March 31, 2023
The serial killer killed another victim. We knew he killed biweekly, and since we were killed two weeks ago, someone else must be dead and gone. We just recently entered C-Ward, also known for being the most barren of other spirits, hoping to find the latest victim.
"Troy," Blake called from behind me. "Troy."
"What?" I sighed.
"You're going to have to tell me what happened eventually with the whole Watcher situation. It's been almost two weeks."
"So?"
"So? What do you mean, 'So?' This isn't something a so can just shrug off."
"Sure it can. What happened when I was sent back… I-I can't talk about it."
"But why?" Blake pulled my arm from behind to stop me. "This isn't something you need to fight alone, dude."
I gazed at him, showing him with my face and eyes the horror I was put through when I was sent back to my body. My lungs felt heavy and my throat dry just thinking about it, and that was what Blake didn't understand. I didn't want to think about it; more than anything, I didn't want to.
"Please, Blake… please stop." I almost teared up as I told him to drop it.
He let it go and nodded.
We continued in silence for a minute before we heard the soft whimpers and painful moans of another soul. We followed the sound as light as a slight breeze and turned into a room.
All the furniture was torn, broken, and tossed into the right corner. On the wall, written in dried feces, was the sentence, "The abyss swallows all." Surprisingly, that wasn't the most chilling thing in the room. Directly below that was a circular drawing, with intersecting lines through it. In the middle, a dead rabbit hung by a string nailed into the wall. Good thing spirits don't smell things in the physical world.
"Troy. Look."
Blake, to my left, nodded toward the left side of the pile of furniture. Sure enough, a new spirit was leaning against part of a mattress. She was quivering, eyes closed, and letting out sounds of pain and fear. I wondered if Blake and I were like this before waking in our new spiritual bodies. Then again, that wasn't the only thing on my mind. Something was familiar about her. My mind searched for recognition as I tried to put a name to this person. Like an itch scratching at my mind, I felt I'd seen this girl before, sometime before I died. Although, the longer I remained a spirit trapped in this place, the less I remembered from my life. It was as if my mind slowly leaked information like a dripping faucet.
The girl started to wiggle herself up. She wore some stylish, expensive shirt and pants. Her face was round, with nerdy braces over her prominent front teeth, large glasses over her eyes, and many freckles decorating her face. Suddenly, she jumped into consciousness.
"Oh! My arm… it's--" As she looked down at it, I could see the relief in her eyes. "My arm is here! Thank God, it was just a dream." She looked up and noticed us. "Who are you? And what are you doing in my roo–" She stopped and took in the whole place. "This isn't my room. Where am I?"
"You're dead," Blake broke the shocking news to her right away.
The girl looked at him, shocked, I looked at Blake, shocked.
"You can't just blurt that out!" I yelled at Blake. "You have to ease her into it."
"Sorry, I just thought it would be better to tell her right away," he responded.
"Dead? What do you mean dead?" The young lady uttered the words as if they were a sin.
I answered this time. "Blake means you no longer have a physical body. The serial killer… well, killed you. You were his next victim."
"Victim?" she hollered. "Why me?"
Blake announced, "That serial killer only goes after high schoolers. He cuts off your arms while you're still alive and lets you bleed to death, then he takes your body, stitches the arms back on, and positions it like a gift in the back yard of your parents' home."
Blake stopped when he saw the girl. Her blue eyes looked at the ground and didn't move. Her firm face seemed to drop as she recalled all the terrible things that had been done to her.
"He killed me?" she asked. I wasn't sure if she was being rhetorical or not.
"Every two weeks, the serial killer claims another high schooler. Sometimes they're bros, and other times they're chicks like you."
"But my family… they-they don't even know what happened to me."
"They will shortly, trust me," I said. The memories of living in my body as it was found still haunted my thoughts, even after almost two weeks' time. "You just need to move on from it."
"Move on?"
"Yeah. You can't dwell on the thoughts of your past. Your previous life is over, and it's no longer in your control."
"B-b-but how do I do that? How can I not think of my… my poor mom stumbling on my own… my bloody corpse." She tried holding back tears from the overwhelming information being dumped on her.
"Live life the best you can here. Troy and I have found some ways to entertain ourselves," Blake responded.
"So you can just forget about it all?!" she snapped at Blake.
"If it helps, my mother probably just has one less thing to worry about," Blake began. "She was a single mom working two jobs to support me. In all honesty, her life probably got easier. I never did give her an easy time." He snickered, with a hint of regret.
"Don't say that, Blake. I would put my soul on the line and say she'd much rather have you home alive over less work to do."
Blake chucked a wry laugh. "I don't know, Troy. We didn't really leave things on great terms. In fact, I kind of said I hated her. It can't get any worse than that. What started as a small fight over my somewhat bad tendency of driving too fast in our neighborhood turned into much more than it should've been. Well, you know how she is; her anger gets the best of her, and she starts hitting me with personal jabs completely unrelated to the topic that started the fight. She called me spoiled, smug, and immature, among other things. Maybe she was right to call me those things, maybe that is the way I am. But is it really necessary to say those things simply over me driving too fast?"
"No, but like you said, I know how she is." I patted him on the back.
"It was bad, no doubt; one of our worst ones ever. And to be honest, she was two steps away from calling me worthless. Then she got even angrier when I stopped taking her seriously. But how could I, given what she was saying? If I were to take those insults to heart, I'd be a complete mess… which she probably didn't mean anyway. But the kicker… there used to be a family friend named Jerry who got heavy into drinking. He had a daughter, who's now, like, super messed up, and all because Jerry would drink too much and start calling her all these names and consistently put her down. Her self-image was a mess, and that… that's essentially how my mom is, too. The only differences were, Jerry had to get drunk first, and I had the mindset not to take her seriously in those moments of anger."
"God, I didn't realize how blessed I was to have the family I did," I said.
The young girl was almost in a trance as she listened, and I didn't blame her. Hearing Blake's story was probably better than thinking about the situation she just awoke to.
"Despite it all, every uneventful day here in this stupid asylum, I wish… no, I beg for a chance to say, 'I love you' to her. A chance to say she's the greatest mother on this planet. After all, her life was stressful, no doubt. But I can't tell her that, and it sucks."
The girl, still lying on the floor, commented almost on instinct, "I thought I had it bad." As she spoke the words to us, her eyes were down to the floor, and I could see some tears begin to fall.
"What's your name, anyway?"
"Kaylee. Kaylee Hendrickson," she answered between sobs.
"I'm Troy Sanders. That's Blake Ringe." I motioned to each of us respectively.
For a moment, her gaze jumped back up to us. "No way! You're Troy and Blake? Both your bodies were found about two weeks ago. You two and another - a girl. Our school had a whole moment of silence, and we even had a special seminar on safety. There were funerals and… and everything. I… I wonder if that'll happen with me." Her mood went south at those words.
"You went to Bradbill High School?" I asked Kaylee. It was all I could think of to help her through this new reality.
"Ye-yeah, I did. Seems you two aren't the only victims from there now."
I extended my hand to help her off the floor and began the tour of the asylum.
"Come on, I'll show you around."