An Eternity of Eclipse (2 page)

“Why, Grace?” Officer Joo inquired again, breaking me out of my reverie. His eyes pleaded for me to give him some type of emotion. I was too calm for him. Although he didn’t show it, I saw in his eyes that I 
scared
 him. “Why did you kill them?” 

“I didn’t kill them,” I finally replied, my voice barely above a whisper. The warm haze of my breath filtered into the room and dissipated under the weight of the cold air. 

I had hoped that my verbal response—no matter how succinct—would alleviate some of Officer Joo’s horror. I had hoped that the courtesy I was showing him would mitigate his fears. However, when I saw him furrow his bushy dark brows in discontent, I knew I had said something wrong. The tone of my voice was too calm. I knew then that I should have injected more sorrow and distress into my response because as the fates would have it, my courtesy towards him was now tainted under the misinterpretation that I was mocking him. He misunderstood my intent, and now, much like the fates of all people who lived in terror, his fear transformed into anger.

My features hardened. His judgmental demeanor aggravated me to the core. 
Could I help that I was like this?
 It wasn’t like I could 
force
 emotions to come out of me. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything, and least of all, I didn’t care about my recently deceased family. As kind as they were to me, I really 
couldn’t care less
 about their deaths. The Demons of Hell could be ripping their souls apart and I wouldn’t blink an eye of concern. 
That
 
was how much they meant to me. 
That
 was how much I loved them. 

“Yes. Yes, you did, Grace,” Officer Joo continued to insist, disturbed at the cruelty that was gushing from my small body. “We both know that you did, so why are you acting like this?”

My big brown eyes appraised him as a lifeless doll would its owner. 

I was petite in physical stature, young in age, but my mind was already so much more advanced than any other child my age. I had been told time and time again that with my Bambi-like eyes wide with innocence, my black hair soft as silk, and my skin as smooth as diamonds, that I resembled nothing short of a little Angel. Despite such an innocent appearance, Officer Joo was staring at me like I was a complete contradiction to all of that purity. He was staring at me like he would a serial killer, not a six-year-old girl who was young enough to be his daughter.

“We didn’t tell anyone this,” he began with difficulty, his breathing growing heavier with strain, “but when we found you, you were 
still
 
stabbing your mother’s lifeless body. There was no one else there, Grace. Your fingerprints, all the handprints, and all the blood on your clothes . . . ” His eyes rested on the white dress I wore. I was still wearing the outfit they found me in—the one that was covered with sprays of blood. We left my house so quickly that they didn’t have time to change me. “It was you. Just you.” 

I wanted to laugh at the silliness exuding from him. What was wrong with his eyes? Of course
I
wasn’t doing that.

I shook my head again, my lips parting to finally give my side of the story. 

“I woke up and had them in my hands,” I explained calmly, referring to the gun and knife. I held my hands palms up with dried blood still present in the crevices of my skin. In the reflection of the mirror before us, I could see my eyes dim slightly as I finally recited the contents of my memory.
“I was hungry. I was so hungry, and I started to call for someone to come up to give me something to eat. I shouted, but no one came to get me. No one came so I crawled out from under the bed. When I came out, I saw Daddy sleeping on the floor. At first, I thought he was awake because his eyes were open, but he just wouldn’t get up when I shook him. I got tired of calling for him so I got onto the bed with Mommy and called for her to wake up. I was so hungry and angry that she wouldn’t wake up when I called for her, so I just shook her and shook her. I shook her until I saw you standing at the door with the other police officers. I was still shaking her when you picked me up and took me out of the room.” 

I smiled, straightening my back. I reached my arms up and placed them on the table. My seven gold bangles made soft, clinking noises when they made contact with the surface of the table. I was hopeful that Officer Joo would let me go home after I gave my side of the story. I kicked my small legs up and down, the soft fabric of my white dress dancing along with my jovial movements.

“See? Do you remember now? I was just shaking Mommy. I didn’t stab her. You guys just have bad memory.” 

He shook his head at me, his fists clenching at the sound of my indifferent voice. He no longer made it a point to hide his disgust towards me. He hated me. Everything about me 
repelled
 him. Everything about me 
angered
 him. Everything about me was 
inhuman
 to him. 

Desperate to further exonerate myself when I saw that he still didn’t believe me, I hastened to add, “Plus, I’m scared of blood. How could I kill them?” I sheepishly smiled after another realization thrust into my mind. “Today is my birthday and I’m really hungry. Can you take me home now so I can have some cake?”

I thought Officer Joo would cooperate and take me home after I told him this, but I was dead wrong. In a matter of seconds, something within him 
snapped
. He glared at me, his eyes wide with fury. 

“Then who, Grace?!” he roared. The bomb he held in finally detonated with my innocuous question. He was sick of me. He was sick of me breathing the same air as him and he was sick of my existence. “Who else could’ve been in that house? It was you! Just you, Grace!” 

A swarm of chills attacked me. I felt my entire body shake in fear. I stopped kicking my legs and rounded my eyes in horror. What had gotten into him? Why was he screaming at me? All this time, I had only told him the truth. I didn’t know anything. Why should I confess or show guilty emotions for things that I took no part in? 

“Officer Joo! Can’t you see that you’re scaring her? Calm down!” my lawyer shouted. He also feared for my safety. Sensing that this situation was getting too problematic, my lawyer bolted from his seat and raced for the door to get an officer inside to restrain Officer Joo.

“Do you have no soul?” Officer Joo bellowed just as my lawyer shouted out into the police precinct for someone to intervene and help. Bloodlust seeped into Officer Joo’s eyes. “How could you murder your own family and sit there with such indifference?”

