seven regrets

I open my eyes.

Thick darkness cradles me softly. A look outside my window tells me that the moon has shied away from the night.

Stale air begins to grip my neck and squeeze. I get up, tossing my covers off my body. Moving silently through the house, I open the front door and step outside.

As usual, my neighborhood is illuminated by street lamps. What strikes me, though, is how solid and black the sky is. If not for those lamps, then I would be shrouded in complete darkness.

I sit down on my front steps. Only then do I notice the balloon.

It is deflated and filthy, with its string barely still attached. At closer inspection, I see that there is a small slip of paper poking its head out of it. Looking at it vaguely reminds me of myself, how I emerged from my house to sip the fresh air, similar to how that piece of paper peeped out from its balloon.

I take the paper out of the balloon and read its writing.

“This balloon is from a girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders. Crying softly, she whispered seven regrets into the night.

"She took seven black balloons and filled it with those seven regrets. And wordlessly, she flew them out.

"The balloons will reach seven people. Each one of those people will find a balloon, deflated, with one regret spilling out. And each in their own ways, they will right that mistake.”

I look in the deflated balloon, but find nothing.

This is just a prank, I think. A disturbing one, but still harmless. I go back inside and leave the balloon and paper outside.

Still, there is something in the paper that affects me. What it is, I do not know.

--

Eyes closed and wrists clenched, white noise fills my head. The tatters of a balloon string are held in my hand. Tiny wisps of steam kiss my skin as I struggle against the riptide of oblivion. And away I go, exhausted in both body and spirit, as I am pulled out to sea.

But before I am immersed, I catch the faintest glimpse of a figure.

It disappears just before I am swallowed by black.

--

 I wake up.

My heart pounds and I am covered with sweat.

It is early morning and my room is cloaked in a cool shade of blue.

I make out the time to be around 5 in the morning. But, once again, I find that that I can't go back to sleep.

I close my eyes and wait.

I remain awake.

Once again, I find myself throwing off my covers. For the second time in the past few hours, I get out of bed. I go down the stairs to the first floor to eat breakfast.

And on my dining table, in plain sight, is a small slip of paper identical to the one from the black balloon that I left outside yesterday.

The writing on this one is different, however. The paper reads:

"Please don't leave me...

           ...I chose you."