Yelling was all she heard. Yelling at her, her brother, mother, sister, it did not matter. She was done, she didn’t care, and she was spent. This life was not for her. The girl was leaving the world, and she was taking naught but her body, mind and soul with her. As she arose to leave her house, she heard the menial complaints of her father, his useless, ignorant words pelting her futilely, the incessant chatter of her mother’s mouth screaming for her to not go, but she was out the door without a second thought.
But she realized she had forgotten her keys. She slammed the front door open once more, and reconsidered taking her siblings with. She decided their fate was their own decision and she would not commit the fault of her parents by controlling the fate of her siblings. She took the keys off the rack, grabbed a wad of cash off the counter she hadn't seen before, and left again.
She was gone.
The car was a rusty, old pickup truck, its life so close to its end, very much so like her own. She started the car and drove, the tears finally hitting her lap and shattering like crystal shards. She went down the road and took a left turn, and turned the radio on, the lyrics to an ever so familiar song playing.
I thought I knew it all,
I've been through the highs, said all my goodbyes,
Learned to run before I learned to crawl,
It's not worth fighting for if one of us is sure,
And one of us is dying, trying to find love's cure.
She thought the song appropriate for the occasion.
The car’s engine began to sputter, and she realized it was at the limit, and that her bad luck had not stayed at home. She instantly purged the word home from her thoughts, home being such a depressing term in her mind. She drove to the next turn, and the car died there. She looked at the keys, and saw nothing she wanted, save for one thing: The picture of her with her brother and sister. Ripping off the picture from the keychain, and leaving everything else, she opened the door and left. The music of the radio played in her head still, its melody resounding in her thoughts.
When we learn how to fly,
We forget to how walk,
When we learn how to sing,
We don't wanna hear each other talk,
When we know what we want,
We forget what we need,
When you find who you are,
You forget about me.
She looked around, unsure of where to go. She looked to her left and noticed a small yet inviting line of trees, and to her right, a glimmering body of water, the moonlight casting its shine upon the surface, the white reflection of the mood ever bright upon it. Opting upon the trees, she turned, walking across the field before it. It was flat and lifeless, and now the moon truly struck her, and she turned to the stars, and realized her place was among them; destiny among the clouds. Her life was not meant for this world, and she was leaving it. Reaching the trees, she entered the forest and all at once the light of the dark sky was gone, and she was finally… alone.
She continued her trudging walk through the trees, and contemplated how she would finish it all. She concluded her planning with the perfect ending; fate demanded it. She saw the end of her journey approaching, an opening within the maze of trees, the moonlight glowing through it, and she walked to the very edge of the tree line. She took one look back, making sure she wasn't being followed, took a final breath, looked down at her shoes, noticedhershoelacewasdislocated, didn’tcare, exhaled, andjumped.
The last words to the song rang out in her head.
Here we are at the finish line, ah.
Here we are at the finish line, ah.
Here we are at the finish line.
She fell, her entire life flashing in her mind’s eye, all her pains and fears now forgotten, her single strength anchoring her to her fate: her will. She hit the ground at such a high speed that, when she arose again, the death of her previous memory and mindset of her hysteric, insane, lunatic life was complete. She took one look back for the last time; the small hill she had jumped from, a minuscule height, the final obstacle. Looking ahead, she saw a city, the lights suddenly diminishing the moonlight. Noel walked forward, and began a new existence.
This may feel like deja vu for some. This is a writing response, in which I had to create a horrible, painful scene, but describe it beautifully, with vivid language and imagery. It's meant to mimic William Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies.
The boy tiredly stood up, the dim light of the room only confusing him further as he struggled to remember where exactly he had slept moments before. The answer came to him in a flash, looking around the hospital room and realizing he was in another world, one far from his ideal. He saw his sleeping mother, so peaceful in a chair, and his father, on the bed, the only signs of life being the slow rise and fall of their torsos. The curtains of the single window of the room remained closed, and the boy ambled over, and with a vast motion opened the curtains, letting the light suddenly blind him, illuminating the room with a golden glow, the darkness of the shadows fading away. As his eyes adjusted to the bright light, he looked outside, at the immeasurable garden in the front of the hospital, a sanctuary amidst a Hell. The multiple colors of flowers splashed across the green grass with the paved paths in and throughout the entire area painted an illustration of optimism.
A sudden gasp for air, more akin to a wheeze, ruined the peace and he spun around, the familiar noise suddenly chilling him. He saw his father, his skin now clearly waxy in the gilded light, breaking out into convulsions, the beginnings of seizure taking hold of his mind and body. The boy’s mother shot out of her chair and was out the door to call for help as the boy helplessly held his father in his arm, pleading for aid. Nurses and doctors poured in, pulling him away, the golden light still filling the room, the soft particles of dust clear in the radiance of the space. The boy saw the crowd swallow up his father, the medical team seemingly arching completely over the bed, their now disfigured forms hiding his father from view completely. Turning away from the dark scene, he stared into the garden, hoping that if nothing else, the serenity of it would grant him at least a little peace. What he saw only added to his fear; the garden then turned into a graveyard, and he could see cemetery workers digging a new grave, and the boy already knew. Before it had been beautiful, now a scene of an almost greater horror met him, and as his mind struggled to comprehend it, a hush befell the room.
The boy turned, baffled and petrified, seeing no one but his father. The doctors, nurses, his mother—all gone. His father lay still, his torso no longer moving, and the boy ran to him, ostensibly feeling as though those few feet were dozens of miles, the seconds turning to hours in his mind. He began to shake his father, begging him to wake up. He wanted his father to open his eyes, tell him he was kidding–he knew he wouldn’t—and save him from this nightmare. The golden light no longer brought peace and its beauty now hurt him. He knew his father was gone, he was alone, he was lost, he was suddenly engulfed in the sea of despair known as Pain, and there was naught left in his world. He looked down and saw that his legs were completely gone, invisible or perhaps atomized and to his horror, the void creeping up to his midsection. He looked up, and the entire room was gone, nothingness consumed him, and he distantly saw a single dark outline rushing to him, and it opened its large maw, as though it were grinning, and the Fear overwhelmed him, sucked him in, and he was—
A man sat up in bed, sweating and abruptly lucid, the lurid nightmare finally over.