• Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
    Time was running out.

    “Mummy! Mummy!” screamed a young 6 year old girl, her face bruised and bright crimson. Her arms were seeping with blood and encrusted with dirt. Drops of blood slowly wound their way around her arm, slowly like a river, falling like broken shards of glittering diamonds before they shattered against the silent floor.
    Drip. Drip.
    Thunder rolled and rumbled menacingly outside. The rain was heavy an unrelenting, drumming against the roof and splattering through the broken window, like tears. Lightning flashes illuminates the dark, cursed room. Her once clean dress was covered with damp, golden sand and stains of maroon blood. Her honey-blonde hair was matted and it clung to her dirty face, wet with tears.
    “MUMMY!” screeched the young girl, reaching out to a dark silhouette of a woman, who was screaming blue murder, lying on the floor nearby, with two men hovering above her; like the vultures they were. The young girl scrambled to her feet and tried to walk to her mother, but could only manage to hobble, stumble and crawl unsteadily with weak arms. Her arms were suddenly jerked back by a third person, and a snapping sound rang through the air, followed by the young girl’s high-pitched, pain-filled scream as she collapsed to the cold marble floor, made warm by the spreading pools of blood.

    Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
    Time was running out.

    “NOOOO!” yelled the young woman as she witnessed the young girl’s arm being cleanly broken, and was silenced by a cruel punch across her face. She spat out blood as the men groaned, pinning her arms down with brute force and accomplishing their miserable business. She snapped her legs straight and kicked on of the men in the square of his face which made him stumble back, cursing as he tried to stop the flow of blood from his nose with one hand. The young woman sat up straight, slapping the other man across his face with all the force she could muster and as he shot back, she crawled to the young girl, who was laying in a pitiful heap on the ground nearby with her legs waving about helplessly, her broken arm hanging uselessly by her side. The man on top of the girl was trying to loosen the dress she wore, while panting and muttering dangerous threats to her. The young woman elbowed him in the ribs and he scrambled back, clutching his chest and howling in pain. She scrambled over to her daughter, lifted the twitching body into her arms and sobbed while cradling the limp child.

    Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
    Time was running out.

    Outside in the depths of darkness, streaks of lightning splattered across the dreary sky, illuminating the dark room once again. Chairs were strewn across the room and the fridge was hanging open on its broken hinges—useless in every way. The table was overturned and it’s legs were broken-snapped off savagely. Broken glass, shards of wood and the occasional feather or two littered the room, splattered with some brick red, warm liquid. In the middle of this chaos, lay a young woman, cradling her six year old daughter. She was yanked back by the three men and was roughly thrown against the wall. Crying out a nail dug into the muscles in her back, she slid down and screamed as the nail tore a bloody gash from her shoulders to her waist. Without sympathy, the men grabbed her by her tousled ebony hair and dragged her into the next room, muffling the young woman’s desperate screams.
    “MARY!! RUN!! MARY RU—”
    Her voice was cut off as the door slammed shut.

    Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
    Time was running out.

    She woke up, rubbing her swollen eyes with her good hand. The young girl yawned, her aquamarine eyes turning watery. She was tired and felt a small discomfort in her other arm. She took a tired glance at it, noting the arm had a shade of deep violet and patches of blue-black and was bent at an odd angle. She tried to move it. Nothing happened. She tried to bend it.
    “AHHHHHHHHHH!” she screamed, in pure pain, although her voice was rather hoarse and she lifted a weak hand to touch her raw throat that was burning with pain. She whimpered like a broken puppy as she stepped on a stray piece of glass. Slowly picking herself around her room, wincing as she stepped on more glass, she spotted an abandoned towel and shaking it free of dirt, dust and damp bits, wrapped it gingerly around her broken arm. She hobbled towards the hallway and doubled over, squeezing her eyes tight in pain as she felt a roaring fire in her stomach. Looking down at her torn dress and seeing dried blood and some other unknown substance sticking to her inner thigh, she quickly went to find her mother and stumbled towards the master bedroom.

