Short Horror Stories

The Inner Circle - PART I

Growing up there was no one I looked up to more than my big sister. She was my world. My hero. All I ever wanted was to be like her.

Daph was the one who looked good in anything, could flash her baby blues at teachers and get anything she wanted, and could spark up a conversation with anyone and everyone as easily as breathing. Me? I had problems just breathing. I was the geeky one with limp stringy hair, an unnatural fascination in history, asthma and eyesight so poor it required inch thick glasses.

Yet growing up we were thick as thieves. It didn't matter to Daph that I couldn't always keep up with her on the bike or swimming. She would always double back and go at my slow pace. When I was seven and she was ten she jumped into the community swimming pool and saved me from drowning.

She wasn't just a hero in my head - she was my real life hero.

But there comes a time when even a hero can fall.

It started when Daph moved up to the big school. Stanmore secondary school. When we were both in primary together we would walk home after school and settle in front of the TV with mugs of hot tea and a pile of biscuits between us, spending the time before mum got home from work watching cartoons and dunking our biscuits in our tea to see who could keep theirs in the longest without it breaking. Daph usually won but as a consolation she would let me eat the last biscuit.

When she started at Stanmore, Daph was supposed to collect me after school and walk me home so mum wouldn't have to leave her job as shop manager early. As a single mum she had often told us how important, and how difficult, it was for her to make sure she could earn enough money just to put food on the table.

The first two days of school Daph was waiting for me outside the school gate. She took my hand and asked me how my day was on the walk home. As usual we sat in front of the TV and dunked biscuits. Daph let me pick what cartoons we watched while she sat and did her homework, her books balanced on her crossed legs.

Then on the third day I waited in the rain as every other kid got picked up. It was only as Miss Stone was leaving that she asked me why I was still waiting and called my mum to collect me. By then I was completely soaked through, my socks like sponges and my hair like wet rats' tails. When Daph got home later that afternoon I heard mum shouting at her, even from the warm comfort of my bed. I ended up staying in bed for two days with a fever. Daph never explained where she was or why she didn't pick me up, but from that day on she never met me after school despite the nightly arguments she and mum had.

That wasn't the only change. She cut her beautiful long hair into a jagged crop which she dyed black, put up a 'No Entry' sign on her bedroom door and stopped talking to me. Instead she started hanging out with a group of older boys and girls. From my bedroom window I could see them smoking after school in the apartment playground. They would sit on the swings, passing back and forth cigarettes and bottles. I barely recognised Daph. She was like a stranger to me.

I was distraught. My best friend had abandoned me. After school I would sit in front of the TV with biscuits and two mugs of tea, on my own, everyday hoping she would join me. But she never did.

The worst of it came when her friends found me playing on the swings after school.

"Come on Geekzilla. Get off the swing. They're ours. What's wrong you speccie freak? Are you legs as broken as your eyes?" I just shook my head, paralysed with fear. "If you don't get out of here like now I will give you broken legs. How about that?"

A girl with hair the colour of ash walked towards me, fists clenched. My heart beat frantically in my chest and I stumbled off the swing and fell onto the rubber padding. I panicked as I watched her black scuffed boots getting closer to my face. The fear of what she might do when she got to me set off my asthma and I lay in a heap as each shallow breath shook my body and sent my thoughts into a whirlwind of confusion. The only thing that stayed clear in my mind was the image of Daph's face as she laughed with all the others. Her blue eyes, that used to sparkle like the bluest sea on a sunny day, looked completely dead. It was like someone had sucked the soul out of her with a straw and left her an empty emotionless shell that only looked like Daph but had nothing left of her personality or warmth or kindness. I remember seeing her boot coming towards me but I didn't feel what that girl did to me. All I could feel was my heart breaking.

I don't remember how I got to the hospital. Mum told me afterwards one of the neighbours heard me screaming and called the police and an ambulance. When the police questioned Daph and her friends they all said that I had fallen off the swing and broken my leg. I didn't tell them anything different because I didn't want Daph to get in trouble, but looking back perhaps I should have told the truth. Perhaps it would have saved her.

I think mum knew I didn't fall off the swing because of the bruises along my arms and rib cage but after the police didn't get any other answer from me she let it rest. I had to stay in the hospital for over a week. After that the doctors said I could go home but it would still take months, maybe years, for my leg to fully heal. But just like Daph had changed so had I.

I no longer cared about history or my collection of cuddly toys. All I cared about now was revenge.

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Thanks for reading :)

Come back tomorrow to find out what happens next!