It’s five minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve when suddenly . . .  Everything went black, the outside was no longer the only darkness. The whole town was. No one knew what was going on. My father, being the town’s fixer upper, started getting frantic calls. One after another, like a rap song on repeat. While my father was handling the calls he went out to our closed, warm garage to talk.

My step sister,Arlaux, and I were satisfied out of the window. The next thing you know our TV turns on all by itself. Chanel 15 flashed on, Bob Lishner was sweating in fear and was talking so fast no one could get a word out of him. Next thing you know the TV shuts right off (power/lights still down during all of this). Arlaux and I stared at each other blankly. It was like we could read each other’s thoughts. What’s going on we both said in sink.

Arlaux and I decided to light a candle or two and sit down to relax. Soon after that my father came back in the house and told us to stay inside the house while he goes and fixes the problem. I begged him, “Please no, it’s dangerous. You dont know whats going on out there!” BUt he insisted on leaving the house, then BOOM! All of a sudden we hear a gunshot. Then a loud woman scream.  My sister and I turned to each other with tears in our eyes, then both of us emerged toward my father and squeezed him so he wouldn't leave. He just patted our heads and said, ¨It will be alright girls. I'll be fine¨, but deep down we knew he wouldn't. We gulped back our tears and let him go.

As soon as my father stepped onto the cold, hard , gravel the lights in our home started to flicker, but then once again shut off. We watched slowly as my dad crawled into his dusty red pickup truck and drove off. My sister and I started to frantically close and lock all the doors and windows, all the little opening from the outside world. We sat quietly and softly onto the cold living room floor. We both just stared into the cramped burning light on the table in front of us.

During the time of waiting on if my father was deceased or if he was going to come back without one injury, we kept hearing loud shots in the murky world we used to think was perfectly safe. My sister held me close to her warm body and rocked me gently so I wouldn’t dare shed a tear. But I couldn't help but cry myself till my eyes started to drift away to a long dreadful sleep.

I woke up with terror in my soul, I couldn't find my dear sister anywhere. I started to jaunt through the house to find her. Hyperventilating, I found her alone, sprawled on the tiled bathroom floor. I ran to her and shook her to awake and asked her what had happened. She told me to hurry up and close the door. I quickly snapped my head back and there he was… A lanky eerie man holding a machete waiting at the last minute to strike us. Arlaux snattched me and started to shriek in my arms and I just sat and begged to please just leave and go away. After my third time of begging he stretched away into the shattered window he crawled through.

My sister flopped down onto the couch planning what to do in her head, but you can very much tell she was bothered to the core. I took big strides back and forth in our living room to our kitchen with our broken glass door dragging at my feet. I started to jumble my words over and over. I was a broken record. After I hit my living room floor for the hundredth time, we heard a full and boisterous knock on our front door. We were only a few feet away from that door. Soon my sister and I were trembling to the door with tiny footsteps in the direction to the chilling knock.

We were so close to the door we could feel the cooling air in our fingertips from the metal knob holding back what’s behind the block of solid wood. As soon as I was about to open another loud know occurred. BANG! BANG! BOOM! I then sluggishly unlocked the door and opened out to peep out and find my father panting heavily, waiting patiently for his daughters letting him into his own household.

He pushed his way into the home and we fell to our knees bawling and scrambling what had happened only a few short minutes ago. He just stood there in awe not knowing what to even begin spilling out of his mouth.

He then fell onto the floor to look into our eyes in the pitch black. He started to spit out that he was sincere for leaving us solo. He then tightly grabbed our trembling arms and told us to pack a quick bag and that we were leaving. We briskly packed a bag and met him outside. We tossed our bags into the back of the 2004 rusted out pickup and as soon as our bodies hit the seat we were off and away to an anonymous destination. Driving out of Kingsford Heights it was pure hell, and that was only in the things we could see in our bright headlights. There were cars crashed, blown to pieces. There were people running around, some trying to catch up with the truck to hitch a ride away from this horror. My sister and I closed our eyes and fell deep asleep. I woke up about an hour later and my dad was pulling into a dirt road. I asked him where we were at he explained to me that we were at my great grandmothers in Bare Lake Michigan.

My grandmother was not surprised to see us apparently my uncle was there too. My father started taking all the things he had brought from the house and putting it in the family safe so no one could touch it. My grandmother started to coddle my sister and I with food, TV and different things to do like puzzles, cross words, coloring pages. My father went upstairs to find my grandfather and my uncle. After a while we all went to bed and felt safe but I made sure that all doors were locked before feeling secure in my bed on the top floor. Then i started to remember what my New Year resolution was and it was to be happier, well... wasn’t that a great start.