Bathump! Bathump! Bathump!
Tara was on her knees with her face facing the cool marble floor that was stained with blood. Her heart pounded in her chest erratically as her breath shook, her chest rising and falling in a heavy motion.
"Lady Tara Amanda McMillan, what do you have to say now that you've killed our father?" A stern gruff voice sounded from in front of her. The man had a long black stick in hand as he stared at the fallen heiress of the McMillan household with a frown.
Tara felt a chill run up her spine and she jolted. Her red eyes that was still pinned to the bloody floor darted left and right in panic and confusion.
What just happened? Kill? Her? Grandfather?
Her long fingers shook tremendously as the smell of blood stuck to her nostrils.
There was blood everywhere. The blood of her precious grandfather who was now dead.
"I-I didn't..." Before she could muster another word, the stern looking man in front of her landed his long black stick on her back with a whish sound.
Tara groaned as she fell on her stomach. The blood seeped further into her dress while her back throbbed in pain.
But Tara couldn't feel it. She couldn't feel any of it. Rather her eyes rose to look at the limp body of her grandfather once more and noticing the knife plunged deep into his stomach, the air in her lungs seized.
"Answer me, you ungrateful child! Didn't he care for you enough, Tara? He chose to bequeath you with the renowned title of this family's heiress despite you being an illegitimate child... "
Again, the man livid and spiteful, landed his stick on her back once again.
Whish!
"Tell me, why did you kill him?!" He roared in fury, his arms shaking.
Tara groaned in pain, her eyes never leaving the pale man lying not too far from where she lay sprawled on the floor.
The only difference was that she was alive while her grandfather was dead with a knife in his stomach and blood seeping down like a water from a spring.
Tara shook her head, dizzy from the blood. She tried to rise while feeling every eyes pinned on her. Today was her big day.
She was supposed to receive the family's special heirloom marking her inauguration as the new heiress of the McMillan household.
How did this happen?
In the middle of rising to her feet, Tara stumbled and fell to her knees again. Her eyes caught her hands that were dyed red with blood and she threw her head up in disgust.
It was her grandfather's blood. She was the only one covered in blood but she didn't kill him.
She... She...
Her bleak eyes stared dejectedly at her surroundings. All the members of the family were present and so were the guests.
They snickered at her, shaking their heads in disgust at what she had done.
"Only a few years ago, she was a poor kid eating from scraps in dustbins. We should have known!" It was her Aunt Bethany who spoke, her red eyes livid and filled with scorn. Just a while ago, this same aunty was smiling at her and now...
Tara shook her head frantically, tears seeping into her eyes for the first time.
They all stared at her in shock. So even Tara could cry?
"I swear I didn't..." Her voice cracked in the end, her back was sore from the lashes and her heart was broken.
I swear I didn't kill him! Why were those words so hard to say?
"Keep your mouth shut, Tara." The stern looking man yelled again, this time letting his stick rest on the floor.
Tara turned to face him for the first time. The tears seeped down her cheeks as her mouth pressed into a mournful line.
"You are going to have to explain yourself, you traitor! What were you to gain from this?"
Shaking her head as hard as could, Tara coughed out a "No,"
"Money? Wealth?"
"N-No"
"Revenge?"
"No!"
"Then why the hell did you kill him?!" He roared.
"I didn't!"
Noah McMillan, the stern looking man, frowned deeply, enraged by her persistent denial. He had never liked her, none of the family has.
She was an illegitimate child, a stain to the family name.
But his father loved her. He gave her everything like the rest of the legitimate children and even went as far as to name her heir.
He couldn't deny he was jealous. Jealous that she won his own father's favor.
But never would she have thought that the same girl would kill his father now. And why on her coronation day?
Taking a deep breath, he addressed her again, this time barely keeping his anger in check.
"Tara, just a few minutes ago, you were sent into this room alone. You were supposed to receive the family heirloom from my father, the head of this household..."
No one missed the way he addressed the dead man as his father as though he was never related to Tara in anyway.
"What did you do to him?" Noah's last sentence hung dangerously low, making the others hold their breath.
Tara continued to weep on her knees why shaking her head. When she walked in here, she could remember walking towards the regal seat where her grandfather sat while smiling at her.
He even called her beautiful and she had smiled, curtseying in front of him.
Tara remained completely still as she dove deeper into her cloudy memories.
As her grandfather kissed her hand, he was about placing the family heirloom—a circular shaped ring with a greenish golden hue—on her palm when...
What happened next?
Tara's eyes widened in alarm and disbelief as Noah, her uncle's question hung uncomfortably in the air waiting to be answered.
Except... She didn't remember.
But this happened just a few minutes ago, how was it that she couldn't remember.
"Answer me Tara!" Noah's roar was enough to shake the walls of the hall room.
Tara, however, didn't even flinch. She was more shaken by the realization that her memories were lost. The next thing she remembered after that was the body of her grandfather on the ground with a knife plunged in his stomach.
Whatever happened before that was lost meaning she couldn't prove her innocence.
She looked up at the face of her uncle that had turned unimaginably ugly as he glared the life out of her.
Then she looked to her left where familiar faces—her family and friends—stood shaking their head at her.
She looked to her right and it was the same. The guests were whispering. Everyone was murmuring.
Tara was trembling. She did not know. She did not know.
She wanted them to shut up so she could think. She wanted them to carry her poor grandpa from the floor and clean him up.
But above all, she wanted all of this to be one horrible nightmare.
Her dead grandfather's face, the blood on her hand and dress, the sneers of her family members in the air.
This is all one big, scary nightmare.
Her uncle's anger must have reached breaking point as his voice rang even clearer than before.
"What happened when you got here, Tara?"
Tara's heart dropped down to her stomach, her voice low in defeat.
"I do not know"