Three hours later, I am being wheeled into a hospital room. I've been examined, poked, prodded, and now the only thing left is to wait for the results from the battery of tests the doctors have prescribed. I feel numb, detached from this world I am still apart of.

The only thing that lets me know I still exist is the uncomfortable pull of the bandage covering the wound that...that thing inflicted. Time drags on slowly as I continue to fall deeper into the arms of silence, into the blissful nothingness that is swallowing me.

I tense when I see one of my doctors coming back, accompanied by a woman and an officer. The curtain that would normally give me privacy has been pulled back from the window since they wheeled me in here and an officer has been stationed outside my room. The officer that has been standing guard seems much friendly than the one I see outside my window now.

Maybe that is because the officer standing next to the woman looks seasoned compared to his younger comrade. You can see it in the way this officer holds himself, all jaw taut with shoulders pulled so straight it looks like he has a rod for a spine. He's been hardened by the years of witnessing the ugly sides of humanity. But has he ever seen a monster that wasn't human? Would he believe me if I told him that a demon killed my parents?

Thankfully, he and the woman he is with remain outside of my room. I don't want to talk to anyone. I'm not even sure I want to be here. Everything I thought I knew has been shattered into a million pieces. Monsters aren't supposed to exist outside of the fables parents used to scare their children. But they do, and now one has taken everything from me.

"How is she doing? Is she going to make it?" I hear the woman ask, the door to my room doing a poor job of blocking out the sounds that fill the hallway.

"Honestly, I am stunned. I have never seen anything like this and I've been working in the medical field for over twenty years. Not all of her tests have come back yet, but the ones that have, show that she is healthy as an Olympic athlete. The paramedic said she flatlined but came to before he could even try to resuscitate her. She's a lucky girl."

"But what about all the blood? The paramedic said she threw up close to three liters of blood?" The officer asks, his voice much gruffer than the doctor overseeing my care.

"Her blood count is well within the normal range for a girl her size, so I am not sure where the blood came from because it most certainly is not missing from her."

"Are you saying the blood she threw up wasn't hers? That it is possible she drank large amounts of blood and that is what made her sick?"

Drank large amounts of blood...the officer's phrase hits me smack in the chest. "I was looking forward to draining you until there wasn't an ounce of scrumptious blood left in your carcass."

Oh, God. Is that what happened to my parents? Did that thing drink their blood!

"Really, Dwayne? Are you seriously suggesting she's an accomplice in the murder of her own parents?" the woman asks in disgust.

"Maybe she did. Maybe the two of them got so high and messed up they didn't know what they were doing."

"Before you start accusing her of murder and drinking her parent's blood in some drug-induced psychotic break, why don't you wait until after we have had a chance to talk with her," the woman states angrily.

I don't think she is his partner as she is wearing casual business attire instead of a pressed and starched navy blue uniform like the officer that is getting hammered by her glowering gaze.

"Toxicology results usually take several weeks to get back. If I rush the order, I can have them here in a few days," my doctor interjects before more theories or accusations can be made.

"Yes, that would be great. As of now, we have an active double homicide investigation underway with a missing perp and the only person who knows anything about what happened is on the other side of this door." The officer's voice bounces off my chest cavity and into my wounded heart.

How can he think I am responsible for this? I loved my parents. They didn't have to take me in yet they did, and they loved me as if I was their own.

But they're gone, a voice inside me says as if I needed reminding.

"Is it okay if we question her now?" The woman asks.

"I see no reason why you couldn't," my doctor answers.

The officer waste no time once he is given clearance. He swings open the door as if saying, I'm on to you.

The woman who must be the detective assigned to my case enters the room first.

I curse them.

I don't want to talk about it. I want to stay in this cloud of nothingness because it is safe. Here, in this void of thoughts or emotion, there are no monsters or mutilated bodies. I can pretend that everything is the way it was before I left for school this morning.

"Kinley, my name is Sandra Velez, and this is Officer Morgan. How are you feeling?"

My gaze shifts from Sandra's casual dress pants and her plain button-up shirt to the identification badge that hangs around her neck.

She smiles weakly at me, and I wonder if she can see my shattered soul past the green of my irises. The question is if she could, would she interpret it as a confession of guilt?

Turning away from her, I look out the window. The sun is starting to rise. The color of fire pushing against the darkness that still lingers from the night as two Titans battle for the sky. Neither one ever victorious for day cannot exist without night.

"I know it is hard, but I have to ask you about what happened. The sooner we can gather the information, the sooner we can start looking for the man who did this." Sandra interrupts my thoughts.

I turn to face her, her eyes softening as she sweeps hair that has fallen from her slicked-back ponytail behind an ear. I'm tempted to correct her, to tell her that it wasn't a man. That it was a monster from hell that took my parents from me in the most brutal of ways. I say nothing, for who would believe me.

