Unknown

I groan as I drag my body upright, my muscles protesting at the movement.

Fuck. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I’d been out drinking. I don’t drink. So that can’t be it. With my head thudding, nausea curls in my gut, ready to throw up whatever I ate last.

I must be sick.

I rotate my head a few times before dragging my eyes open. Pine trees surround me like towering skyscrapers. The smell of dirt, wet grass, and something metallic surrounds the air around me. This isn’t right. Where am I?

As my eyes clear, the night sky stretches out above me, full of indifferent stars. The realization that I am in the forest that sits just behind my house. But the question of how I ended up here to begin with is still unknown to me. My thoughts are scrambled, and seem far away; the memories seem to be nonexistent.

Wind pushes strands of hair from my face. The metallic tang grows stronger—this time with something else: a rotten-sweet smell that coats my tongue, causing me to gag. The bile that rises burns the back of my throat, and I swallow it back as I pick myself up from the ground, dusting off my clothes before heading in the direction that the wind came from. 

I push branches and leaves out of my way. The only sound I can hear is the crunch of leaves and the crack of sticks beneath my feet. My hand brushes up against something other than leaves or the sharp, roughness of a branch. I grab the foreign material, bringing it closer to my face so I can get a better look at it. The soft material has been torn, possibly from a shirt. But what else I notice is that it’s damp. I drop the material and begin to walk once more; this time, I don’t stop until I reach a clearing.

I can’t make out anything other than shapes that lie on the ground. My eyes blur for a moment, then sharpen as they adjust. The shapes, now more visible, have formed into bodies.

My stomach drops as I take in more of the clearing. The bodies lie at odd angles, and tangled hair and bruising on the bodies are noticeable, as well as the wet dirt beneath them.

A couple lay just mere inches from me, the man is draped on top of the woman as if trying to protect her,

Another woman is not too far away from them, along with another man.

All men and women I know, what gives it away are painted nails, a familiar jacket, a bracelet, and eyes. The couple of inches in front of me are Terry and Luke, my two friends I’ve known for years. They only just started – two weeks ago –when they finally decided to stop dancing around their feelings for each other. And now…

My breathing has stopped. Now coming out in pants rather than a full breath, my eyes drag to another man, and my heart stops. Tyle always had me laughing and enjoying life. He taught me how to let loose, doing things like rock climbing and skydiving. He was an adrenaline junkie; he pushed the boundaries when he could. But he also knew when not to. I turn to the last body. My legs no longer able to hold me up any longer, I crumble to the ground, my hands trembling, my focus zeroing in on the face I’ve known my entire life, a face that smiled at me, eyes that looked at me with more love than anyone I’ve ever known to do. “No, no, no,” leaves fall in a slow, wrong drift; a hairline tremor runs under my knees. 

My body is trembling as hot tears rush down my face. No longer able to keep the grief at bay. I crawl on shaky limbs to the body, using whatever strength I have left to pull her into my lap. Her shirt clings to my palms, covering my hands in a sticky, cold wetness, one that makes the metallic scent stronger.

Blood.

I push the tangled locks of her inky hair out of her face, noticing the fear and sadness that is frozen on her face. The memories come rushing to the surface of my mind. Of late-night conversations after a rough day, drinking hot cocoa on the back porch as it rained, fights that consisted of screaming and doors slamming, and being curled up on the worn-out couch together, watching our favorite movies with our ‘odd’ snacks that others thought were disgusting.

The world around me blurs, my throat burns, maybe cause I’m screaming or perhaps just cause I am crying, I’m unsure. My whole focus is on my mother. My chest heaves as the sob I let out wracks through my body. I can no longer see the others that lie next to me; all I can feel is the hole that now lies inside my heart, one that no one will ever be able to fill, one that will forever be empty for the rest of my pitiful life. 

I’m lost to my own grief, so I don’t notice the snap of a stick or the voices. I don’t see the people who come into the clearing or register the words they speak to me.

I’m so wrapped up in my pain, in the painful realization that everything I had, everything I’ve known, is now lost to me. So much that I don’t notice when arms are wrapped around me, or that those same arms are picking me up and away from my mother. The body that I’m pressed into provides my cold body with warmth. But it doesn’t take away the cold numbness that has taken up in my chest. 

“Everything is going to be okay,” a deep, unfamiliar voice says. It’s the only thing I register. They are so far from the truth. Nothing will ever be okay again. My body continues to tremble as I slowly fall into the blackness that has been creeping into my vision. I just hope and wish that the darkness keeps me; I don’t want to live in this new reality. 

I wish to be lost in this darkness, numb and cold for the rest of time.