It’s funny how one mistake can ruin entire families. One dark night, and one drink too many can destroy so many lives. A mistake can be like cancer, at first it’s small and if noticed and stopped, can just simply be a small scar and a dodged bullet. But when you let it fester, let it grow and devour your mind and body, there’s no escaping its hunger for your life. There’s no escaping its hunger for the lives of those you hold dearest either.

I’m the living example of this, which I’d say is a rarity in itself. A rarity, not a blessing. When you tell people that you’re the sole survivor of a terrible calamity, most think you’re one of the luckiest people they’ve ever met. I’ll let you decide though, and when I’m done you can tell me just how lucky I am.

It started with an accident. A hit, that most people as terrified and as drunk as me would have turned into a run. I didn’t though, I called the police. The one moment in my life that I actually decided to be a somewhat decent citizen was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever committed, coming in at a close second to getting in my car that night.

When they only sent out one officer to check out the call, the one officer that I knew was quite easy to convince of my innocence with only minimal motivation, my nerves were nearly completely diminished. People like me, people who have been drowning in money since the moment we were born, we learn to use our wealth as a crutch. A magic eraser which can clean up even the dirtiest grimiest issues.

So that’s what I did. People are habitual creatures, and the worse the habits are the more we cling to them like leeches.

I never even figured out who the person I hit was, at least not until it was too late. At the time, I didn’t even care. My one concern, my one priority, was that this cop made it an accident. Nothing about my blood alcohol level was to ever be spoken of, and I made sure that he kept me anonymous to the family of the person lying broken on that street.

After our deal was worked out he took me home in his car, and promised that I wouldn’t be receiving any trouble from the department. He drove away with the smile of a man who wouldn’t be needing to work for quite a long time, and I walked inside my 4.8 million dollar home and went to sleep that night next to my beautiful wife with the smile of a man who felt like he had the world in the palm of his hand.

The next eleven months went by just like all the months before those, with the exception of a hefty car repair bill and a small lie about hitting a deer. I don’t really remember those months, like I said they were nothing extraordinary. However that week, the week before it happened, I remember that week more vividly than I remember any other point in my life.

I remember my wife’s beautiful blonde hair, and her warm honey brown eyes. I remember my eleven year old girl drawing smiley faces on her pancakes in syrup, and then asking for another pancake because she couldn’t eat something that looked so happy. I remember the way it felt to wrap my arms around the two people in this world that meant everything to me. We weren’t a perfect family, but at least we were a happy one.

But I guess at some point everything must fall, at some point gravity has to bring you back down to the ground and remind you that you’re still just a person. And gravity doesn’t care how hard you hit the ground.

And that Saturday was the night that I hit the ground, the same night that exactly one year ago that sixteen year old girl hit the ground in front of my car and never got back up. If I close my eyes and just let my mind wander, it always goes back to that night…


It was 6:57 P.m., my wife, Amanda, was in the kitchen making popcorn, and  my daughter, Hailey, was sitting on the couch with me waiting for a movie to start.

“Is it on yet?” Amanda called from the kitchen.
“Not yet.” I reassured her as she handed me the bowl of popcorn. Hailey shoved her entire hand into the bowl, and dropped popcorn all over the floor. I got mad at her, but Amanda just laughed and said that it was fine and she’d clean it up later. My god, I loved Amanda’s laugh.

The movie started, it’s funny though, I don’t remember what it was. I remember the little details of the night though, like how half way through the movie Amanda said she heard the door close.

“I swear I heard the front door close.” She said. I laughed at her, thought she was just getting freaked out by the movie, “Stop laughing, I’m serious, I heard something.”
“I’m sure you did sweetheart.” I said, half sardonically.
“Robert,” She said pleadingly, “Why can’t you just go check it out, it’s probably nothing, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, isn’t it?”
“Amanda, it’s only in your head. If the movies scaring you we can change it.”

After that she stayed quiet. I remember thinking how funny it was that our eleven year old daughter could handle a horror movie better than my thirty five year old wife. I snickered to myself every time she leaned over the edge of the couch and peered into the hallway. When I picture this in my head, I scream at myself. Why couldn’t I just get up and call the two security guards at the gate, ask them to come in the house and do a sweep. Why couldn’t I check the cameras that were scattered throughout the house? Why couldn’t I do anything but smirk and continue on watching that stupid movie.

When it was over, and Amanda took Hailey to bed to tuck her in, I should have suspected something. I went to the kitchen and got a beer, and when I came back there was some documentary about drunk driving on. I thought Amanda had put it on, so I didn’t change it. It was probably the first time that I had actually felt true guilt for what I had done, and not just regret for what I had gotten myself into. I watched about fifteen minutes of it before I had to turn it off. After that I just stared at the black screen. I stared at that screen until Amanda called for me from upstairs. There was something in her voice that should have warned me that something was wrong. Something that should have prepared me, but I guess nothing can ever prepare you enough for gravity.

When I got upstairs, the light in the hallway was off. I guess the universe was trying to prepare me for the rest of my life, fumbling around lost in the darkness. I opened the door to Hailey’s room with this rock in my stomach, it’s so strange how you can feel when something very bad is about to happen. It’s like the air changes, it becomes tighter and you can feel every particle trying to push you back. It’s like the whole world is trying to tell you that this is a part of your movie you don’t want to watch, but you can’t help but press play.

The light in her room is off too. I just stand in the door way, too scared to move forward.
“Amanda?” I called out, “Are you in here?”

The voice that answered me was not Amanda’s. “Close the door Robert. And then turn on the light.” The voice was a man’s and every word dripped with anger, the type of anger that only manifests in a person who has nothing left inside.

