Scary Kids (NaNoWriMo 2019)

Chapter 16.

Why he was here, I had no idea, but I was happy to see him despite my appearance.

"Elijah?" I softly call out to him.

He turns his head slightly in my direction but doesn't look at me either way. His back was hunched and he took no mind to the bright moonlight that had come out from behind a cloud.

"Elijah?" I ask again taking a step towards him before stopping.

"What do you want?" he finally questions me in a tone that radiated sadness.

I stop myself from saying anything at first, but eventually I speak up, "Are you okay? What are you doing here?"

"I don't know," he tells me.

I get closer, but I see him flinch which makes me stop.

I had to be the first to say it, "I'm sorry."

He looks further away from me, gazing at the corner of my bedroom walls. He seemed to be hiding his face from me, yet something told me that he was just trying to avoid me noticing his emotions.

"I really am," I say. "You were right, I'm a fucking loser. I'm a horrible person and don't even know who the hell I am anymore. If I still had a heart, I would be appalled at what I've become."

"Just, stop."

"No!" I raise my voice. "You are the one good thing in this purgatory and you deserve so much more than this. You deserve to be alive, and it hurts that I can't give you that."

"Harper," he begs, "stop."

My eyes water up, yet I was never going to stop apologizing for all that I've done, "Please, just hate me because that's the only mercy I'm deserving of."

"Harper!" he stands up abruptly.

When he finally looks at me, he was just as distraught as I was. He took only a few seconds before rushing to me and wrapping me up in his arms.

I was caught so off guard that the only thing that made sense was to hug him back.

"You were right," he speaks into my ear.

"What?" I question still in his embrace.

"All anybody wanted was attention," he says. "They don't love me."

"No, that's not true," I shake my head.

"Yes, it is," he goes on. "My sister just left and my parents were already trying to sell my stuff at the house party they had right after the funeral."

"Your sister loves you," I try telling him.

"No, she doesn't."

"Yes, she does."

"She doesn't," he tries to prove to me. "She straight up disappeared."

"No," I continue the disagreement, "I saw her."

He pulls back from me, "You saw her?"

"Yes," I say. "She was trying to figure out what had happened to you."

"She what?"

"She really believes you were murdered," I tell him, "and something about what she said made me think so too. I think we were both murdered."

"No," he says, "the stuff she said at the fire, it can't be true."

"It is," I frantically try to convince him, "she had this letter. I don't know what it said, but she tackled Rebecca to a tree and said that we had been hunted down. I'm telling you, something isn't right."

"Woah, wait," he cuts me off. "She had a letter."

"Yes."

Elijah moves away from me and quickly paces to my bedside table and points to the area under my lamp. There was a carefully placed piece of paper with a dried-up rose set upon it.

"I didn't want to touch it at first," he tells me.

"You went through my room?" I question.

He nods, "I just wanted to know the you before this."

I was comforted by the thought that he, unlike me, hadn't changed even in death.

"I didn't read it, but it looked kind of weird to me," he says.

I go over and pick it up like it was nothing, but also had the weight of the world hanging on its shoulders. I hoped that it had what we were looking for.

"I've never seen it before," I say. "My dad must of put it there."

"What does it say?" he questions.

"Umm," I start. "Sir, she is ours. This isn't mere superstition as the stories from our childhood told us. We are real and we've waited long enough. Your wife already knew this when she left, but you didn't head our warnings and now your daughter is dead. Her time was always going to be cut short and you knew this. She might not have been the first and she won't be the last, but avoiding the reality of things only makes your pitiful grief worse. Move on."

I ruffle the sheet in my hands, flipping it side to side.

"What the hell kind of letter is this?!" I look to Elijah for answers.

"Shit," he sulks to sitting on my bed, rubbing his upper arm, "I think I might know."

"What?" I couldn't believe it.

"My dad," he says, "he used to have this old book. I wasn't allowed to look at it but I snuck into his office when I was a kid, just to prove to my sister that I could do it, and there were names written up and down the pages with dates right beside them, but only the year. It went back a couple hundred years, but I noticed a few names with years that hadn't even happened yet."

"Oh my god," I sit down beside him. "Rebecca said she knew she was being hunted. I think they killed you by accident, you weren't supposed to die."

He doesn't say anything but runs everything in his head over and over again.

"Was I being hunted?" I contemplate. "I don't even remember the last week of my life. How could I not know?!" my words scare me. "I don't even remember how I died. How can I not remember?!"

As I break down to tears, Elijah takes me into his arms and tries to calm me by gently brushing his fingers through my hair.

He doesn't hesitate, "We'll figure this out."