Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 55059 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 275(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55059 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 275(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
Setting the framed photo to the side, the next thing he saw was a black and white newspaper clipping. He had never actually seen one in real life, but he had seen enough of them in his world studies to know what it was.
The same photo he had held in his hands was plastered on the front page of the thin newspaper, and what was once a colorful photo of a beautiful family now seemed ominous in a grainy black and white version. The words that followed were just as haunting …
FAMILY ATTACKED BY FIRE
A family enjoying a Sunday stroll through the city that turned horrific when they were attacked by one lone man with a tank of gasoline and a lighter. Their attacker quickly doused the father, Sato Sho, from head to toe before setting him ablaze. The mother, Lysandra Sho, and daughter, Eira Sho, were taken to the hospital for their own injuries due to the proximity of the backsplash. The mother later died, and the daughter remains in critical condition. Attacker, Arthur Abrahms, remains in county jail and awaits sentencing.
The horrendous image Ryu held in his mind would only grow more detailed as he read through the following police reports and accounts from witnesses. Tears that would dare to spill, he kept in with an iron strength, letting them only fuel the fire inside with each word he read as he finally went through Eira’s own heart-wrenching account.
When he set the last page down in disgust, the grandmother showed her own.
“We were all she had left after that.” Her voice then changed to a whisper. “That’s how Eira ended up all the way here.”
Trying to wet his throat, Ryu gripped the teacup, only to send the cooled contents to boil again before it quickly burst.
“I’m sorry,” he exasperated after her small shrill, knocking some sense into him to calm himself.
“I-It’s quite all right,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief.
He could see she wanted to question what she had just seen but didn’t dare to ask in fear he would think she was crazy to think his tea had boiled over, which had caused it to burst.
Picking up the broken pieces, he tried to play it off. “Sometimes, I don’t know my own strength.”
“I see that.” She laughed, going to help clean up the mess, but he wouldn’t let her.
“I got it,” Ryu assured her, not wanting her to get burned by the liquid and to feel how hot it had gotten. It was already a small miracle none had splashed on her, and another one that she had let him do it himself.
As he wiped off the liquid that had splashed on the papers before placing everything back in the box, her grandmother continued, “I only got the reports because I told them it might be useful to a therapist over here when she was ready to talk, and they agreed. I could never get her to go talk to one, but I knew she’d need someone to understand what she went through, so I made that box in hopes one day it would.”
Ryu closed the box, solemnly nodding understanding, but there was still one thing he didn’t understand. “Why is she so afraid to be touched?”
Grandmother’s eyes turned fearsome, clearly remembering something horrid. “May you never have to walk through a burn victim unit and hear their screams, Ryu. I wouldn’t wish it upon a single soul. Even if I didn’t still hear her screams from her nightmares, I could never forget the sound of her screams every time they changed her bandages for a year in the hospital. All the poking and prodding along with it, to such a young girl after what she had horrifically gone through and lost, is something I’ll never understand how she survived mentally. I know I couldn’t.”
With his anger rising again, he understood everything clearly now. Whether Eira ever decided to tell him none of it, some of it, or all of it one day, he knew all he needed to know.
Well, almost.
Seeing a shard he had missed, he picked up the sharp piece, needing to know one last thing. “And where is Arthur now?”
18
Horrifically Fateful Day
Every Sunday after lunch, Eira and her parents walked the city. It was their little family ritual that they had started, and they’d always stop in a shop they hadn’t gone to before for a little sweet treat before they’d turn back around.
She couldn’t tell you how their ritual had begun in the first place, only that Sunday was their favorite day, and they looked forward to it all week.
“See anything that looks good, ladies?” her father asked them when they had journeyed as far as they had gone before.
Her mother, Lysandra, only smiled at her daughter to see what she thought. “Eira?”