Chapter 1 Father

ARIA MORETTI

Aria took one last sip of the coffee before setting the empty cup back on the table.

She then readjusted the study light to focus on the table where different photos of the same scene lay. It was the same loosely clad man sprawled across the floor with a pool of dried blood on the ground around his head. She shuffled the images and grimaced at each one that came to view before starting to type out the words that would be published by her small online newspaper for the readers who wanted more on the case the next morning.

The lawyer, Milano Cargioli, had been found dead in the most bizarre of circumstances. No sign of breakage into his house, no signs of a struggle, and no signs of even movement through the house. All that was there was a single bullet in his head, and there was no proof that it was a suicide.

For Aria, it was a matter of passion. She felt sad for Cargioli's family, but still wanted a path for herself in the News Industry, a path to fame and being widely known by all the faces around. In a few years, he would be forgotten, and all that would be there to remind anyone of him would be a tombstone covered in dust. Yet, if she could build her career...

She was still typing at her keyboard when a distant noise drew her attention. It was nothing close, and even seemed to be on the other side of the city. Yet, it caused her to jump up to her feet and rushed to check on the one man in the world who mattered to her more than anything else.

"Father," she muttered to herself, dashing through the small, dark space that was her house. Soon she was in his room, and darted to press her hands against her father's ears.

"Don't worry. I can already hear it." He said in the darkness, his voice calm.

She froze right behind him, staring at his head full of grey hair as he sat with his back to her and wondering what was happening on the inside of that beloved skull.

"Check and tell me what the cause of the noise is." He instructed.

She stood still, confused on what to do before walking to the window. The streets were dark except for the tiny glows that were passing cars and a few streetlights and signboards, until her eyes went higher up and closer to the horizon. There, she saw it.

It was a building quite shorter than the ones that surrounded it, but this time something drew all attention to it.

It was on fire.

A number of firetrucks were already working on it and spraying jets of water that ate at the mighty, hot, yellow glow that was the fire. It would be out of operations for a number of months, and no one would be able to work there. That was what half the city who stood watching that fire would be thinking. It was just a burning building that was put out before the calamity would spread.

For Aria, it was far deeper and more heartbreaking. That big building was the one in which her father worked as a truck driver. She knew that the fire meant hunger and poverty and devastation for her father, and the same for her if she could not put some food on the table.

"There's a fire somewhere. It is nothing , Father."

He only sat still and nodded.

"Elena and Mabel will be safe too, will they not?"

It was a ten worded question that set her on alert and caused her to rush towards the drawer, dig his antidepressant pills out within the fraction of a second, and spend another one taking out the emergency water that she had hidden in various places about the house just in case she needed a quick fix for him. Just like now.

"Have it, Father," she pleaded, holding out a single white pill in the palm of her hand. Her father would also take it from her with the gentleness of a lost child and wash it down his throat before sitting in the still manner he was as she entered the room. As soon as he did this, she threw her arms about his shoulders and kissed the wrinkled skin on his face."You are safe and fine. They are all safe and fine. They are happy too." She whispered, her heart tipping apart as he sniffed and started to cry, his body shaking all over.

It took a lot of composure-well accumulated over the years so that it left her with thick skin-to stop her from crying herself. Since the night of the robbery that left their little house picked clean of everything it had to offer and with the bodies of her mother, Elena and her younger sister, Mabel lying dead, her father had never remained the same.

The lights terrified him at night because he was sure that he would find a corpse waiting for him once he flipped the switch on, and loud noises like the one outside now drove him marbles, for they reminded him too much of that night. There was only one force keeping him together, and it was the surviving daughter who had somehow convinced him to go to sleep just then. He too, loved and appreciated how she had given herself to be cared for by him, and it was why he had taught himself never to question any one of her decisions.

She lay by his side and massaged his hair until he fell asleep, before standing up to go to the window where the building had now been reduced from a burning warehouse to half a large brick of red coal. Smoke billowed up from it slowly, and she stared at it for a long time, aware that the caffeine had had its effects and she was not going to be sleeping for a long time, that it was another piece of news, and that she was going to have a hard time consoling her father, who would lose his mind over the truth she just hid from him.

**

To forget all of that, she returned to her room and tried to finish the lawyer's story. Her worry over her father only permitted her to do it with a fair amount of success, and she was pulling at her hair when there came the sound of knocking upon the door.

It was strange, and she froze while trying to guess who was at the door before she heard it being kicked open with the sound of men yelling as they came in. Even then, she could only think of one thing.

"Father."