Spectrum (Frerard, Petekey)

5: The Goth Witch Cult Strikes Again

The deep end of the swimming pool for the first time: that's what Gee Way feels as she reads the anonymous message on her tumblr, and suddenly it's all too many stomach butterflies, and too little butterfly stroke, because she's drowning, and suddenly, the water seems less like that of a swimming pool and more like that of an ocean.

Because there's most certainly no life guard to pull her out again; it's water, deep down for miles: deep blue and bottle green, and clear, dark skies, alone at night, as the artificial light fades away, and the side she's clinging to dissolves out into more and more waves; she suspected the same has become of the pool bottom, but she didn't dare test that theory.

And then, out nowhere, the waves are pulling her down like hands: millions of tiny, bony, cold hands with long fingers and tight grips like fish hooks at every piece skin: piercing it until the water is stained red with blood, and then a yank, as the waves pull over her head and everything she sees is this dirty kind of aquamarine, and coughing and spluttering, because she's dying right there, in that moment she's dying and there's little she can do about that besides embrace destiny at this point.

And come a few seconds later, Gee's already waffled through a mental goodbye to Mikey, and perhaps started on one to her parents as her lungs collapse, and her eyes close, because it's easier that way; just to let everything fade away.

And then suddenly, she's seven years old again, and it's white light and a stressed and terrified, "are you okay?" as she's choking on air.

Gee opened her eyes, her face stained with salt water ocean tears, and her whole body shaking as she shivered from phantom ice water, and the light is not poolside, but bedside, and this voice isn't of a life guard, but Mikey, young and fucking terrified for his sister, but clinging onto her arm, and pulling her close as she came to realise that she just couldn't stop crying.

"Another panic attack?" Mikey let out a sigh, as Gee finally pulled away: hating every moment of this, not of his sister, of course, but the way her head decided to fuck with her, because it was horrible and he could hear her breathing: so exasperated and heavy that it was audible in the next room.

Gee nodded, and leaned into her brother's side, the two listening in silence as their mother cursed in her own room across the hallway, and the pair tried their best not to focus on the fact that Mrs Way wasn't in here comforting her daughter.

"Tell me about it? Why? What's happened?" Mikey asked a few minutes later, as Gee's heart beat seemed to regulate a little more, as opposed to pounding through her chest to the extent that Mikey could also feel it hurt too.

"It's nothing- I sound stupid, I- I..." Gee shook her head, tripping over her own words as she stumbled to stitch together some form of apology in place of nothing, because she'd done nothing wrong her besides being so judgemental of herself.

"You're not stupid, and you can tell me anything, you know that, don't you, Gee?" And Mikey really meant it as he pulled his sister into another hug.

"There's this message." Gee turned to her laptop: lid slammed shut as her fingers had begun to shake, sitting just a few centimetres away. "On Tumblr," she added, grabbing the device, and turning it away from Mikey as she opened it, skimming the message once more, her breath quickening as she did so, before she passed her laptop to Mikey.

"There's this boy who knows too much about you," Mikey began to read aloud, glancing in Gee's direction to see if she objected to that; she hardly moved, and Mikey thought it best to just continue, "he goes to your school, and he showed me this blog, and he's head over heels for you, and he wants to talk to you, but he's an idiot, so you're going to need to think this through and do all of this for him, because he totally wants to fuck you, to put it crudely, and nice blog by the way, it's pretty sweet. Someone kind of know, but kind of don't."