Jessica was just not in the mood that night. Kids running around demanding this and that and her husband still on business calls! "How am I going to get fucking dinner ready if I can't be left to fucking do it!" She shouted in her mind. Jessica felt her eyes starting to well up with tears, threatening to slip out and sting her flushed cheeks. She looked out of the kitchen window into the misty dusk of the sunset - the place of purgatory between the moon rising and the sun setting behind the immense horizon.

Squeezing her hand tightly around the kitchen scissors, Jessica took a deep breath refusing to let the tears break the surface. In that moment she visualised the children not being able to utter a sound nor constantly expose their eyes to screens, watching irrelevant crap that was sucking away at their souls and intellect. Jessica looked at her husband and like any frustrated wife at the end of their tether, imagined stabbing him with the scissors. She shook her head at the insane thoughts. "Geez Jessica, where did that come from?" She uttered to herself. Still, it brought a little sense of satisfaction.

She felt a sudden ache starting to swell up inside of her which she could feel rising up from her chest and a lump forming in her throat. It was overwhelming, and in her mind she imagined it as if something wanted to crawl out and swallow up all the frustration from the non-stop sensory overload which was a nightly occurrence during suicide hour with a family of four. Unclenching her fist, she winced not realising how tight she had wrapped her palm and fingers around the scissors. "Just a moment, that's all I need. Some silence."

Jessica walked from the kitchen into the garage away from the noise and shut the door behind her. She tucked herself into a corner on an old chair. Unopened boxes surrounded her, two years moving into the house already and looked around at all the other useless shit she still had to sort out - more fucking chaos. "Breathe, just breathe" she murmured to herself. She bent her head and covered her ears to stifle out the background noises of the TV, electronics, and bickering between siblings. She closed her eyes.

After a few minutes, she felt a sudden jerk as if something was pulling her. She opened her eyes and looked around thinking it may have been one of the kids, but nothing. "What the hell?" She gave an exasperated sigh and took a deep breath. The pressure she had felt on her chest had eased and there was a sense of calmness that enraptured her whole body. Jessica realised then that she couldn't hear anything; no TV, no voices, no sounds. Silence. She frowned, shaking her head “Probably all upstairs on some device or other” she thought out loud.

Jessica opened the door and walked through the kitchen. Still silence. She called out “Henry, Sam, Gloria? Where are you guys? Dinner is almost done.” but there was no response. She walked into the living room. All three were sitting in front of the TV but the sound was muted. She smiled and walked around the couch. “Wow, you guys are so….” What came out of her next was unrecognisable as it had never been uttered from her lips before - hysterical ear piercing screaming. In front of her was the sick image of what she had visualised earlier in the kitchen and desired in the moment of her emotions and frustrations. Her children sat with no eyes and no mouths on their faces save 2 holes where their noses were and the kitchen scissors driven deep into her husband's forehead.

Sobbing Jessica cradled her two children in her arms who were struggling to breathe making a wheezing sound through the holes. She could not bare to look at her husband. Still rocking back and forth with her children's heads in each arm, they could no longer breathe and were now lifeless. Jessica cried out not knowing what to do. Her head was rushing now in turmoil trying to search for an explanation. How? How? How?

Something caught her eye and she looked at a mirror just to her left. What she saw was not her grieving tear drenched face, but an image of herself grinning back with satisfaction. She stared at it and then forced herself to gaze at her faceless children. "Oh my god.” She paused, “I did this". Jessica wiped her tears away, kissed her children on their heads and lay them down on the couch. She slowly started walking upstairs looking back at her family one more time.

Jessica walked into the master bedroom. Looking into the mirror in the bathroom one more time, the image staring back at her was now smiling. Slowly she opened the wardrobe doors, pushing the clothes aside and looked down at the safe. Bending down and with her hand shaking, Jessica unlocked it and reached for the 9mm. looking at the gun for a moment she started crying again. She released the safety and placed it against her head, closing her eyes. “I killed them” Jessica muttered as she squeezed the trigger.

Henry saw that Jessica needed a time-out and so took the kids to the living room to watch a show until dinner was ready. Suddenly he heard a big bang from upstairs like a gunshot. He told the kids to stay put and ran up the stairs “Jessica?” He cried out. He walked into the bedroom and keeled over at the sight of his wife slumped over with the gun in her hand, with her skull torn apart and her brains spread across the carpet. “Jessica! Oh god, Jessica!” As he held her in his arms, his mind started rushing. Why? Why? Why? He caught a glimpse of someone in the mirror. Thinking it was one of the children he stood up. But it wasn't either of them; it was his reflection smiling back at him. A sense of calmness came over him. He knew what he had to do. He looked at Jessica one more time then at the gun and picked it up.

Slowly he walked down the stairs to the lounge watching his children with every step. He reached the lounge and stood in front of his children his hand shaking now. “I'm sorry,” he sobbed coming to the realisation of what he was about to do. Her raised the gun and squeezed the trigger once, then again before turning the gun on himself.

It was two days before the bodies were discovered. Grandmother had come to visit as planned on Sunday. After a few rings of the doorbell she looked into the lounge area window noticing the curtains weren't drawn. She stepped away shaking her head, then started screaming.

A neighbour looked on as the cops arrived, the ambulances and the yellow tape being unwound to set up a perimeter. “They seemed so happy, whatever would have possessed the husband to do this?” A fellow neighbour responded" I hear the old lady kept ranting on about seeing an image of someone or something in the mirror staring back at her smiling. Imagine the shock she's in to say such a weird thing."