Finished+ Word Count: 1418
Trigger Warnings: description of suicide, spiritual themes used heavily as a metaphor for depression, mental health, dark themes
Written by: Del Rey Jean
Requested? No
Extra notes:
I never thought that I would come back and be able to finish this piece. It had remained in my drafts, half written, for almost two years.
It was possibly the hardest one I have ever written, and let me explain that:
This was inspired by a girl I went to school with, whom I did not know personally, but I saw every day. She took her own life after a year of us sharing that school, and I was faced with this strange empty place in the halls and the classroom where I suddenly noticed how often I had regularly seen her.
I wondered what she had been going through all that time that we spent passing each other with small, acknowledging smiles, and I ultimately found myself asking the question of whether or not I could have done something to help if I’d only reached out one of those times she’d walked by.
I am a suicide survivor, so the realization that I’d missed the signs in this stranger I saw every day tortured me.
I couldn’t exactly say ‘sorry I never realized you were suffering’ because she was already gone. But I couldn’t stop wondering what she was facing all on her own every day when she passed me by.
And then I thought: how bad was it when she went home? What did her battle look like there?
That was the moment this scene was born. The first few paragraphs wrote themselves and then I left it in my notebook, unable to continue for many long months until I took it out again when I was reminded of her silent suffering.
I by no means want to make light of the suffering. Nor do I want to glorify it. This piece was my mind making sense of a situation in the only way it knew how to. In a way, I wrote this as my apology to that girl.
She narrowed her dark eyes on the dancing shadows.
Glistening white teeth peered from its blackness in the shape of a sadistic grin that drew skitters across the girl’s skin. Laughter erupted from another somewhere in the darkness, bouncing off the walls in a shrill, manically high-pitched mockery of her own voice.
In the underbelly of the psychotic mirth, she heard the chattering of teeth behind her, as if the ice cold room could actually affect the monster that stalked her.
Warm breath pooled over her cheek from lips beside her ear, sending off her nerve endings in a fiery rage as a distorted voice whispered, “welcome home.”
Razored claws pricked her shoulder when they pulled her purse off, dropping it to the floor with a thud muffled by the living cloud of shadows.
The weight of the darkness pressed against her while she choked on the stale smell of copper and pen ink. It pushed on her chest, stretching across her bones and pulling the skin tight at the edges so she could scarcely think through the agony. Her lungs tried to stop breathing, too weak to push against the weight at a steady pace.
The pearly whites disappeared suddenly and she could see only vague, deformed shapes.
“We missed you,” came the distorted voice that was hers but not.
She closed her eyes, nausea rising beneath the ache under her collarbone.
“This isn’t real,” she reminded herself with little confidence.
Hands brushed over her arms, sharp claws nicking the skin as the creatures closed in all around her.
“It’s all in your head,” her voice shook while she forced her legs to move forward. “They aren’t real.”
She reached out a quivering hand into the shadows, feeling blind for the door frame of her destination. If she could just get in there, she’d be alright. They never follow her there. Though at the back of her mind, she added a word that sank into her heart every night she did this over and over again. Yet.
They haven’t followed her into her one place of peace and safety. . . Yet.
They were pulling at her clothes and her hair. Some poked at her ribs with claws just barely piercing the skin. A constant chaotic noise humming all around her from their incessant chattering. They laughed and called out her name under growling voices.
“Oh please, won’t you play with us?” A distant whisper asked, sounding as if tears hid within its throat.
She’d learned long ago that she didn’t like their games. Ignore them, keep moving. Don’t give in.
“Not real, not real. . .”
The laughing turned to something whooping and mocking. It grew so loud, her skull began to throb.
She touched solid wood a moment later, her heart rising with a slip of hope. Until she realized with a brush to the left. . . And to the right. . .
Oh no.
Where was the door?
One of the beasts leaned its head against her shoulder, it’s sharp nose bruising her neck. Her skin sang with white flakes of terror.
“There is no door anymore,” it told her, breaking off into laughter.
“No door, no door!” The others chorused all around.
She gulped down huge breaths as her chest bucked against the air. Her heart reached up into her throat, blocking it from receiving anymore oxygen no matter her attempts to breathe.