"Start when you are ready, okay? There is no rush, just take your time."

A burning sting swells behind my eyes as phantom hands squeeze my lungs like a balloon they intend to pop. I shut my eyes, knowing I must endure the terror all over again if I want Sandra and Officer Morgan to leave, for they aren't going to go anywhere until they collect my statement.

"At eleven forty-five I pulled into the garage." I start from the beginning, unable to jump straight into the part where a demon is standing over my lifeless parents. "The house was pitch black. It was late. My friends and I had gone to a movie. I was supposed to be home at ten, but we got to talking and I lost track of time. I called out to my parents when I walked through the door. I knew they would be up because they always waited up for me but no one answered."

Flashes of their bloody bodies pulse into the forefront of my consciousness. "I called out to them again, apologizing for being late but, still, no one answered. It was so dark when I reached the living room. I turned on the table lamp by the sofa. Mom always turned on lamps at night because my dad liked to get up during the night to get a glass of water. One night she forgot and he tripped over the coffee table and busted his head open."

Pressure builds in my chest so quickly, I feel like I might combust and my insides will spew out like those of my parents. I'm never going to see them again. I'm never going to hear them squabble over whose night it is to have the remote or see the kisses mom gives dad when he cooks dinner. I'm never going to wake up to see my mom frantically moving about as dad laughs at the gash the coffee table tore into his forehead all because of a stupid lamp.

"You are doing great." Sandra touches my arm as I blink rapidly against the tears forming.

I'm tempted to slap her because how can she say I am doing great. I've lost everything and am barely hanging on by a thread.

"I know it's hard. But we need to know everything you can tell us." Sandra squeezes my arm.

I want to say, do you really want to know everything? That monsters actually exist? That they aren't just made up fables used to scare people?

I know what I saw, and that thing wasn't a person strung out on PCP or any other type of narcotics. It was a demon sent from hell to tear my life apart, a demon that feasts on the blood of innocent people, a...vampire.

That word rolls around inside me, shredding my insides into tiny, bite-sized pieces that are ingested by my shaken soul.

"It was my birthday..." I continue with my testimony, my voice trailing off into a barely audible whisper. "When I turned on the lamp, I could see gifts wrapped in purple paper sitting on the coffee table . Purple was my favorite color." I pause, noticing that I said was my favorite color. Already I am viewing my world differently. There is everything before the attack—a life, a family, a me who has a favorite color—and now there is everything that comes after, a me who doesn't have any of those things.

"I went upstairs, thinking that they had gone to bed because I was finally old enough that they trusted my judgment."

If I hadn't gone to that movie would things have turned out different?

The not knowing hurts because it makes me feel guilty. Like I could have stopped this if I hadn't been selfish and decided to hang out with my friends instead of coming home like I should have.

"When I reached the top of the stairs I saw blood"— I pause again—"blood everywhere. The walls. The carpet. The ceiling. I knew something had gone terribly wrong. It felt like I had stepped into a movie and everything I saw was just an elaborately staged horror scene. Next is the part where the actress walks toward the illuminated light coming from the cracked open door, so I did. I pushed open the door, expecting to see my parents sleeping peacefully because that red bathing the hallway couldn't have been real. That's when...that's when I saw—" My voice splits, but I press on. I want this over with. "A shadow standing over my parents' lifeless bodies."

I squeeze my eyes shut as my hands tangle in my hair, every detail of the demon's face crystal clear. "I can't." My heart pleads with my mind to not go down this path, to not recall the events that happen next.

"You can. Help us find the person who did this," Sandra says. "Help us put him away so that he can't do this to another person."

"I can't. I didn't see his face. I didn't see the man who murdered my parents," I lie. I can't tell them the truth. They won't believe me. They will lock me away in an institution or think that I was on drugs too.

"She's lying. Tell us who he is? Was he your boyfriend? Is that what happened? You and your boyfriend got high and decided that it was time to end your parents because they wouldn't let the two of you be together? You fell 'in love' with an older guy and you made your parents pay the price, didn't you? Didn't you!"

"Morgan!" Sandra shouts.

"No. No, I didn't. I loved my parents. I don't know who he was. I didn't see his face." I argue, feeling like a traitor because I am withholding the only lead from the police.

"Stop lying, Kinley. You know who did this. Now, tell us where he is?" Morgan slams his fists down on the portable table next to me, rupturing my tear ducts.

"I'm not lying. I don't know who killed my parents." Or what, my mind finishes.

I look out the window, the darkness of the night overtaken by the sun. I imagine the sun's rays surrounding me, cradling me in the safety of its light and warmth.

My sixteenth birthday was supposed to be a day of celebration. Instead, it will forever be a day of mourning...a day I met a demon with an angel's face.