A Book of Short Stories

It's My Fault (!)

Warning: Death and Graphic detail

~*~

This was going to be a terrible day, one of those days where it's better to stay in bed because everything is going to turn out bad. However, that didn't alter things for Lydia. Everyday brought bad news. No matter what she did or where she went something distressing would happen. She had started to isolate herself from her friends. Her neighbours. Everyone. All in an attempt to protect them. Just to protect them from her.

And so, on this grim morning, Lydia just sat there on her bed with the lights out and the curtains pulled shut. Her pyjama clad legs were pulled up tight to her chest. Her once lively green eyes were now red and puffy, tears still slipping down her freckled cheeks in steady streams. Those eyes held many secrets. Those eyes had seen unspeakable things. Those eyes didn't belong to the kind young woman, known as Lydia Hammond, anymore. They only belonged to her broken, empty shell.

~*~

It all started about six months ago; Lydia remembered it clearly. The bright blue Volvo heading straight towards the grey Ford. The impact. The crimson blood that stained the two front seats. The unrecognisable faces of her parents gazing back at her with glassy eyes. The scream. The scream was the worst part. Lydia remembered covering her ears, trying to block it out, only to realise the noise was coming from her. It took the rescue services an hour to coax her shaken, trembling form out from the car, her eyes never once breaking away from the unblinking stare of her parents.

She spent three weeks in rehabilitation; the pure white walls ingrained into her memory; the therapists trying their hardest to help her regain her grip on normality. However, little did they know that the smiling, ginger, green eyed girl they let go was still the same shattered, empty vessel they tried so hard to fix. For weeks nothing extraordinary happened. Lydia went to university; she went out with friends; she was even smiling and laughing again. She was fixing herself and everything seemed normal. That was until the nightmares started.

Every night when she closed her eyes the nightmare would come. Torturous, scarring dreams. At least that is what she thought they were until she came across the crippled corpse of the young man she had dreamt about the night before, slumped and bleeding against the alley wall. She still remembered his unseeing eyes looking up into hers. She remembered the others as well. The butcher impaled with his own knife. The window cleaner lying on the pavement, his neck snapped. And then the little girl, face down in the canal floating down river. She had drowned and Lydia had watched it happen the night before. She had witnessed them all die before. She had seen them draw their last breaths in her nightmares.

Closing her eyes, Lydia wiped away the tears that were threatening to overflow again. She hadn't slept in three days and the fatigue was creeping up on her. Yet she knew she couldn't sleep. No deaths had happened in those sleepless nights and Lydia now realised she was the cause. Those people had died because of her nightmares. Those people had died because of her. She didn't understand how this was possible and why she was the one causing it but she knew it would keep happening every time she fell asleep. Tilting her head back and staring at the ceiling, thoughts started to materialise in her mind. Maybe there was a way she could stop this. Maybe there was a way she could save everyone. Maybe it would be better if she was gone...

~*~

No one had heard from or seen Lydia in four days and concern was rising in the community. There was no answer at the door when people knocked. The lights were always out, the curtains drawn and there didn't seem to be any sign of movement from inside the building. The uneasiness soon took over completely and by day five a group of neighbours had gathered outside her home determined to find out what was going on. When there was no response to the knocking, another method had to be used. A method that involved the strongest of the group hitting the neatly painted, smart front door until the wood was splintered and the glass was shattered.

Stepping over the threshold, the group started to move slowly through the house only for a scream to ripple through the otherwise silent house. A body was hanging from the banister, her feet only a few centimetres off the floor, a small box was pushed slightly to the left just out of reach. Her once lively green eyes, now dead and glassy. Her freckled cheeks. dry and pale. Wiping the freshly fallen tears away, the group retreated from the house, waiting upon the police to arrive. As what was left of the door was pulled to a close, the last slither of light shone upon a folded piece of paper, the black ink stark against the white paper.

'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It's my fault because sometimes... sometimes the nightmares are real.'