SLEEPLESS NIGHT

Dear Diary,

I’ve been turning and twirling around my bed but still can’t sleep as the event that happened few hours ago keeps replaying in my head. My experience few hours ago has successfully ripped sleep out of my life as I can’t seem to relax even a bit. My head keeps spinning and banging as I keep wondering what I did to him to repay me this way but since then I’ve gotten no answers. It is as if I drank a large cup of caffeine which of course I did not. I even tried taking sedatives of different brands but it didn’t work even a bit. What’s worse is the fact that I want to sleep but I can’t. I’m just too insecure to, fear keeps gripping me as it feels like what happened few hours ago is going to happen again and it seems like I’m going to have a SLEEPLESS NIGHT tonight.

               On Friday the 5^th day of March 2020, at exactly 9:45 pm, I was at home with my parents as usual. We chatted, played PS3 games and ate. I had just returned from college and I was on my summer break which I decided to spend with my parents.

Suddenly, we heard a sound, a low but yet a terrifying sound, like someone trying to break through the window. Mom decided to check around the house as the protective person she is and that was when she noticed some strange movement at our visitors toilet window side, when she got closer she realized that the window was already completely broken that meant someone was here.

As she took a peak behind the toilet door she realized someone dressed in black with a weird mask on his face hiding there and immediately she started trembling in fear and she screamed as loud as she could although she was at a great risk because, she was totally defenseless, even if the intruder had tried to attack her surely he would succeed in harming her because she had no weapon on her.

Her scream was so ear piercing that it attracted the attention of both dad and neighbors who stayed close to our house.

Due to her scream dad came up to her and when the intruder saw dad he pounced on him immediately making mum scream the more and I began to cry, the battle between dad and the intruder wasn’t an easy one. It was in fact a fight I would title the survival of the fittest.

Suddenly dad overtook the man turning him under him and sending massive blows to the intruders cheeks, one blow after another after another and another until the intruder did the reverse and putting dad beneath him sent blows to dad’s face and dad was struggling beneath him and that was when mum took on her heels to get her phone and call the police but as swift and well trained as the intruder was, he picked up a gun from his back pocket and shot mum on her left leg.

The sound of the gun shot and mum’s screams of pain filled the room and frightened i and our neighbors the more and I began to cry like a kid even if I wasn't.

“Mum!!!!!” I screamed when dad overtook the intruder and setting him beneath him, he sent numerous, massive and anger filled blows to the intruders face. Dad has always had anger issues since he was a teenager, He often took therapy to learn how to calm his anger and so far it hadn't improved his condition even for a second and the thing that triggers dad's anger the most was messing up with the people he loved the most and top one on his list was his wife, my mother. And this intruder just crossed all his limits.

The intruder screamed and groaned in pain as dad kept hitting him as hard as he could with all the anger he had in him while mum was sobbing on the floor pulling her leg in pain, her blood in bright red filled the entire floor where she sat on. This was the first time I saw dad this angry, he was like an unleashed monster, a beast ready to devour anything in its way.

Veins filled dad’s hands up to his arms as he kept punching the intruder, but I had to do something, mum was bleeding badly so I got up from where I sat and tactically ran to the room since both dad and the intruder were busy with their duel, they wouldn't notice when i left. I picked up dad’s phone as i got to his room and called the police who informed me that they’ll be at my house in thirty minutes.

The shocking thing was that thirty minutes was enough time for dad to kill the intruder out of anger because he already started making funny noises from his mouth and cussing too. And i knew when he does this then his present aim is 'TO KILL'.

I had to do something before dad would commit a crime which he would regret later and for me to do that I had to make myself a test goat in order to succeed.

Things got a bit out of hand when dad was turned under by the intruder and was on the receiving end of the bad treatment and at this I had seen enough.

Just then I felt my body start to flame up, for unknown reasons I felt a weird string of anger push threw me and if there was one thing I inherited from my dad that neither of my parents knew about was his ANGER something that had burned in me since I was a kid I had to play a trick I saw at one of my favorite movies, I picked up my late grandpa’s walking stick which was made of thick oak wood. we always kept it for reasons I never knew of but today I saw how these things come in handy and mustering all the courage I could get I took a deep breath and swinging it with all the force in my body, it created a loud bang as the stick broke in two as it made contact with the intruders head. Immediately the intruder fell down flat on the floor.

For the first time in my life I felt so strong, so invincible like a conqueror who just won a battle but later I realized it was my anger that gave me those feelings, not for one second did I wonder if he was dead or if I had killed him. Deep down inside me I felt like a monster but I couldn’t bare the impact this intruder had on my family. But, that wasn’t what gave me sleepless nights. What did was that the intruders face was finally revealed and I felt my heart drop when I saw who it was.

It was Matt, a freshman at the college where I studied, he was like a best friend to me although he had issues with money which I didn’t mind lending him more whenever he needed because he was a pillar for me, he was such a blessing to me that I thought we could have a good ending together but no!!!!.

He came to my home, fought my dad and shot my mum for reasons I know not of.

How could he bite the hand that fed him?

Is this what the world has become where you can repay good with evil?

All these things kept bugging me till the police came and took his comatose body out of my sight and they took my mum to the hospital.

Since then, this is exactly 12:45pm and i still can't get any sleep as I seemed to have lost my sense of sleep because I can’t seem to trust anyone anymore.

That saying was right " NO ONE IS TO BE TRUSTED" and i just witnessed mine live.

This was an experience i'll never get off anytime soon.

Signed

A sleepless Veronica.