My name is Mason, and I’m 11 years old. It was 7:30 a.m. and I realized that I was going to be late for school. I got out of bed and went to go eat breakfast, brush my teeth and get dressed. After I was done I looked at the clock. It was 7:50 a.m. and school started at 8 a.m. I raced out the door. While I was running, I passed the car and noticed a small piece of paper on the hood of the car. I just threw it away because I thought it was just a joke.

Once I got to school, I noticed the same piece of paper in my notebook. The thing was, I’d never put it there. I had definitely thrown it away. Once I got home, my mom asked me to get the mail. When I opened the mailbox up, I noticed under all the bills, there was a crumpled piece of paper. I could tell it was the same one as earlier.  I had just thought someone was playing with me, and that it was probably a harmless prank. But when I opened it up it said, ‘Give me the necklace or I will bring horror to your family.’

I was starting to get worried. I ran as fast as I could inside, but before I told my mom, I realized that I couldn't tell my parents because they probably wouldn’t believe me. I went  straight to my room instead. I looked at the piece of paper and thought, “This isn’t real, and no one’s going to die.”

I threw it out of my window and into the stream behind my house. After dinner, I went to go take my shower. When I got into the shower, I saw the piece of paper again and it wasn’t even wet from the stream. I realized that every time I got rid of it, someone had been putting it back. I was almost sure that I was being stalked! After my shower, I walked into my room and I looked at the paper again. This time, something was different. There were little, dark stains, almost like food stains, on it but then I looked closer and realize with a jolt that it was blood!  Unsettled, I went downstairs to say goodnight to my mom. As I enter the kitchen, I saw her on the ground. She was lying face down and there was a pool of blood around her. I ran straight over to the phone and called 911. They came five minutes later, and declared her dead. I was devastated, because what if the blood on the paper was hers? I talked to the police about the paper, and told them about the bloodstains. They said that it might be her blood, but that they would only really know for sure in about a week, after they got it examined.

I was getting really scared. My mom was dead, and my dad wasn't even there. A thought crossed my mind that maybe my dad could have done this. I didn’t want to think it, but I knew that it was possible. About five minutes later, he walked through the door,  crying. I guessed that the police had already broken the news about my mom. He asked what had happened.

I told him, “I was going to bed and wanted to say goodnight to her. When I came down, she was lying on the ground with a pool of blood around her stomach.” As I said that, I noticed mud on my dad’s shoes. He told me to try to go to sleep, and that we’d talk in the morning. The next day, my dad left early for work, so I figured I’d go out back and play. When I headed over to  the woods I noticed footprints, so I followed them, and they led to a bush. I brushed the branches away and peeked inside. There was a knife and it had blood on it, so I ran inside, grabbed the phone and called the police. When the police came, they asked if I saw anyone or if I touched anything.

“No, of course not,” I said. They asked where my father was, and I told them he was at work, so they asked me to call him and ask him to come home. When my dad came home they asked him a lot of questions. After a long period of questions, the police finally left and I decided to go to bed without dinner, cause I wasn’t really hungry.

The next morning I woke up and realized the police were at my house again. They were looking at the crime scene. They finally disclosed the cause of death and it looked like somebody stabbed her and then banged her head on the edge of the counter. There was blood there, so they took some blood off the counter and put it in a bag and took it to get examined. After that, I decided to go to the park. I was gone for about an hour. When I came back, the police were still at my house. They were searching the whole house to see if they could tell how the murderer got in. They found a broken window and it looked like that’s how they got in. It was 8:00 p.m. when the police finally left, so I decided to go to bed.

I woke up to the sound of yelling and screaming. I quickly got out of bed and saw my dad being attacked by some guys. I quickly ran down the stairs and grabbed a pot. I banged the pot on the guy’s head as hard as I could. The guy fell over but quickly recovered and ran out the door. While he was running, he dropped my dad’s credit card on the floor, so I picked it up and called the cops and an ambulance. When the ambulance got there, they said he had major head injuries, and they didn’t know if he’ll make it. When we got to the hospital, they rushed him to the ER and I had to wait outside. An officer finally suggested that maybe I should go home and get some rest. So a police officer ended up taking me home. My grandparents were there, but I went straight to my room and went to bed. The next morning, we got a call saying my father didn’t make it. The nurse said that he died between 12:00 am and 1:00 am. I said I was asleep but I still can’t believe he died. Now both my parents are gone.

The next day, the police said the man we found was not my father, it was my uncle. It hit me that my dad was an identical twin. After that, I went back to my room and I found a piece of paper right on the corner of my bed. I noticed there was more writing on it. It said find the “necklace and I won’t do anything else to your family,” so I ran straight into my parents room and I tried to find the necklace. After an hour of waiting, I finally find the necklace it has a huge diamond in the middle of it and it looks really expensive. I go back into my room and look at the note and it has a phone number on it. I call the number and a person answers.

They ask, “Do you have the necklace or not?” and I tell them yes. They tell me to leave it outside on the porch and don’t tell the cops or else everyone in your family will die. I realize I have to tell the cops, so I call them and tell them to come around twelve o'clock. They come, and they camp out in the camper in my driveway and when the person shows up they catch him, and apparently it’s my dad. When my dad came home, it was actually my uncle pretending to be my dad so my dad could get a passport. When they caught him they took him to jail, and I was glad all of this was over but the worst thing was that my mom died because of a stupid necklace. Apparently the necklace was the last one in existence and my mom knew my dad would want it for his business, so she hid it where he would never find it: in my parents room in the box where it said ‘Keep out: dad’s stuff’. Apparently, when my mom noticed my dad wasn't coming home as early has he was before she knew something was up. When she saw texts on his phone from another girl so you tried to divorce but she never filed it and when my dad heard about this he knew he had to get the necklace from her from her. As a result my uncle and my mom are dead.