4

Angelina’s POV

“Mom! I’m home!” I said as I closed the front door behind me and double locked it out of habit.

I shrugged off my leather jacket, hung it on the wooden hanger by the front door, and went into the direction of my small room, itching to change my clothes into my comfy pajamas and planning to trap my mom into making me her delicious hot chocolate. Not that she needed to be thoroughly convinced to do something for me, I only needed to ask and she would do anything I wanted in a heartbeat.

I opened my bed room door only to freeze in my tracks. Dread that I’ve never felt before in my entire life, coursed through me like a flood.

A scene I would never be able to erase from my head until the day I die took place in a matter of ten seconds.

That’s exactly how long it took to make this memory, the single most painful memory I’ll forever live through and never get past. That’s how long it took for that one single moment to scar me, change me, and kill me from the inside.

A masked