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The Start of It
Well, i've decided that I want to write something more than just a poem. I want to write a story. Maybe not a book, but just a story. This is what I've got down so far and I wanted to share it with you all, possibly get some feedback before I proceed. Well, here it is...
It all started with a suicide. I suppose all life starts with death right? This suicide though, this one bore something far beyond what anyone could have imagined. It brought forth a darkness beyond explanation, a pain beyond bearing, a fear beyond understanding. There are some secrets that should never be brought up, they should lay buried in their graves forever. Some people just can’t leave things alone. Now, I’m just not sure who will survive this game, and this is a game.
I woke up, sweat pouring down my face, neck, and back. My shoulders rose and fell with my heavy, gasping breaths as I sat there, wrapped around in tear and sweat soaked sheets, shaking. I blinked hard a few times trying to make sure that it was just a dream. It was just a dream, a terrible, horrifying dream. My eyes trailed to the window to my right. The curtains were drawn back and moonlight poured into my room. The little bit of light was somehow reassuring as I tried to calm my racing heart.
I ran my hand through my damp hair. My fingers got caught in the few tangles that had formed while I slept and a slight pain pulsed through my head as I pulled through them. The slight pain was also comforting; the pain meant that being there was real, that I was safely in my room.
My thoughts were racing through my head, reverberating against the walls of my brain. All I could see was her face, the blood. There had been so much blood surrounding her in that bathtub.
I took a deep gulp of air trying to divert my thoughts. It was a futile attempt. Now that she was on my mind I just couldn’t stop reliving the moment that I found her. Those blue eyes, fixated, never to see another day, her skin, pale and stained in crimson ink.
I felt a tear roll down my cheek as I remembered.
She was my roommate, we had just moved in together. We were both just starting out at this school, Cross Academy in London, England. She had seemed so innocent, sweet, but apparently no one new what burdens she bared under her mask.
We were supposed to go out that night, sneak off campus. There was a rave, a wild party full of people just like us, punk rockers without a care in the world. We just wanted an escape from our lives, so we got together and let the music and the dancing and the adrenaline just whisk us off.
I was already, perfectly adorned in the right amounts of leather and plaid. I walked over to the bathroom, ready for one last makeup check before we were off for the night. I knocked on the door softly. Three times, I always knock three times. “Katie,” I said in a quiet tone. I was nervous about leaving, I wasn’t sure if we would be caught or not.
There was no answer from the other side of the door. I knocked again. “Katie, let me in,” I said in a bit louder, quite impatient tone. I knocked once more, still no answer. I rolled my eyes, fed up. I announced that I was going to go in if she didn’t answer. She didn’t, I barged in. The bathroom door had no lock so there was nothing stopping me.
The metallic smell of blood hit me hard as I entered. I had heard a splash when I took a step and looked down. Blood, it was everywhere. I looked up. The curtain was pulled around the bathtub. I rushed over to the other side of the bathroom and pulled the cover down, rings and all.
Katie laid there, in a blood bath; her wrists slit numerous amounts of times, her eyes staring into oblivion. There was only one thing I was capable of doing at that point. I screamed.
Ever since that night I dreamed of that scene. Every time my eyes closed she was all I could see, naked, soaked in blood. I could escape this all too real nightmare.
I lay back against my pillow, staring at the ceiling. I was still in the dorm we had shared, Katie and I. Her stuff was still as she left it on the other side of the room. Nothing had been touched; no one had the heart to.
There wasn’t a clue as to why she had taken her life that night. She was quiet, but she never seemed sad. She wasn’t a loner but she wasn’t popular by any means either. She was average.
I rolled over staring out the window, my eyes locked on the moon. Maybe there was something no one was seeing. She couldn’t have just done this without a reason.
I pulled the covers up under my chin and brought my knees up making myself into a ball. Someone just had to look close enough to see whatever drove her over the edge. As these thoughts swirled around in my head I made a decision. I needed to know why she did it, and then maybe everything would be alright. Maybe then, the nightmares would stop.
The light was blinding as I woke up that morning. No terrors to rouse my from my sleep this time, only the indolent drone of my alarm clock caused me to awaken.
Katie’s old desk was the first sight that greeted me as I finally opened my eyes, the same sight that greeted me every morning. My breath still caught in my chest when I saw it even though she had been gone for almost three weeks now. I kicked the sheet that I was wrapped in off of me and swung my feet over the edge. My feet hit the cold wooden floor. I was suddenly more awake than I was a few minutes ago.
I shuffled across the floor, still in a half state of slumber. I had to face that bathroom yet again. The first week I used a bathroom in another dorm, but once everything was cleaned up, I was forced to use the one in my own.
I reached the door after was seemed to be a mile run. My hand slowly reached out to grab the knob. I turned it slowly, not breathing the entire time. I have kept so many breaths since that night. Sometimes I wonder how I stay alive with all the oxygen I must be losing.
I push the door open. It looks so normal, like nothing horrid, like nothing tragic had ever happened here but of course that wasn’t so. No, I could still imagine the blood staining the ground, her body, cold, limp, in that tub.
A shiver shot down my spine as the thoughts came back again. Would I ever be able to forget? For some reason it just seemed so unlikely.
I took a step forward. My bare foot touched the cold tile floor. It was winter, everything was freezing indoors and out. It was right though the cold. No other weather truly seemed fitting.
In a slow, uncertain lope I made my way to the sink. My hands gripped the sides of the porcelain basin and I looked in the mirror in front of me. Blood shot eyes greeted me, along with a mess of unruly dark brown hair and makeup smeared eyes. I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. It was a habit of mine, running my fingers through my hair. I don’t know where or even when I picked it up but was it really that important to know why I did that? Not now, no, not it all.
I could see the tub out of the corner of my eye. It was almost haunting me in a way that made me want to scream.
I don’t understand why Katie’s death affected me so. We had only been roommates for a few weeks, we weren’t close, and we barely knew each other. The rave was the first thing that we ever would have done together; it would have been the first step towards any attempt at friendship.
We barely knew each other, and yet she haunted me everywhere I went around this school.
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