His own statement was the last straw that convinced him he needed to take care of me himself. With a roar that could rival a lion’s, his big hands bloomed outwards. His ten fingers splayed open, all hungry for a taste of my neck. 

“Ahhhhhhh!” I screamed when he lunged for me, the desk between us barreling into my chest at full force.

Boom!

The air slammed out of me, causing me to cradle my chest in agony. The impact of getting hit by the table was so powerful that the chair I was sitting on was knocked over, throwing me off its seat and into the air. Just as I fell, I heard another thunderous growl. I glanced up and saw that the table had been tossed aside. Before I could see anything else, a pair of big hands wrapped around my neck like a vise, clogging up any screams I could emit. I didn’t even get a chance to hit the ground when Officer Joo grabbed my neck mid-fall and held me prisoner in the air.

My lungs struggled for a gasp of breath while I kicked my small legs in midair. My chest locked up in panic, and I helplessly clawed at his hands.
I couldn’t breathe.
The pain of being strangled was nothing like I had ever experienced. I was in agony; I was literally shaking in agony. Tears gathered in my eyes at the excruciating pain. That was when I realized
he would never let me out alive.

He was a single pressure away from snapping my neck apart when a sudden gush of air flew past me. In a split second, Officer Joo was forcefully pulled away from me and sent flying to the other side of the room like he was whipped by an unstoppable typhoon.

Boom!

Without his grip holding me captive, gravity became my savior. I took my first intake of air after I fell back onto the hard ground. 

“No! That’s enough!
That’s enough!
” I heard screams coming as police officers stampeded into the room. They became the barrier that kept Officer Joo from coming back for me.  

While chaos and screams ensued on the other side of the room, all I could do was curl in a fetal position. Black spots blurred my vision while I helplessly cradled my assaulted neck. I felt the weight of the world lay on my eyelids. My eyes surrendered briefly to the weight before I managed to open them again. I could see my lawyer and several officers fighting to restrain Officer Joo.

“I’m going to kill you, you monster!” Officer Joo shouted, struggling to reach for me. His gold cross pendant bounced into sight while his eyes sought my blood. “I’m going to rip you to shreds!” 

“It . . . wasn’t me,” I finally managed to say in broken whispers.

I was still desperate to proclaim my innocence.

The world around me spun. As though a spell of slumber had cascaded upon me, my eyes began to blur. 

“Stop lying!” Officer Joo roared.

Round and round the world went as my eyes rolled to the back of my head. The imprint left in my mind was the sight of all the men restraining Officer Joo. I felt myself fall into the darkness. The final thing I heard before I completely lost consciousness were words that would forever haunt me.

“It was you! I knew it was you! It was just you, you little 
Demon
!”

●●●

A
s the months passed and as the biggest trial of my life went on, my lawyers pleaded for the judge to help me. They all said I was crazy. I 
had
 to be crazy. What six-year-old in her right mind would kill her entire family? 

I tried to convince them. I tried to convince everyone that I didn’t kill my family. But no one, not even my own lawyers, believed me. All the evidence pointed to me and the simple fact that I showed no emotions—no guilt—further proved to everyone that I had lost my mind.

“She needs psychiatric help,” my lawyer would argue for me, capitalizing on the fact that I was still a young child.

The trial ended, and that was what wound up happening. 

I was sent to a psychiatric hospital for children and received the “help” I needed. For years they deluded my mind, telling me that I was indeed crazy and they could help me get better.
“We can help make you normal again, Grace.”
 

That was the luxury you received as a six-year-old kid who had a substantial amount of fortune at her disposal. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence, I could still roam free as long as I gave people enough money to “help” me. It also helped that Officer Joo physically attacked me in the police station. The media-susceptive court of law is typically more receptive to allowing six-year-olds to go free if a fifty-year-old officer nearly choked the life out of her. All of this couldn’t be worse with her lawyer, the entire police station, and a video recording as witnesses as well. Whatever the case, I only had Officer Joo to thank for the lessening of my punishment . . . 

As I sat in the psychiatric ward (a place that had quickly become my prison), I stared out the two-story barred window with a bored, apathetic expression on my face. I held a helpless butterfly that I had caught while playing in the gardens earlier, and I couldn’t help but allow my mind to venture on. I concluded then and there that I just wasn’t normal. 

It was such an odd time for me.
 

Whenever thoughts of my family arose, there was never a part of me that felt
anything
 for them. I knew I should have felt remorse, guilt, and confusion for what happened to my family, especially because everyone was telling me that I was the one who killed them. Truthfully speaking, I simply didn’t feel any of that. I felt nothing.

While feeling helpless and trapped with my station in life, and wanting to bestow the same feeling of misery onto another living being, I suddenly ripped the wings off the butterfly. Its little body squirmed relentlessly. Holding the appendage of the butterfly in boredom, my eyes honed on the landscape outside.

Sure, I missed my family, but it was more or less the equivalent of missing my security blanket. You needed it to keep you warm and make you feel secure, but when it’s gone, you don’t cry about it. You simply move on. It was horrible because I felt nothing when I knew I should have felt 
something
 for them. The funny thing was . . . it was just that part of my life too. For whatever reason,
I honestly didn’t give a damn.
 It was like I had no soul for that aspect of my life. 

I sighed tiredly and lifted the window up. I tossed the once magnificent butterfly out. Its body flapped uselessly when it hit the ground, the longevity of its life grim. Unaffected by the death sentence I had imparted to the innocent butterfly, my contemplating mind sailed on.