disappointed. It was a ring she put it on and looked at her parents with anger and tears forming in her eyes, she didn’t want to come off as spoilt, but this was her birthday, the only day she got to actually have something she had been wanting for a long time and now she can’t even have that because her parents knew absolutely nothing about what she wanted. ‘What is it darling?’ her mum asked with worry in her voice. ‘Nothing’ she said, sniffing and wiping away the string of tears falling furiously from her eyes. ‘Darling something is obviously wrong. You can talk to us’ her dad chipped in. ‘You guys know nothing about what I actually want for my birthday, I wanted something different and I can’t even blame you, you guys are hardly ever around, so I would just learn to live with that and make do with the archaic manuals and jewelleries you guys gave me’ she said with more tears streaming down her eyes. ‘I am so sorry honey, we can go get whatever you want tomorrow, we did not know’ her dad said with so much regret in his voice. ‘Run us dry tomorrow we are all yours’ her mum chipped in, and she finally broke a smile. ‘Thanks guys, so now...’ she tried saying but was cut off by the sound of her dad’s phone ringing. He talked on the phone and finally got off the call and gave her mum a weird look. ‘it’s a code 439’ he said with his voice shaking and his wife’s body going cold. Irene knew something was wrong, this was not like before when they got a mysterious call and had to go back to work, this was different. Her mum took her hands and dragged her to the one room in the house she was never allowed to enter only her mum and dad went there and now her mum dragged her there whatever was going one was really bad. ‘You need to stay here, no matter what you hear, do not come out of this room’ my mum said with her voice shaking ‘What’s going on, mum?’ she asked, scared. ‘Take this, the manuals are in the bag and our cards, you will need the manual when the time is right’ her mum said, ignoring her question. Then they heard a loud bang from the living room where her dad was. ‘Stay here, no matter what’ her mum said and hurriedly off. She was scared she could not fathom what was happening. Everything was happening so fast. She prayed silently, hoping nothing happened to her parents, but her prayers were soon interrupted by loud screams from the living room. They were her parents, she dashed out of that room and hurried to see what was going on, ignoring her mum’s warning not to leave the room. When she got to the leaving room, what she saw made her scream louder than a siren. It was her parents, lying in a pool of their own blood, she hurried close to them, screaming and crying at the same time, she hurriedly called 911, hoping they could get here in time to save her parents. After she had made a call, she saw felt a hand scrap her. She looked and saw it was her dad, almost conscious but very weak. He was muttering some words, but she could not make anything out of it because of how low he sounded. ‘Dad stop talking and save your strength, help is on the way’ she said asshe held this hand close to her chest, but that didn’t stop him from muttering those same words, so she moved close to his lips to hear him. ‘Geeet revenge’ he said so lowly. She didn’t know what to make of what he said, she might have heard wrong she thought to herself, little did she know those words she heard that night would be her drive to keep living for the next ten years.