By Emilee Fairchild

As I sat alone in the house, flashbacks raced through my mind. I had lived a whole week in this insane house all alone. I then realized, "They're gone. Not for the day, not for a few hours. They're gone forever." I started crying and couldn't stop.

The aroma of cigar smoke filled the second floor of the house. He was still there. waiting for me to come out. But I won't. Not until he leaves for the night.

I heard him laugh and I became scared. I slid back into the secret door that lead through my closet from my bedroom to the attic. I knew the smell that filled the attic all too well. Since the attack, I had smelled it. It was my family. They may be in a better place, but I wish they were here with me, safe from him.

He use to be my piano teacher, but now he was my family's killer. I now knew why he came to our house so often. He wanted information about the house, so he could keep us from hiding. But he had never been in my bedroom. He had never known about my secure and most important hiding place in the house -- even if it was only 20 feet away from my family's cold limp bodies. It was my only way of surviving.

A few hours later, I heard the front door slam and the sound of his 2009 Lexus start up and drive off. I had ridden down 42nd Street many times before with him in that very car, laughing and singing like he was my dad.

I'd had enough. I was ready to give up, but I knew I couldn't. My family wouldn't want me to do that. The thought had crossed my mind many times, but now I was sure I had to run.

I peered into the hallway, scared to move because of the sight of dried blood on the walls. It looked so much like the black-colored scab that spread all the way down my leg, like a virus floating through a city. I walked down the hall to the stairway. The white carpet now had spots and stripes of dried blood up and down it. All it did was remind me of what he had done to my family.

As I walked down the steps and reached for the door handle, his 2009 Lexus came to an abrupt stop in our gravel driveway. He carried a gym bag. It had the label on it of the theater where I use to take piano lessons. All of the sudden, my phone started to vibrate, something it hadn't done in seven days.

Just as he reached for the door knob, I ducked behind the couch that had been scooted out from the wall I slit bit??? during his attack upon my family. He opened the door and went left into the kitchen, leaving the door open a little bit behind him.

Finally, I realized that no matter what, this was my only chance of getting out of this house alive. So I slipped through the door, trying not to make any noise. I was out. Free from his clutches. I started running, and as soon as I made it across the street, dozens of police cars and ambulances pulled up to my yard with sirens howling and lights flashing. He was caught.

I went to his trial and spoke at the sentencing. This is what I had to say: "I still have no idea why he did this, but what I know is that from now on, when Mother's Day, Father's Day or the birthday of my mother, my father, my brother or my sister comes around, instead of going out to eat or having a party I'll be putting flowers on their graves."

I was orphaned and went to live with my Aunt then went to college. Every year on special occasions, I go to the Kinney Family Cemetery in Dayton, Ohio, and put flowers on four people's graves who I can't see or talk to anymore. I know I could be in a casket near my family, but I'm not. Because I'm a survivor.