I loomed over the toilet as I stared at whatever my lunch was inside. I slid down hitting the tiled floor feeling every muscle shaking feeling like someone took a cattle prod to my nervous system. A hard thump against the door snapped me back to reality, the reality that I didn't understand. I had never cared whether my mother carved out a target's intestines or my father chopped up the target's limbs. Never once had I ever thought it was odd or weird. I grazed my neck with my fingertips feeling the dried blood all over caking my skin in what felt like a sheet of lead.

"AKUMU!" I shivered as I heard the pounding voice of my father I instinctively squirmed away from the locked door he sounded more than pissed, he sounded virulent. I tried to grasp at the walls as I felt my vision fuzzed at the edges, I couldn't feel anything other than my lungs compressing themselves. I couldn't understand as flashes of red seeped under my gripping fingernails against the tile.

"Akumu open the door." I heard my mother's voice and felt myself sinking into the ground. Is she disappointed? Concerned? Not concerned. Mad. She was angry.

I felt my legs picking up on their own. Angry? My mother? Why? Disappointed I could understand her daughter huddling herself in the bathroom after failing to do anything. But angry? It was rare. She seethed as I heard her voice now. I reached for the rusty knob but before I turned the lock I saw the bathroom cabinet open. As I reached I saw a soap container with a rolled-up paper inside. Carefully unfurling it, I leered at the picture that sent a pit down to my stomach.

Carefully unfurling it, I leered at the picture that sent a pit down to my stomach [https://img.wattpad.com/2a17b42d4a6b57a4d8be0e394ef87d8d012ed72e/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f50365956436678614e6c6e556f413d3d2d313434353833323535392e313763663430633864323630636361623832303235323231383230352e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]

Goober was dressed in a clean white shirt and he was 25 years younger at least. His hair wasn't gone and his eyes hadn't sagged in yet instead he looked lively. Next to him in a flowy patterned dress, I instantly recognized my mother with her distinct features although I had never seen a picture this young. Mother often lets us browse her old singing photoshoots and movies but they all started at 20 she looked much younger in the photograph. I gazed at my mother who looked so different from the person I saw today. As I tried to roll the photo to fit into my pocket I saw scratchy faded writing sprawled across the back:

"家族は大切なものなんかじゃない。家族こそすべてだ。私の妹はバレエダンサーになりたいです。この夢を私が作ります。( Family is not an important thing. It's everything. My sister wants to be a ballet dancer. I will create this dream.)"

Sister? Mother had never stopped the campaign, the slogan, the mantra of "family is blood you can't get rid of blood." She always preached about the insignificance of targets and the essentials of family. WE are people, they are not. They are targets. But Goober wasn't.

"Akumu. Do not make me ask again." Her voice dripped with rage and control. She was venomous with her syllables hissing them carefully to not alert me. I scanned the room and heard the lock fiddling. There was a small window that faced the wide-open lakeside. My mother had broken the only doctrine I was taught, which meant I had no beliefs, and neither did she. I scaled out of the window throwing my phone behind me. I jumped out of the window into the darkness again hitting the grass I ran left and hit the wind running straight into the night as the autumn night breeze swiped my tears into the wind.

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My legs pumped as I ran, I could feel the dried flakes of blood chipped away in the wind. I finally saw a bus stop, after what felt like hours of running. Another element I was trained in. The bus stop was dimly lit and surrounded by empty plain farmland. I sat down breathing heavily, but I knew I couldn't hesitate for long, my mother was my trainer. She knew exactly how fast I could run, how I hid, how I thought because she had controlled it all. The stop was deadly quiet except for the faint light buzzing and the fluttering of leaves. I checked my watch. It was only 7:15 the bus would be here soon. I racked my brain trying to figure out where I could go that would be the hardest to infiltrate. My mother had trained me to always go as far as possible in case of emergency as far as I could then contact her. I felt a wet scalding drop hit my jeans as I buried my face into my hands. I realized as more and more rained down that I had never done anything more terrifying in my life. I had absolutely no one. I ran away from the one person who knows my every weakness, who I now know would not hesitate to dispose of me, or anyone. I felt my chest heaving as my sobs racked my lungs viciously tearing through me. I felt the darkness of the night pressing into me injecting my bones with despair. I looked down at myself, I realized my shirt was inside out from me putting it on in a hurry not that it mattered it was splattered with dried blood so were my jeans. I used my tears to rub away the blood on my face onto the inside of my shirt then turned it inside out and took off my jacket tying it around my waist. The blood was hidden well enough in the darkness that it wouldn't be seen. I felt around in my jacket pocket forgetting I chucked my phone when I felt a small post-it note:

In Case you forget it - 2515784948 :)

I almost dumped it right then and there but, I realized, the best place to go would be the college there my mother couldn't just come in anytime. Even if she found a way, my mother had never gone against the Company, ever. As the silently humming bus braked at the stop, I had decided where I was going to go.

As I bent down to pressure my cut knee that was bleeding, I looked around my quiet dorm. I silently cursed myself for wanting him or anyone to be here when I got back. I let go of my knee and wiped the blood onto my already- red soaked pants, grabbed the nearest towel tied it around my leg, and flopped onto the bed.

I looked around at my empty room desolate of anything personal. It was beige with a bed and my knife collection. As I grew up my Mother began to buy me fewer decorations and stuffed animals and more knives. For Christmas, Birthdays, and New Year, every gift from the time I turned 13 until now has been some sort of decorated knife. This year though, she gave me a Fuguhiki knife. It was engraved with two words: " 灯台下暗し" I never knew what she meant. I lifted my bed to open the hidden compartment and started desperately grabbing at the knives trying to yank each one I had carefully placed, trying to dump them into my trashcan. I felt like a ghost haunting my own body nothing I was doing was making sense in my head but my body was creating its own movements unprompted. As if looking through a set of blurred illusion glasses I looked down at my seeping hands splashed with red. My body tried scrubbing my hands across my clothes in desperation but I felt nothing in my mind. My body continued to move without my control, reaching into my drawer, grabbing my fake phone from the bedside table, and dialing the only number I had.

"Hello?" his voice echoed and reverberated into my head lulling me into my fuzzy sleep

"I can't keep being Akumu Ito. But you can't cut out blood, you need it to live." The fire in my hands poured out as my eyelids got heavier

" Akumu? Akumu?Hello? Are you okay?" My head lulled to the side as a smile stretched across my face as my eyes shut, laughing at the question, I was perfectly fine.