The lights burned bright, lamp shades thrown into a corner in a nervous haste. There was no music, no television or conversation to fill the empty house, just the wheezing and groans of old walls and floorboards. Amanda pressed herself further into the corner, blade clutched tightly in her shaking grasp. Hair matted and wild, eyes frantic, she waited. How long had it been? She'd stopped looked at the clock, finding solace instead in the thumping of her own heart, so sure and steady that it felt to her like a hammer upon cloth. When would he be here? He would come for her, that much was certain. She had no idea who he would be when he arrived however, how he would enter or what he would do once he found her. Maybe he wouldn't even remember her; maybe he had found someone else to carry his burden. The knife slacked in her damp palms at the thought, her fingers resumed clenching though as soon as the traitorous hope fled and was replaced with a wave of guilt. There would never truly be separation and he would never find a stand in, someone equal in loyalty.

When the men with guns came she had torn apart the loose floorboards, lying beneath the feet of her intruders. Her split and bleeding fingers were cradled against her lips, the cooling blood a small comfort as her parents screamed. She had listened for his voice amongst the hungry throng and had found no purchase, no stuttered tone to cry desperately to. She had been certain that her youth and relation to one of them would spare her but when they had begun to snarl her name, shouting into the dark recesses of the house, she had wallowed in her misgivings. Her chest had heaved painfully against the rough wood, throat bubbling with vomit as her mother lay dying inches above. Her moans and hysterical tears only punctuated by the gasp of "Amanda". Her heart slowly broke as she realized her contused and bleeding mom thought she was dead. A battered hand reached out to the small crack of light, thick hot tears pooling at her neck. After the gruff voices had disappeared, the death rattle of her parents a distant, distinct memory, she had screamed. It had been brutal and agonizing, her throat tearing and vocal cords ripped. Her palms slammed desperately at the floor above her, forehead pressed till her neck ached. The boards lifted with a groan as she scrambled out, slipping in congealed blood as she gulped the death tinged air. Indeed there was an odour to the final act, the thick coppery bite of blood, the pungent ooze of bowels and the distinct after taste of terror. It was then that she had reached for the fallen knife, crusted with crimson, and huddled into the juncture of the walls. Nausea and adrenaline seared her veins, thick and acrid like battery acid. She noticed then the lights burning from every direction. Her home was alight, alive, smoldering in her betrayal. They had torn off the lamp shades for no conceivable reason but she suffered none the less in the burning carnage.

A creak interrupted her tortured inner monologue, she pressed deeper into the junction. Her legs buckled as she tried to rise, hand crabbing against the torn wallpaper. A small groan slow and steady from the stairs, her intruder was careful but quick making fast work of the entrance way. The pounding pulse now erratic. He knew his way around the house, checking bathrooms and bedrooms. She could hear him quietly speaking her name, could almost see him peering hopefully through each frame. It was him he was here. She wouldn't call out, he would find her soon and she would have no idea what to do. It was so simple to wait, to be sure that his cruelty would fall on those more deserving. Breath frozen in aching lungs, she sat.

"Amanda?" He was there, not just in the room, not just as her savior. It was the boy she recognized, irrevocably changed and badly misshapen.

"Oh god did they-" He was on his knees in front of her, gripping her blood and sweat soaked shirt, searching for an injury he wouldn't find. She shook her head numbly. Her head kept moving on its own accord however and was only stilled when his calloused hands stilled her cheeks.

"Amanda look at me. Where are mom and dad?" She nodded this time, reaching up to clutch his forearms. He was covered in tattoos, her nail scratched at the blue ink twisting up to his shoulder. "Stop nodding, why are you nodding? Where are they?" He shook her lightly.

How could she speak? Her tongue too thick and lips too cold to form the syllables, to sputter out the vowels, esophagus too raw, nothing worked like it should. She was stuck beneath their boots, unable to claw her way out, unwilling to die beside her family. He was frustrated with her silence she knew, she slid her gaze over to the puddle of hardened blood before staring back at him, red eyes rimmed with tears. He turned around, taking in the scene. He stood and walked over to the hole in the floor, to her coffin. His boots made obscene smacking sounds through the damp. He was gone then, running to her father's study, a tortured cry found him then.

She was unaware that time could fragment, split in two and take vastly different directions. In one life she stayed in the corner, she died in the horror. Andrew consumed her other reality, grabbing her roughly and leaving the room. She tore at his back, kicked and flailed and sobbed till he sat on her chest, squeezing the hysteria out, chasing the light away.

"Are you ready to talk?" He lifted her chin from the chilled water, slightly repulsed at her tentative sips.

"Water, please." She croaked, attempting to duck back down. He held her shoulders against the tile with one hand while grabbing the extendable shower head, pointing the icy jet towards her open mouth. She sighed in raptous relief, snorting gently at whatever moisture found its way into her sinuses. He pulled it away and left it dangling, welcoming the cold mist.

"What happened to mom and dad?" His tone was much more gentle, careful and quiet. "Cold." Was her reply.

He heaved her out of the bath, clothes dripping and snug. She reached for a towel and shed the damp layers. Andrew turned his head towards the wall, slightly startled at her disregard of modesty. Once the terry cloth was tightly wound she stepped out, offering the brackish water a sparring glance.

"They're gone." His head snapped back to her, hands reaching to grip her elbows.

"How long were you in the floor?" He must have seen the splinters beneath her nails.

"A day, I couldn't remember how I'd gotten in." She paused then, stare suddenly accusatory.

"Amanda I would have come sooner but…" He trailed off then, at a loss for words. He tried a few more times before wrapping her in his arms.

"Why was I in the bath tub?" She asked quietly after a few minutes of silence.

"You were in shock," He mumbled from her towel clad shoulder. "You were screaming and hitting me so hard I thought you'd snapped." Her rough grip on his back tightened, squeezing his tense muscles painfully in punishment. She would never be able to vocalize the agony he left her to but she could at least make him hurt.

Andrew forced her to lie in her bed while he moved the bodies outside. She had clamped her hands over her ears as soon as he began to talk, focussing her attention instead on the quilt beneath her. Sleep did not come, no matter how still she lay or how hard she screwed her eyes shut. Eventually she stood, ripping at the light cords and toppling the lamps. This time in the thick blanket of darkness, she slept.