1 The Beginning Of The End

An auburn-haired girl stood in front of a white washed wall, her chocolate-brown eyes fixated on one spot where a painting hung from one of the nails that she had hammered in with her very own fingers.

What was she staring at? It was a mesmerizing landscape of the night sky, almost bursting with the minute stars that managed to twinkle whenever light hit them. A pale-colored moon glowed in the corner and that was it. Nothing special. Nothing to make anyone question the reason behind this masterpiece.

But she questioned it daily.

That was the only way she could still remember him.

The man who made her fall for him. Again. And again. And again.

"Are you sad, Mommy?" a small voice suddenly squeaked, and Haven smiled before turning around, bending down to her son's level and ruffling up his hair playfully.

"Do you want to hear a story, my wild little bunny?" Her son was just like the painting; an echo from the past.

"Are you finally going to tell me about Daddy?" he gazed up at her, his wide doe-eyes blinking up innocently and Haven couldn't help but pepper his face with kisses all over.

"Your Daddy and I had met long ago when I was once your height. But I had forgotten him and that had been the biggest mistake I made all my life..."

When had it all changed?

The day she died.

———

Her eyes flashed open, the azure blue sky coming into her sight as she realized why she felt so lightweight all of a sudden. So this wasn't a dream?

'Damn you assholes!'

7 years...

'All for nothing, huh?'

The guy who had taken time out of his busy schedule to watch her live off her last few seconds was now a small particle high above that she couldn't see anymore. The Sun disabled her senses, making her unable to open her eyes without squinting or causing a severe headache to her head.

If somebody had asked her what her one and only wish at that second was, Haven would've been shocked at her own reply.

Live.

She wanted to survive. So badly that everything apart from that was out of focus and blur.

All these years, she had gone to bed at the end of the day, hoping that she wouldn't wake up the next day to see the clouds afloat.

Hoping she wouldn't have to see those minuscule raindrops pattering down her window and causing her migraines for the remainder of her already ruined day.

Every minute and every second was a constant reminder of how lost she actually was. No matter how much her mind wanted to divert her attention away from that, she still felt it everywhere when her back landed on her hard mattress.

It seemed as if decades had gone by when she last wondered what the day was. The current month. What year was currently going on.

Today, a man she wished she could throttle at the moment, had rang that alarm clock over her head before smiling and waving goodbye.

Today was September 1, 2022.

'I won't be alive to remember this day anymore I guess... Finally, some freedom!'

But was it freedom, the small voice at the back of her mind whispered. Is it going to be easy to show your face to them after not being able to give them peace?

Probably. She was diving face-first into Hell anyways, her parents wouldn't be found anywhere near there in the first place.

'So this is how anesthesia feels like?'

Her mind represented the accurate view of a storm, her thoughts in a whirlwind and her brain refusing to cooperate with her and maintain her senses in the last seconds of her life.

'Shouldn't I be dead by now? Is the grim reaper gonna torture me till the very end!?'

'Bastard.'

The very organ that helped her control everything had apparently ditched her side, making everything spiral out of control. Things that she had worked day and night to keep inside of her tiny little box, were now spilling out and Haven didn't know what to do to stop the pressure.

So she did the only thing she could've done.

Succumbed.

Wisps of her past life floated around her, like the shards of a broken mirror that she didn't know how to get rid of. Knocking her head against a wall until she lost her memory didn't seem like the best solution back then, but now she wished she'd done that instead.

December 13, 2015. Her mom had brought this range of white nightgowns since she had always liked seeing women wear them in movies most of the time. Around midnight, she decided to go out for a short stroll in the garden which was at the back of her house, at a lengthy distance from her parent's room which was closer to the front gate.

Back then, Haven wished it rained every day. Rain made her want to get up and let loose. It made her want to be free. Made her want to let go of every ounce of control she had. It made her want to dance until she lost the feel in her legs.

Gazing up at the minute stars twinkling up in the sky, her heart abruptly stopped when a shrill scream pierced through the air and made her stumble to the nearest tree she was standing beside.

That voice belonged to her mother.

Everything around her came to a halt, as her feet wasted no time in sprinting toward the back door which she almost dislocated while sliding sideways. For some reason, the small lamp her mother lit up in the hallways wasn't switched on like it was before she had walked to the garden. When she tried switching on the lights, they didn't turn on, making her realize later on that the power to the whole house had been cut off from the main circuit box.

Someone had done that on purpose.

Stumbling to her parent's door, she wasn't able to pay much notice to the open window in their room, the curtains blowing and letting in abundant moonlight which made her eyes focus on only one thing.

Everything in her mind was giving off red signals at that time, but her senses had gone completely numb. She didn't have any thoughts to begin with, aware of only a small headache beginning to form in the back of her head as she continued to stare at the sight.

Crouching down, she placed her hand on her mother's face and slightly tapped her cheek.

'Momma, wake up.'

She looked down at her pure white dress, which wasn't the same as when her Mother had first bought it.

Ink leaking down paper or paint spilling down a plain canvas.

It was bright red for some reason and so was the hard wooden floor that her father had preferred for his room.

Memories of that day had started off as a nightmare which she had soon grown accustomed to. Her demons were a part of her and no matter how bad they haunted her, in the end, they couldn't be destroyed.

As a small bead of water slipped past her right eye, she parted her lips to speak but only bubbles of water made their way out instead of words.

'I want to live...'

'I want to ruin the lives of the people who took everything away from me.'

'Please... let me live.'

And with that, Haven Chen left the world, the ocean removing any traces of her body as if it never existed in the first place.