She kept tossing in the darkness, restless about something. There was just this sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that she couldn't quite explain.

Elena finally dragged her body out of bed. She reached out to pull onto some sort of rope beside her bed and the room became dimly lit. She started heading for the bathroom, which was in her room. She got to the sink and turned on the tap. She used both her palm to scoop some water and then bent slightly so that her face was leaning into the sink. She poured water over her face and let out a deep sigh.

After repeating this process a few times, she left the bathroom. She started heading to her bed but paused mid-way, making a U-turn, she started to leave her bedroom.

Her door closed behind her with a soft creaking sound. She walked through the passageway, heading for some stairway.

She started to climb down the stairs when she reached it. It was a one storey building.

Elena was a brown-haired teenager with deepest almond brown eyes and a defined nose. She was light complexioned and she had a long diamond shaped face. Her body was more athletic than soft for a lady because she did love to work out. Her mouth was medium thin in shape and had a natural beige deep neutral color. She was beautiful. Undeniably beautiful.

Elena reached the end of the stairway and started to walk through the passageway, which linked the sitting room to the dining room and the kitchen. She passed by the sitting room, heading for the kitchen. As soon as she got into the kitchen, she flipped on the light switch and started for the refrigerator to take out a bottle of water. She emptied the bottle of water in one long gulp...

"You really have to stop being unnecessarily unreasonable Elena!"

Elena gasped as the memory of just a few days ago started playing in her head...

Dorathy, her petite mother was glaring at her as she screamed.

Elena scoffed, even shaking her head at her mother.

"I am being unnecessarily unreasonable? Really mom?" she shouted back, her voice had a hint of impatience laced in it.

"He hit you mom and you let him. You keep letting him hit you and I am the one being unnecessarily unreasonable!" Elena went on. Her pitch rising with every word she let out.

"Elena, I already told you to stop being paranoid…" Dorathy spat and Elena chuckled but it was a bitter chuckle.

"I don't even know you anymore. The mother I remember is not weak! You are not my mother," Elena said, all in one breath, and with that she stormed away, up the stairs and to her bedroom, making sure that she banged her bedroom door behind her…

Elena drew a sharp breath as she returned to the present. She closed the refrigerator, moved to switch off the light, and then started to make her way out of the kitchen.

As she walked past the sitting room, heading for the staircase, something made her halt, and then turn.

Elena started to take calculated steps towards the sitting room. It was dimly lit but she could see the weird shadows in the walls, like someone was in the sitting room. But it was past midnight!

Reaching out for the light switch, she flipped it on and the sitting room became well lit. Her eyes began to parade the sitting room and it widened as soon as it rested on a particular spot. Her eyes moved downwards to the floor, and a scream escaped her lips.

Lying on the floor of the sitting room, was her mother and her step father.

Elena didn't need a soothsayer to tell her that the unmoving bodies in front of her, had no life in them anymore. With quivering lips, she moved backwards until she hit her back against the wall.

A sob escaped her lips as the reality of the situation hit her. Her parents were lying before her cold and dead. They had been murdered!

******

"Here, drink this," Stephen spoke, his voice almost a whisper as he handed Elena a glass of water. She accepted the glass from him but she didn't make any effort to drink from it. She just kept staring into space, looking completely lost.

Stephen sighed as he took the glass from her and placed it on the table. He reached out and pulled her to rest against him. She didn't resist and came into his arms, placing her head to rest on his broad chest.

"They are gone," she muttered, her lips quivering. Her voice was barely audible. Her whole body shook involuntarily as a sob escaped her lips.

Stephen sighed helplessly. If he was to be honest, it all still seemed so surreal. His best friend calling his line at midnight to tell him the bad news. Him racing to her family apartment only to meet the ambulance already taking their corpses away, and his best friend bent over the front porch, clearly in shock. How she had sobbed. How he had joined her to sob. It all still felt so surreal.

"How could they be dead? I don't understand," Elena's quiet voice sounded again, this time she ended with a sniff.

"I don't want her to be dead… She doesn't deserve that. This cannot be happening to me… First my dad, and now my mom… It's all that bastard's fault!" Elena ended with a sob. Stephen snuggled her closer to himself, shushing her. He didn't know what else to do. Or what to say.

Just then Mrs Fiona, Stephen's grandmother, stepped into the sitting room. Fiona Darwin was in her mid fifties but she was surprisingly so young and agile that one could mistake her to be in her early thirties. Her clothes were slightly wet because it was drizzling outside.

Elena jumped up and ran towards her the moment she caught sight of her.

"So… What did they find out? What killed them?" she asked.

Mrs Fiona was a head nurse at their town's local hospital.

"Umm, Elena, they were poisoned," the older woman said and Elena gasped.

"Poisoned?" she repeated, her expression clouded with confusion.