Rosangela: The Half-Blood Princess

I ran and ran until I could run no more. I fell to my knees and started to cry. When I could finally pull myself together, I sat on the pavement and began to think about my life.

I was an orphan. I was left in front of an orphanage when I was a baby. I spent my early childhood in the orphanage. When I was older, I was bounced around from one foster family to another foster family. The reason I kept moving because somehow I could never fit in any of those foster families. So they always decided to return me to the orphanage.

Since I had never been adopted in all my fourteen years, my social worker started losing hope on me. They told me that I would probably be stuck in the orphanage for good.

However, everything changed after I met Marlon and Rosetta. They were the nicest foster parents I ever had. They weren’t the kind of parents who took foster kids just for the cheques from the government. They loved me the way they loved their real daughter, Marirosa.

After I lived with them for a year, to my surprise, they decided to adopt me. They even officially added their surname—"Sinclair"—to my name.

I had never had a last name before. All my life, I was only known as Rosangela. Everyone called me Rosanne for short. It’s the name that Mrs. McCarthy, the owner of the orphanage, chose for me when I was found almost 17 years ago.

I’ve been living with the Sinclairs for 3 years now. They were so kind to me, even though sometimes they became a little bit overprotective.

Nevertheless, no matter how nice they were, I still longed for the love and presence of my real parents. I have never known who my real parents are. The only thing that they left for me was a locket of which I was wearing around my neck now.

I touched my chest and felt the locket behind the pink blouse I was wearing. I pulled it out and stared at it sadly.

Mrs. McCarthy told me that it belonged to my mother. She seemed to know my mom, and probably my dad too. But every time I asked her about my parents, she always refused to tell me more about them. She only told me never to take the locket off. Because she believed that it would protect me and maybe it would lead me to my parents someday.

Well, I didn’t believe any word she said. This locket brought nothing but sadness to my life. And although I kept wearing it, it could never bring my parents back.

For the first time my life, I unclasped the locket and shoved it into my pocket angrily.

All of a sudden, my mobile phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw Valerie’s name flashed on the monitor.

I picked up the phone right away. “Hello?”

“Rosanne, where are you? Are you coming to the party or not?” Valeria asked impatiently.

“I’m coming. I’m in my way now,” I told her.

“Okay. I’ll wait for you here. See you.”

“See you.” I hang up the phone.

I rose to my feet and began walking to the left towards Josh’s house. After walking for a few metres, suddenly, I felt like there was someone watching me. I looked around but found no one. So I shrugged it off and continued walking.

A few metres further, I heard footsteps approaching. My steps came to a halt and I looked over my shoulder. Yet I didn’t see anyone.

All of a sudden, I felt a cold shiver of fear run through me. So, I carried on walking and quickened my pace.

I heard the footsteps coming closer. I stopped dead in my tracks and turned around. But I didn’t see anyone. Turning about again, my heart jumped when I saw a man in black hoodie suddenly appeared in front of me.

“Wh—who are you?” I stuttered.

He didn’t answer.

I walked backward in fear and bumped into something hard.

I looked over my shoulder and saw another man in black hoodie standing behind me.

“What do you want from me?” I asked, trying to be brave.

They just glared at me, didn’t say a word.

I intended to run but they both grabbed my arms. I tried to wriggle free yet their grips were too strong. When I was about to scream, suddenly one of them clamped a cloth over my mouth and nose. The strong smell of chloroform hit my nostrils. I held my breath, trying not to inhale the chloroform. However, I couldn’t hold it for too long. I was forced to breathe in through the cloth.

My vision began to blur and my body felt so weak. The last thing I saw were those guys grinned at me, showing their long white cannies. And finally, everything went black.