The Fall and Rise of Cassandra Knight

Prologue

"I'm calling for help Nathanial this is absurd... He needs he..." She begins to dial the number, with shaking blood-stained fingers. But before she could finish, in one swift motion Nathanial sliced a deep gash across our mother's throat. She made a strange gurgling sound, before face planting onto the floor dead." 

"Mommy, no..." I let out a labored sob, my entire body shaking. Never in my small life had I been more scared than in that moment. My own brother had just murdered my parents right in front of me, and I couldn't do a thing to stop it." 

For a split second my brother's face fell looking down at our parent's body, for the first time realizing what he had just done. "No...I never meant to..." for a moment I almost believed he was remorseful, but then he was furious, seething more than before. He turned his knife back on me, getting so close I could feel his hot angry breath fan my face. "You made me do this!" He spat, " You're a monster, Cassandra!  You made me do this all if you'd just let me kill you, they'd still be alive!" I was crying so hard, the image of his face blurred in front of me. He pressed the tip of the knife into my chest, just above my heart, "This ends tonight...I won't let you ruin anyone else's life like you've ruined ours." He pressed the knife harder, beginning to draw blood.

My vision began to go in and out in black spots, I knew then I'd started to go into shock. In the distant, I remember hearing sirens approaching. "F**K!" Nathanial had screamed, he paced the kitchen like an animal. A look of panic painted his face, as he attempted to decide the best course of action. I held my chest, my fingers stained with my own blood. I tried to inch toward the exit, attempting to make a getaway, but Nathanial caught me. "Don't you move another f**king muscle, or so help me I will kill you right now." The sirens were growing closer with each second, which only heightened his panic.   

"This wasn't how it was supposed to go, the girl was supposed to be the only one to die." my brother whispered to himself, "the mission can not fail, I can not fail, she must die, she has to die, it's the only way." I remember thinking about how mad he really was, pacing the kitchen babbling nonsense to himself, "She's a monster, she's not a little girl, a monster. Kill her, Kill her now!" I knew he had finally made his decision, but not in enough time. Just as my brother turned to carry out his wicked plan, the glass on the sliding door beside us shadders and officers storm inside. 

"Put the knife down son." One of the officers shouts. Before anyone had the chance to move, I knew Nathanial had already made up his mind, he wasn't going to leave here until I was dead. "You are going to die." He whispered so only I could hear him. In the next moment, he lunged at me with the knife, scraping the blade across my chest, leaving a large gash. One of the officers lets off a warning shot. "Now I'll say it again put the knife down!" 

"Gladly..." Nathanial said, "Remember this is all your fault, you're a monster, Cassandra." Those were the last words my brother spoke to me before he plunged the blade into his own heart. 

 The rest of the night was a blur, of my families bodies being carried away, police interviews, paramedics and trying to find me a new permanent place to live. For the longest time, I didn't know how the cops ended up at my house that night. I found out later that in my father's last moments of life, he had finished the call my mother had begun, alerting the police of the horrors unfolding. Even though they rushed my father to the hospital,  and did everything they could to save his life, he had lost so much blood, dying almost the minute he got there. My poor mother had died instantly, there was nothing they could have done for her. Nathanial, on the other hand, despite the knife to the heart clung to his life and was carted off to the hospital. No one ever told me what happened to him, and no one has a funeral for a murderer.  

That night a part of myself died, I spent the next several years of my life pushing everyone away. I was so afraid that anyone who came in contact with me would suffer the same fate my family did. It took years of therapy to even begin to cope with the nightmares of that night. To this day I am still unable to understand what motives my brother had for his actions. We lived a perfectly happy life up until that day. It was almost like Nathanial knew something we didn't, he threw around the word "monster" so many times, It almost made me wonder if I was a monster? It was hard not to think I was a monster, being the only survivor of a vicious attack. 

After the incident, I was placed with my affluent Aunt Madaline, my mother's sister. She was my only living relative, leaving me no other place to go. Everything is surrounded by secrets in her house, kept away from only me. We rarely see eye to eye, but at least she pays for therapy. Aunt Madaline has frequent visitors, people claiming to be doctors, therapists, psychiatrists, everyone wants to "help". It's becoming painfully exhausting to keep reliving that night over and over again. 

When I believed I was living in brightness, I was surrounded by darkness. I gave my brother respect and that was my only defect.