Experiment Number One

I don’t know why I grabbed the stranger’s hand above me. And for a second, I hesitated to take it. My body was screaming at me to get up and try to escape once more, but for some odd reason, I had a feeling drawing me towards him. So I allowed him to pull me up, and he spoke when I was stable. “Emerye Mendoza. I’m Chief Raimond.” I stayed silent, that much I knew to keep with me. He didn’t seem to mind as he took it as a cue to continue, “Follow me.” He turned on his heel and walked away.

But I didn’t follow. See, I was very confused with everything that was going on. One moment I was at work, then the next, I was running home and greeted by my parents fighting. Oh, and I laid next to my dead mother who happened to be murdered by my father before he expressed the same motives towards me. Wait, I’m not done. I was in this weird dream purgatory world and then brutally pulled from it to a group of grown men trying to hold me down.

I watched as white hazmat beings scurried around my house with casually dressed officers holding various supplies intermixed among them. My surroundings didn’t click until I turned my attention to the kitchen. The hazmat beings were swabbing something off the ground. My mother’s blood. Maybe even my own. I joined Chief Raimond.

When we walked out the front door, I was shocked by the dark sky that covered the world. The whole situation felt like it only happened in minutes. If night had fallen, that would mean that I was knocked out for a good few hours. I left Amilio and Mariana alone for that long, allowing my father to capture them. The intrusive thoughts of my dead siblings plagued my mind.

Chief Raimond and I weaved around tents, people, and cars. There were a couple of dozen people on our lawn, what I assumed were Lusha Police Department officers, and they all ran around talking to one another and ignoring all the same. The crowd’s spirit dimmed to a halt as I walked past them. Each person stopped what they were doing and stared at me and the Chief. Great. I burrowed into my skin as each person turned.

“You’re probably wondering where your siblings are,” Chief Raimond’s voice broke my mind from a trance I was slowly slipping into. At the mention of Amilio and Mariana, my ears perked up, “Yes, where are they?”

“We’ve got them loaded up in an ambulance.”

My stomach dropped, “What’s wrong with them? Are they hurt?”

Chief Raimond smirked, not in a condescending way but in a light-hearted, amused way. In the reflection of the red and blue lights highlighting his dark skin, I saw a trace of a scar on his cheek. It made me question why people put themselves in a line of danger just to get hurt in return. It seemed pretty stupid to me. But yet again, that whole situation was because I didn’t take my own advice and stayed put in the room with Amilio and Mariana.

“Calm down. They are fine, just a little shook. The boy seems to have some kind of cold, though.”

I sigh, “Yeah, he does.” A smile etched across my face as I thought about my siblings being safe. I didn’t fail them after all. My father didn’t get them, and I’m still here to care for them. The police will arrest him, and we will live happily ever after. The end.

I wish.

When we approached the ambulance, Amilio and Mariana were huddled together with a blanket draped around their shoulders. I left Chief Raimond’s side and ran up to them, pulling them into a tight hug. Their bodies stiffened underneath my touch, and when they didn’t loosen up, I pulled back to look at them. “Hey, guys. It’s me. You’re safe now,” I smiled as I moved my hands to their cheeks, but they flinched away from my touch instead of it soothing them. I watched as their eyes traveled down to my shirt, coated in my mother’s blood.

“Oh, don’t look at that,” I pulled their chins back to my face. Their lips began to quiver as tears filled their eyes. “Guys, it’ll be okay. Alright?”

“Miss Mendoza, step away from the kids.” Chief Raimond’s voice turned cunning.

“What? No.”

Mariana started to cry, and when I tried to pull her into a hug, she ripped herself away from me and into Amilio’s arms. “Mariana.”

“Miss Mendoza, I’m not going to ask you again.” Someone grabbed my shoulder, dragging me away from my siblings. I pulled out of their grasp and reached my hands out. “Come on, Mariana. Everything will be okay. You’re safe now. I’ll keep you safe.”

“Mendoza.”

“I said no!” Tears welled in my eyes. Someone pulled my arms back. “Stop! Get off me,” I screamed as they pulled me away. “Amilio, Mariana, everything is okay. I promise.” They kept ripping me away from my siblings until there were several feet of distance between us. Amilio and Mariana were in each other’s arms as they watched me leave.

“Let go! I have to go back to my siblings!” I cried. My whole world crashed down on top of me. I didn’t understand why they were doing that. They were supposed to be arresting my father. I was supposed to be with my siblings, tending to them and trying to make them forget about that whole mess. But they didn’t want to be with me. Their eyes reflected back to me with a vision I tried so hard to prevent. As I stood there watching their glassy eyes, I saw my parents in the reflection.

“Emerye Mendoza, you are being placed under arrest,” Chief Raimond said from behind me. Something cold hits my wrist, causing my body to be shocked with a sharp pain. I cried out. “What? What are you talking about?”

“You are being arrested for the murder of your parents, Richard and Mary Mendoza.”

My vision goes blurry, and I become light-headed. My father was dead. When did that happen? How did that happen? I didn’t think the situation could get anymore confusing, but it did. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t kill my parents.”

I thought back to my fight with my father in the kitchen. My mother was dead before I got in there, and my father tried to kill me. I passed out before I could even lay a finger on him. There was no way that I could’ve ever hurt him. And yet, he was dead. How?

“You know what you did and will go down for it. Brutally murdering your parents and leaving your siblings without care? How despicable can you be?”

“I didn’t kill them! My father… he killed my mother.”

“Then who killed your father?”

“I–I don’t know. It wasn’t me.”

Chief Raimond grunted, “Let’s see if the judge will like that alibi.” He pulled my arms. I was restrained once more, but this time by handcuffs. I looked over to my siblings, who held their heads down. I tried to call them, but they didn’t respond.

I pled my innocence. “Please, you have to believe me. I can’t leave my siblings, they need me.”

“They will be fine, I assure you.”

“No. No, they won’t. I’m the only one that can take care of them. No one knows them like me.” I sobbed and pulled against Chief Raimond’s grasp. He wouldn’t budge, and I knew that there was no way I was talking myself out of it. If my father was dead, there is no one else in the house the blame could’ve fallen on. I was going down for the murder of my parents, and there was nothing I could do. I was leaving my siblings; they had no one. Not even our stupid, abusive parents. They were all alone.

My legs beneath me gave out, causing Chief Raimond to lose his grip on my arm. I crashed to the floor. He went to lift me back up, “You’re just making things more difficult for yourself.” His tight grip on my arm burned through my skin and the handcuffs seemed to ignite it. My heartbeat quickened as the sharp pains in my wrist spread throughout the rest of my body.

“No. No, you can’t take me.” My vision blurred as the sound around me drowned out. I tried to drag my body back to my siblings only to feel something hook onto my waist, sending shock waves throughout my soul. They were way worse than what I felt in the Euphoric River.

I fell to the street as I convulsed once more. All the power in my body was drained and left me lying limp on the ground. Devastated, lifeless, and powerless.

I can successfully say I lost my siblings at that point. Even if I wasn’t arrested, they wanted nothing to do with me. I was painted as a murderer, a monster, and there was no way I could’ve change that perspective.