I did what he said. When the light came on, there was a man standing ten feet in front of me with a gun to my wife’s head, and my daughter cowering in the corner. Some might call me a coward for not taking action that very moment, and you know what… go ahead. I was a coward. I was scared for my child’s life, and I was scared for my wife’s life, and I didn’t know what to do. I guess you could say I’m still the same.

“You don’t know who I am, do you Robert?” He said, his eyes glassy and his hand tight around the gun.
“No.” I said carefully
“My name is Alex.”
“Okay Alex. What do you want? Do you want money? I can give you whatever you like, take it all. Please just let my wife go.”
I remember how the anger in his eyes grew, and his knuckles turned white as he held the gun tighter.
“I don’t want any of your freaking money!” He growled, his hand shaking.
“Okay, okay, okay…. What do you want then, I’ll give you anything.”
“I want you to say my daughter’s name.”
“What?”
“I want you to say her name.” He said, tears forming in his eyes. “Say Raina.”
“I don’t…I don’t understand.”
“Just say it!”
“R-Raina…”

For a moment, I thought he was going to shoot Amanda. I heard the safety click off of the gun, and I was sure he was going to kill her. But instead he threw her onto the ground, and then shoved me into the door, the muzzle of the gun pressing into my temple.
“Do you remember her?”
“I-I don’t know w-what you’re talking about… Please don’t hurt my family. Do whatever you like with me, but don’t hurt them…please…”
“Do you remember killing my baby girl?”
“Please…”
“Do you remember or not!?”
“I d-don’t know what you’re talking about…”
“She was sixteen. She was sixteen!” He screamed, “She was riding her bike home from a friend’s house, and you mowed her down like an animal!”
It was then that I realized who this man was.
“When the state trooper showed up on our doorstep, he told us that she was accidentally hit because she didn’t have reflectors on her bike. Funny thing is that I bought the bike a month earlier, and I’m pretty sure that there were reflectors.” He said with tears running down his cheeks.
“My wife and I tried so hard to make it through it… But after a while she just couldn’t do it anymore, so she killed herself.”
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
“You can imagine my surprise when I found out that my daughter didn’t die because of a stupid bike, but instead a drunk driver.”
“No one was supposed to know about that.”
“I knew. My wife knew… and the police man that you payed off knew. He told me right before I killed him.” He lifts the gun from my head and leans closer to me, “This entire time, while my wife was dying inside and while I was wishing I was dead, you’ve just been here carrying on with your life like nothing ever happened. Did you… did you ever even think about her?”
“I-I…”
“You never even cared did you… You destroyed my entire family and you never even cared…”
“I’m…I’m so sorry… It was an accident.”
He backs away from me, “You know, I came here tonight to kill you. But I just realized that just simply putting a bullet in your head is too good.” He opens the cylinder of his revolver, removes a bullet, closes it, and then tosses me the bullet. “There’s now three bullets left in this gun. That fourth one’s for you.” He turns the gun to Amanda, who’s holding Hailey tightly in her arms, tears flowing down her freckled cheeks. He pulls the trigger before the scream can leave my throat, “Now there are two.” The muzzle then points at my daughter, who’s wailing, her pallid face covered in her mother’s blood. I jump forward, but the bullet leaves the barrel before I hit Alex. I tackled him to the ground a second too late. He got to his feet, I did not. Instead I crawled to my dead wife and daughter, wrapping my arms around them, my family’s blood soaking into my clothes and skin.
“Look at me.”
I hug Hailey and Amanda tighter.
“Look at me!”
I lift my head just far enough to meet his eyes, and I realize that the deadness I saw in his before is now in mine as well.
“There’s one bullet left.”
“Go ahead… kill me, I don’t care anymore…”
“I told you, that bullet in your hand is for you.” He puts the gun to his head, “This one is for me.”
“Why did you do this…? I was the one who killed your daughter, my family did nothing to you.”
“And my family did nothing to you, yet they’re dead because of you.” His finger hovers at the trigger. “I’m not going to kill you tonight, but I did end your end your life. I want you to live with nothing to live for.” He takes a deep breath, and then he pulls the trigger, just as I hear the sirens screaming.

I open my eyes, tears drying on my cheeks. “Don’t you dare say I’m lucky again. Don’t you dare say that if I wasn’t meant to survive that night that I would have died then. And don’t you dare say that I owe it to my family to put the gun down, because my family is dead! My family is dead, and his family is dead, because of me!”

The counselor who was sent in to talk me into not doing this takes a step closer, she says her name is Abbigail. “Robert, it’s only been nine months since you lost your family. I know it hurts now, but it always gets better.”

I click the safety off of the identical revolver I bought, the one bullet in it that I was given nine months ago finally about to achieve the fate that it was condemned to. “You know there was one thing I left out when I was telling you about what happened. Right before Alex died, he told me something that I didn’t understand until right now… He said there are no survivors.”

Abigail doesn’t understand the relevance of this, she just nods and speaks calmly. She talks about how lucky I am to be given a second chance, and that I can’t throw it away. She tells me that I’m still alive and I don’t need to do this.

She doesn’t understand though. There are no survivors. I wasn’t given a second chance. You have to be alive to be given a second chance, and I died the night that my family died. All the people I’ve met who heard my story on the news, all my coworkers, my friends, they tell me how sorry they are, but somewhere somehow they always end up telling me how lucky I am. How lucky I am to have survived having my home invaded by a psychopath.

They don’t understand though, Abigail doesn’t understand.

There are no survivors.