“Play with us,” they demanded like children.
The one who claimed the disappearance of her escape was belting out deep laughter that reverberated up each disk of her spine.
“Play! Play! Play!”
Something finally snapped under the pressure of the darkness. Her chest ached and she shot her hands up to clutch at her skull.
“Shut up!” She screamed.
To her surprise, she was met by silence. Since when would they obey? Her heart was not convinced, though. It squeezed behind her ribs like a child hiding behind a parent’s leg.
She let her hands come down slow, shaking to her sides. Though the darkness was thick, blinding her, she still scanned it with her eyes. She dared not move from her position just yet; what if they started up again?
The quiet should have been calming. Instead, it carved at her chest with ethereal claws as if they hadn’t left her alone.
And then she heard the distinct, echoing sound of a click. That tiny noise was like a crash of thunder.
“NO!”
Light washed the room. Her jaw hung slack as burning tears spilled down her cheeks and dripped to the floor.
“Please,” she begged, “please turn out the light.”
They laughed at the request, the way she should have predicted they would.
Her legs crumbled beneath her and she hit the ground hard. She cried out against the hardwood as her arms came to pull her knees up against her chest.
They all crowded in around the girl sobbing in a ball. Distorted faces closing in on her vision. Laughter punching her cheeks, leaving purple bruises in their wake. Their ugly mouths twisted up to mock her from echoes of familiar faces. She could have closed her eyes, but it would only make the truth more distinct; the image of them had already been soaked in and burned into her mind.
“Please just turn the light off again,” she whispered through her tears.
The one with the wide, sharp toothed grin shook its head.
“Why do you fight us now?” it asked, almost convincing with the level of sincerity it’s deep voice carried.
“Because you’re not welcome anymore,” came her muttered response.
Even as she said it, the terror was ebbing. It released her heart like slow creaking fingers opening up.
“Are we so bad?” It questioned, its grin widening until she thought it would crack the cheeks pulling its lips up.
“You’re going to kill me one day,” her response was entirely mechanical this time.
Nothing was left inside her chest. No more hope. No more fear. It was just empty.
Her cheeks sparkled with the flowing tears that she couldn’t feel.
It raised an eyebrow. A mannerism it had picked up from her a long while ago.
“One day,” it repeated, picking up the edge of the word just enough to make it a question.
She gave a slow nod.
Something cool and hard scraped against her cheek. The creature pulled it’s hand away a moment after and the black, smooth curve of a claw was glistening with her tears.
“Why will we not do it today then?”
The question took an entire thirty seconds to register in her numbed mind. She snapped her eyes up to meet the void holes of the other’s gaze.
“Go ahead,” she dared.
Its claws closed around her neck in an instant, but she could no longer fear. All she could feel was exhaustion.
“Do it,” she demanded.
Its grin faltered for one strong second until she started to scream at it.
“Do it! Do it! Do it!”
The others joined the chorus and it lifted her off her feet. Her throat closed off in that moment as she dangled in its hold. At its mercy. She couldn’t be afraid. She couldn’t feel a single thing. All she did was glare down at the demented reflection of herself. Black holes sat where her dark, black tea eyes should have stared back. Her own dimpled cheeks strained around its unnatural grinning mouth.
She beat her fist against the arm that was hers but also was not. Do it, her mind commanded. Do it!
Fire raced across her throat like she was going to vomit the acid of her stomach, but she clenched her jaw tight until it shot colors behind her eyes. The pain in her skull throbbed in time with the beat of the flames licking through her chest and suddenly she became aware of the fact that she couldn’t inhale anymore.
The numbness faded like clearing fog.
White hot lightning seared through her body instead, crashing into her mind with rolls of thunder that screamed:
I don’t want to die.
Her legs kicked out, swinging her in every direction. The beasts were gone. The room was black. Silent and heavy with the smog of terror and regret and an agony she could never escape from.
Despite her sudden struggles, the rope did not break.
It held strong.
And soon, all her coiled muscles finally released for the first time in years.
She came entirely still, not even swinging any longer. Just there. An empty shell.