My name is josephine paretry. I know it's a weird name. Please don’t judge. This story isn’t about my name though. It’s about my shoes. Yes. It's a very random plot line. Let me try to explain. Umm, nevermind. I’ll just tell you the story.

 It all started when I was on a trip with my family and we went into the park. It was a park by the mall. We were planning to go to the mall right after. I was on the monkey bars. All of a sudden I had the strange feeling that someone was watching me. I saw a bush rustle then the movement and the feeling were gone. Just like that.

 We headed to the mall and I couldn’t stop looking over my shoulder. I looked down at my shoes to try to calm myself. I screamed. My white shoes were covered in a red liquid. The liquid looked like blood. 

 I am a fourteen year old girl who is headed to Disneyland for a fun time with her family and I see blood coating my shoes. And that was right after I felt like I was being stalked. Like, what? What is going on

 My scream spooked my family and they turned around to see what was going on. My mom covered her mouth and gasped. My dad closed his eyes and shook his head as if unwilling to believe his eyes. My sister didn’t notice at first and, in her usual sassy tone, rolled her eyes and said “What is it? Did you stub your toe or something because you don’t need to scare the whole mall to death for it.”

Ugh, my sister is so inconsiderate. She could at least make sure I was ok even if I had only stubbed my toe. I wanted to walk up to her and kick her. Maybe then she would notice that my shoes were covered in blood.

“Oh my gosh! What's all over your shoes?” she finally says. “Is that what you screamed about? I think it's a little bit of an overreaction just for a tiny bit of paint.”

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“It's not paint,” I say calmly. “ I don’t know what it is but I’ve never used red paint while wearing these shoes.” 

It's the truth. These were brand new white converse I got last time we went to the mall. Actually it was this mall. We went about one week ago and I haven't gotten the chance to wear them yet. Until now, and, of course, they get ruined right away. I hate my luck, it's the worst.

We decided to head to a shoe store. We ignored the red on the shoes and bought me a new pair identical to the first. I took extra care for the rest of the day not to get anything on my shoes. I succeeded.

The next few days went smoothly. Then, days turned to weeks with nothing odd happening. I still couldn’t get over my sense that something wasn’t right. One day I decided that I was going to figure out what was going on once and for all. 

We got to disney land and it was the best time i ever had in my life. Even through all the fun, I couldn’t focus on just chilling with my family. I kept thinking about the day at the mall. The Disney trip was supposed to last for two months over the summer. It ended up lasting three months and into the school year. 

One day at Disneyland I wanted to go on this really big ride called Incredicoaster. It looked insane. It was loopy and when I watched people on it it seemed to go really fast. I needed to go on it. There was only one problem, my parents said I couldn’t go on it alone and neither of them wanted to go. They thought it looked too scary. 

I decided to listen to them for now and kept going on the boring rides with them and my sister. I was miserable the whole time. My parents did notice how sad I was, though, and they let me choose what we got for dinner. I chose my favorite food in the whole wide world, Swedish meatballs and rice pudding. 

It was delicious. The juicy meatballs in a sweet sauce. The creamy rice pudding with strawberry syrup. And to drink I got a cold, tall, glass of lemonade. It was like I had walked into heaven. Hm, that made me think of dying, and dying made me think of blood, and blood made me think of red. Red on shoes. Red is blood. Blood means death… had I killed someone?