    “Mummy?” she asked cautiously, stepping inside the room. “Are you there mummy?” She surveyed the messy bedroom and saw her mum sitting in the far corner. Crawling over, she moaned as her broken arm hit the floor from time to time and after reaching her destination, she sat in her mothers lap.
    “Mummy?”
    No answer.
    “Mummy, please wake up!”
    Nothing. Not even a twitch of the fingers.
    “Mummy!” She shook her mother vigorously and smiled when her mum’s swollen eyelids slowly opened, though they had a glassy look. Her grey eyes were exquisite compared to the rest of her appearance. Her face was covered in bruises; pansy purple, tyrian purple, dark violet and indigo. If it weren’t so cruelly done, it would have been a breathtaking piece of artwork. There was a dried-out trail of blood from a swelling wound on her forehead. Her lips, once so soft like velvet, were cracked and dry like the ground underneath the hot sun. Her body was beaten and tossed aside like a rag doll. Her dry lips parted and she breathed in slowly.
    “Mary…” She whispered; her voice hoarse and dry. She lifted a hand and stroked the girl’s head.
    “Mary, I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…”

    Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
    Time was running out.

    The young girl jumped up, startled as a middle-aged, slender woman ran into the room, and knelt by the young woman’s side.
    “Hold on Marissa,” She urged, taking her hand. “Help is coming. I heard the sounds yesterday and I called the police but the storm held them up. They’re coming so hold on!”
    Marissa shook her head and sighed, a trickled of blood was still flowing from the wound in her back into a spreading pool.
    “Missus Eddings, Is mummy going to be ok?” She questioned, tugging on the young woman’s sleeve. “I think I need a plaster.” She gestured towards her broken arm and Ms. Eddings gasped in horror, her cobalt eyes wide.

    Mary snuggled into her mum’s arms, not noticing Marissa wincing in pain as she Mary pressed up against her bruised chest. Marissa’s eyes travelled over her daughter; the blood on her inner thigh, her torn dress, her broken arm and bruised face. Smiling weakly, she kissed her daughter’s forehead while her eyes shone with held-back tears of frustration and pain. Marissa coughed and a dribble of blood appeared on her chin.

    “Mummy, your skin is so cold…” complained Mary, trying to warm her mother up by hugging her hard with one hand. “Mummy can you help me make some pancake—”
    She immediately fell silent when she saw fresh tears sliding down her mother’s cheeks. Glittering like diamonds, they shattered as they hit the hard floor.

    “Mummy?” Mary questioned quietly, stroking her mum’s cheek with one small hand. Marissa’s tears wouldn’t stop flowing and her body wouldn’t stop shaking.
    “Mummy? Mummy!” screamed Mary. Ms. Eddings started to shake Marissa violently.
    “MARISSA! MARISSA DO YOU HEAR ME? HANG ON! YOU CAN’T LEAVE MARY ALONE, SHE’S ONLY A CHILD!”
    Mary started to scream.
    “Mummy don’t leave me here!” She grabbed her mum’s shoulders and buried her sobbing face in Marissa’s dirtied shirt and was yanked back by paramedics who had just arrived. They forced her into a trolley-bed and strapped her down. Mary kept on struggling and kicking, ignorant of the burning pain in her broken arm.
    Marissa slowly watched her daughter being wheeled away, screeching and sobbing. She smiled sadly and closed her eyes as she herself was lifted onto something soft, with an oxygen mask shoved on to her face.
    She had failed in protecting her daughter.
    She did not deserve to live.

    Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
    Time was running out.

    “MUMMY!” screamed an anguished Mary from a distance before she was silenced by a needle filled with sleeping potion.
    The young woman died, held back from her daughter, died in the arms of strangers, with only one sentence on her lips.
    “I love you Mary.”

    In the year 2005, on August 12th, a young woman and her daughter were both raped and brutally beaten. The woman died within an hour at the hospital and her daughter is now currently receiving extensive psychological care and suffering mental breakdown.

    That was the day my mother died.
    It would be years before I smiled again.