The Mute Alpha

EMMA

I was only five when night descended on my family. It was my birthday but also the last day I would see my mother forever.

She smiled at me that evening and said, “Happy birthday, my beautiful princess." Then she went on to remove a sparkling blue moon-shaped diamond necklace from her neck and wore it on mine.

And while she and dad sat beside me and my cake with five tiny candles, singing and clapping, my mum suddenly stopped. Her face went from smiling face to serious. She furrowed her brows and stood up, going still as if she was trying to listen for something suspicious. It made my dad to get up too.

The candles on my cake were still burning.

Mum tiptoed to the door and peeped through the keyhole, then suddenly ran to where I sat and picked me into her arms, passing me over to my dad and frantically blowing out the cake's candles, not to wish long life and prosperity, of course, but to make the room dark enough to keep us safe.

We three all ran into the next room.

“Elgin, listen to me,” she spoke to my dad in a hoarse whisper, “Please stay with her, I beg you. And don’t let her make a sound please, please Elgin.”

“No, Ayleen!” my dad grabbed my mum’s hand. “Let me go, please don’t do this, let me go instead.”

“It’s me they want, Elgin, I’ll never be able to live with myself if anything happens to you. I’m sorry.” she said with watery eyes and I started to cry.

She bent to kiss my forehead, moved three steps back and waved her hand around me and my dad saying “They wouldn’t know you are here,” and flashed out of the room in a way I had never seen before.

I could feel drops of tears from my dads’ eyes fall on my face as he covered my mouth firmly with his palms and held me so hard to his body I could barely breathe.

Everything took place too quickly shortly after mum left the room, I heard the sound of our main door crashing down, accompanied by hissings, grunts and finally a piercing scream that shook the core of my house, causing the door of the room my father and I was in to be forced open, exposing the commotions going on in the sitting room before my very eyes.

And the first thing I saw was my mother on her knees with a long iron spear pierced through her heart to emerge from her back. Someone stood above her, pushing the spear deeper and deeper but I couldn’t get his face because he was masked.

A shriek erupted from my depths, but couldn’t come out because my father’s hands were placed over my mouth, gagging me and stifling the shrieks. My face was filled with his tears and mine as we both watched my mother die before us in horror and there was absolutely nothing the both of us could do—my father couldn’t even move his feet for reasons I still couldn’t grasp.

The masked man pulled out the spear forcefully from her chest as she grunted and fell on her back. Dark red blood gushed out like a fountain from her chest, mouth and her nose before she closed her eyes.

My dad rushed to close my eyes with his other hand, but it was too late, I had seen it all.

The masked man with some other masked men went into other rooms as if they were searching for something and even walked past me and my dad without noticing our presence.

After searching and searching for some time without result, the masked men left our home, disappearing into the night, leaving me and my dad to sob feverishly.

After that day, I was unable to say another word. The trauma of witnessing my mother’s death rendered me mute.

That night my father buried my mother and took me far away from where had been my home and we lived among people I knew weren’t our kind.

He locked me inside the house all the time, asked me over and over again to promise him I was never going to come out when he was not around, which I did all the while growing up. He even taught me the sign language to make communication easier for me, since I couldn’t speak but I could hear.