IGCSE 1ST LANGUAGE

A moment of realisation

The ear-splitting screech of metal on metal and shattering

glass ricocheted through the dark room, only illuminated by a

narrow stream of silvery moonlight pouring in from the

dingy, broken window. I waited.

One...two...three...utter silence. Four...five... six...I heard an

owl's hoot cut through the silence.

Seven...eight...nine...silence again. Ten. I heard a distant wail.

I heard a piercing scream. Then there was a smell. It was a

pungent odour, slowly drifting into the attic I was trapped in.

One that was engraved in my nightmares, from that dreadful

night a few years ago. The night my foster family was

murdered.

The suffocating stench clouded my mind as I heard screaming

and felt horror, unbearable pain. All the terrible foulness

collected in my mind like smoke in an air filter. I plugged my

nostrils with my fingers. I opened my glassy brown eyes and

shuddered.

In the corner of the attic I could make out the outline of a

few board games, a couple of albums that must have been

older than me and old teddy bears- some headless while

others limbless- lining the splintered wooden floor. It looked

exactly like my first home before my new family was taken

away. That was before I was accused of their murder. It was

long before when I didn't have to seek shelter in abandoned

attics.

A loud bang dragged me out of my train of thought and I

snapped. I rocked back and forth, flinging albums at the

mirror stuck to a cracked grey wall, splintering it into a

fractured starburst. I was trapped. The house wasn't

abandoned. I couldn't get out.

It took what felt like hours for my mind to right itself, trying

to quit roving crazily over the swirling, sickening landscape of

strange sounds and strange smells. Then I peered out the

window to see what I was up against, but not even the

desperation to escape this house , which reopened so many

old wounds prepared me for what lurked outside.

It was a black car. It was a black Aventador SV. It was the

same car that was at our house on the night of the murder.

Suddenly everything became clear. The black car and the

stench, everything added up. I was in the house of a

murderer.

I heard footsteps. They were growing louder and clearer by

the second. Someone was approaching the attic. This time I

wasn't scared. I was going to avenge my family's death.

I spun around, facing the door to the attic as it opened. a

A pair of icy blue eyes stared at me.

Those were the same unforgettable pair of eyes that I saw a

few years ago.

"What are you doing here?" the man croaked.