Once Upon A Time

There had been many theories as to how she was murdered, so gruesomely carried out that people either refuse to believe or are appalled as to how someone could be so cruel, so twisted as to mutilate an innocent young girl to a point she was just a blood stain.

Susan Walters, a 15-year-old darling, had gone missing on a typical suburban Monday. She never did reach her high school that morning. Everyone in their small town were shocked. “Peaceful Suburb,” it had claimed!

Still, there were whispers, ‘maybe she’s fine, she just ran away like teenagers these days,’ that was the better scenario. The small town sheriff was pretty close on a lead with this theory when his entire case was thrown off. The distraught parents got a finger delivered to their doorstep, a letter claiming it to be of Susan’s. The wails of her mother haunted their neighbors for days to come. But soon enough within the first month of her disappearance, they had received 5 fingers, but no demands. It was on the second-month mark the FBI showed up, they were trailing a serial killer. Everyone knew this was it. Susan was never coming back alive.

It was on a cold Thursday afternoon the agents came back bearing bad news. “A body has been discovered in the lake deep inside the forest surrounding their suburb. Somewhat 10 miles from the house.”

The DNA test came back negative. It wasn’t Susan, it was a young college student who went missing in a nearby county, she was the trail the agents were following. The neighborhood seemed much more desolate in the days that followed. Now they prayed for Susan’s death, “The poor dear has already suffered through so much.”

There was no news for a couple of weeks that followed until two pictures showed up in their Walters’ mailbox with the name Susan and the previous day’s date. Her face was beaten to a pulp, barely recognizable, still wearing the school’s uniform, the white shirt looked red with the blood soaked into it. Her eyes were still open in the first picture and in the next one was staring right at the camera.

Three months after Susan’s disappearance they held a funeral for her at the church.

One question still remained. “What exactly happened?”

The investigations never lead anywhere. The theories that floated around, even after years of the horrifying crime were diverse and haunting. But out of all the assumptions, the correct one never spread, it never got out, they were the victims after all. Mr. and Mrs. Walters buried the body of the unwanted mess out in the depths of the forest. She was perfect but she wasn’t theirs, she wasn’t a good memory. She was never someone they thought of as family. She was their nothing. And now she was nothing.