It Lives Within

Not every monster you fear is unknown. Some are more familiar than everything you hold close. Meet Azalea Hazel, the complete opposite of a girl with whom you feel like something weird would happen. An ordinary high school student with a ordinary circle of acquaintances, see how the world seems to mutate around her incorporating anything and everything sinister. Who is the victim? The journey of an ordinary girl in the midst of an fantastic reality, and her struggle to get out of the clutches of surrealism that binds her. Excerpt: It has been two days and my hands are still shivering; blue veins racing through the papery white folds in the pink skin, blurred, of the cold seeping into the marrow and spreading out seismic waves through the whole of me. My vision is foggy, just the same that has been for years, maybe decades, who knows. And it might be this, or the cold- I wouldn't know- that everything seems blurred to my eyesight. Only one picture on the mantle piece is devoid of the haze that has settled on my lens, or it could be because my mind has memorised it so good that I no longer need to look at it. Or is it simply because the picture itself is of a foggy morning, the evening I remember so clearly that even the smudged lines of the lamp post and the invisible mold of the bus is easily discernible?

Soumi_Sarkar_2612 · Fantasy

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41 Chs

Chapter 15

Nightmares doesn't bother me anymore, since its almost every night that they visit me in my sleep. Blood, birds and screams pierce my dawns, but my screams doesn't bother anyone. I scream into my pillow, and after calming myself down, go back to sleep. It was only ever Grace who heard me, and now that she has gone to the university to study Psychology and wouldn't come back till the next semester break, I try not to bother anyone else. I stopped wanting warm arms and calming voices after I learnt the truth about myself. I didn't want to burden anyone anymore. And I'm still angry at Grace for not telling me what she knew all these years, I need to blow up my steam before I decide to forgive her.

I wake up groggily at eleven; mother has been shouting herself hoarse for the last two hours, but I don't care. I don't care about anything anymore. All these years I wanted to impress her seem to have vanished in thin air. In fact I'm hoping to get a job in the nearby town so that I can move out of this town. I thought it would be worth staying for Shahbad and Melissa, but Shahbad broke up with me ten days before the semester exams, which I should have seen coming. It took him a day to announce that he was in love with Melissa, and Melissa gloating smile has made me devoid of any emotion I should have felt after Shahbad left.

Breakfast is the same silent affair, ever since I told father that I didn't want to talk to him, though I am grateful that he took me in. His hurt face spoke more than he did, and though I knew I was being entirely unfair and vindictive towards him, I don't care anymore.

I've just finished on my toast when there's a ring on the door bell; father goes to get it and I hear mother laughing with the neighbors. This woman has no idea that a hurricane has passed over her house in the last few weeks, and I scowl at how much I detest her. I look up as I see father hurrying inside and call her in raised voices. I have never seen him so agitated.

"Karyn, come here. Hurry up. Grace has drowned..."

I try to stand as Mother comes running in the room. She is hysterical as she keeps bombing him with questions.

"She's alive? Please tell me, is she alive? Please someone say somthing!"

Father is rummaging for his keys as he tries to keep his calm, and he hurriedly walks away from the room. Mother and I running after him.

"Mother... Mum. Don't worry," my voice is shaky just like my feet, "Grace is the district swimming champion. She's alright, I am sure of it."

Mother looks at me with so much hope in her eyes, as if my logic is her last lifeline. She holds my hand all through the journey that takes us to Grace's university. I stumble, and fall down trying to get out of the car, and lag behind as they run towards the hospital. The world beneath me shakes as I move towards the doors and see a stretcher outside. Mother and father are inside, and I move towards the stretcher in slow motion. I can hear nothing as I look at the dark curtain of hair and vaguely wonders why there are no doctors trying to retrieve her. And when I see that caramel skinned face, with eyes closed, and her chest not heaving at all, I just know. The only sound I hear for the next five to seven minutes is mine as I shout her name until my voice gives out.

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