Asami
I would have never known that there was anything strange or sinister going on in my home. My father was and always had been the perfect parent ever since my mother walked out on us when I was five years old. We weren't rich by any means but he always found ways to ensure that I didn't want for anything. I always had nice clothes, good shoes, a working phone, and he even found a way to get me my dream car for my sixteenth birthday. To say my life was good would have been an understatement.
Even when he met my step mother, Carla, things remained steady. She never gave me a reason to distrust her. Since the very first day that she walked into our lives, she treated me like her own and I quickly came to know her as "mom". So, when things took a bad turn on my eighteenth birthday, I was shocked to say the least. It came as a bombshell that my mom and my dad were plotting to do this horrible thing to me.
My eighteenth birthday had been long anticipated. I had been planning for weeks on how to celebrate, often brainstorming plans with my dad in an attempt to keep things financially possible. First, I had wanted to go on a cruise. While my dad hadn't told me no, I felt bad for even asking for such an extravagant gift, so I threw that idea away. I already had a car, so that wasn't on my list. As the days passed, I became more and more indecisive, until I finally decided to just ask for a trip to my favorite amusement park. I had told all my friends about it and we stayed up late at night discussing the when's and how's of the trip.
The morning of my birthday, I woke up with a sense of nothing but pure excitement. I was going to meeting my friends at the airport at noon and catch the two o' clock flight to Ohio to go to Cedar Point. We would be staying at a hotel near the amusement park for four days total.
I decided to begin my day with a jog around the neighborhood. When I got back, the house was still quiet, so I decided to start a shower. While it normally didn't take long for me to do a full make up and hair routine, I knew that if I wanted to, I could take my time so that I wasn't just waiting around all morning. However, by the time I got out of the shower, I could hear my parents getting up and getting ready for their day. They wouldn't be going with me and the girls to Ohio. Carla had to work at ten, which was only a couple of hours from the time I got out of the shower, and my dad had to work at one. He was going to be dropping me off at the airport before coming back to town for his shift.
I dressed quickly in a cute red and black sundress, a pair of red strappy high heels, and brushed and curled my black hair so that perfect black ringlets framed my pale skin. I applied a small amount of eyeshadow, mascara, eyeliner, and lipgloss before grabbing my normal, every day purse and dumping it's contents onto my bed before fetching my favorite black leather purse from my closet. As I picked through the items laying on my bed, I made sure to leave anything that wouldn't be needed or used, such as old receipts, half-used chaptsticks and things of that nature. The things like my wallet, emergency phone charger, my favorite lip gloss, and my back up eyeliner and mascara all went into the black purse.
I can't tell you how excited I was for the trip. I was certain nothing could ruin my mood. That is, until my dad walked into my room and I saw his face. His eyes were swollen and red, like he had been crying. That in itself was something that worried me. I had only ever seen my father cry once in my whole life and that was when my biological mother left us with the harshest goodbye I could imagine.
"Wh-what's going on?" I stuttered softly, moving toward him with my arms outstretched in an offer of comfort.
"I'm sorry, Asami." He said, a fresh round of tears filling his hazel eyes before slipping down his cheeks.
I didn't have to time to question why or what he meant before he lunged forward, a white rag in his left hand. His right hand wrapped around the back of my neck, causing me to yelp out in pain, as he brought the rag in his left hand to my mouth and noise, pressing them cruelly against the skin, giving me no other option but to inhale.
I had seen so many Lifetime movies that I immediately knew what that sickeningly sweet smell was as the scent filled my mouth, my nostrils, and my lungs. What I couldn't figure out, however, was why my father would be doing this. What was wrong with him?
A couple of moments passed with nothing happening, but I knew that it would. I knew that I would soon feel lightheaded and would eventually black out. That's how chloroform works, isn't it?
I struggled, but my father was a very strong man. He held me tight against him with his right arm. Before I blacked out, one final thought occured to me- how had my father gotten ahold of chloroform?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
When I woke up, I felt groggy and disoriented. My head spun when I opened my eyes and sat up, but I forced myself to stay upright. Once the dizziness faded, I glanced around, trying to figure out where I was.
The walls were cement. There was no paint, no appliances, nothing save for the medical looking table I was sitting on and a single lamp in the middle of the room. I knew I had never been here before, and that thought terrified me. Where was I? Where was my dad?
The sound of high heeled shoes clicking outside of my room interrupted my thoughts. I quickly laid back down and closed my eyes as if I were still asleep. I prayed that if the people here thought I was unconscious, they would talk freely around me and reveal something about the situation.
