The Diary Of A Redhead | #WIA2020

PROLOGUE

I walked through the crowded platform with a heart as heavy. The men, women and children were in the rush when the announcement of the next train coming was made. I adjusted my straw hat when I got hit by an elderly lady. She looked back at me and apologized. I gave her a faint smile which was far from my usual one. I turned around again and started walking ahead. Each step was heavier than the previous one but I have to go on. This has been the same city where it all started. I felt my eyes tearing up a little. A deep pain surpassed through me and it felt heavier. My hand went involuntarily to my neckless as I held it tight into my hand but I couldn't feel it completely with my hands covered with the black velvet gloves. I sniffed hard remembering how it all took drastic turns and I actually ended up being in London. 

I walked towards the car as the driver gave me the widest smile adjusting his round glasses. I got seated inside closing the door behind me. The driver started the journey. I pulled the curtains from the window aside and looked at the rush outside. It looked familiar but a stranger. Even after living in this city for these many years, nothing felt like that small town I was so used to be in. I always thought I have loved this city more in my teen days but it feels like that dark town was closer to me than I could have ever imagined. The flashes from the past came live in front of me. It felt like yesterday when things took a drastic turn.

Normal...

That's what I craved for my entire life. Nothing in my life has been close to normal since I was born. Losing my mother at a very young age was enough to scar me for a lifetime. I carry that around with me in the form of my nightmares and hallucinations. My dad always said the memories create the hallucinations from the past and our desires or fears create the hallucinations from the future. That's what kept happening with me. 

I remember my mother in vague. Her beautiful red locks which I inherited, her sweet smile which caused a dimple on her cheek. Her soothing voice which used to sing me lullabies and her necklace which I got after she left. It was simple like her with a simple chain and a red stone. She inherited that from her mother who met the same fate as her. The reason I feared the necklace but still I would hold it close when I was engulfed with fear remembering her wide soothing smile. These are the good parts of my broken memory of her you can say, the other part of it... I don't like tapping into it but still, they follow me to my sleep as my nightmares.

The car took a halt taking me out of my memory lane. I watched outside at the sunny bright weather. There was joy around which was drastically different from my dark mood. I moved my hand around to grab my purse and took out the very first copy of 'The House on The Mango Street'. I take it everywhere I go. The reason is still unknown to me but the person who gifted me this feels closer through this book and it gives me comfort on my bad days. I moved my hand over the cover of the book as a small smile crept across my face remembering the good old times. When everything was still normal in the Northwood, at least I felt it like that. The pages of the book have become old now but my love for the book and the giver of it has just grown immensely over the course of time. I looked outside when the driver took a turn on the tower bridge. My mind started drifting away from me yet again.

I still remember it clearly as it happened yesterday when a murder was reported in the town and the speculations of a psycho on loose blew up, the whole town drowned in horror. The air felt heavy and the clouds a little darker. Days were as scary as nights as the fear of a psycho walking around in the town, blending into the crowd, unnoticed stayed in everyone's mind.

Staying away from the main roads and living in a mansion surrounded by woods didn't seem so appealing then. The woods seemed to whisper secrets and night camouflaged the shadows lurking in the dark. The thought of the psycho hiding in the woods consumed my mind and I felt a pair of eyes following me every time I walk to my home.

But everything changed the day I saw him in the woods, covered in black, with a dangerous smile and an intense pair of eyes staring right through me. I never experienced something as scary as that.

Nothing remained the same from that day. I found myself being drawn into a dangerous maze, tangled up in endless lies and confusion. Everyone I knew turned into strangers, the woods which I found as my hideaway turned into my biggest fear. My own room felt unsafe and I felt like I was being scrutinized at every second of the day. Days became dull and nights were cold and dreadful. 

I didn't know a murder in the town will turn my life upside down. Making my life a living nightmare from which I couldn't wake up even if I wanted to. I didn't know wishing for normal was never in my fate. I didn't know horror was nothing but reality itself until it all unveiled in front of me. 

And today after years of staying into the same terror, coping with the nightmares and hallucinating the killer around me everywhere I finally have the courage to unturn the pages of my diary and tell the world that part of my story which took my life upside down. Which made me realize not everything you see is the truth and the coin always has two sides to show. The bright side which stays in the light and the back or dark side which hides in the shadows. Just like how there are two parts to my story as well. The one which contains the dark secrets the town held and the only bright side was the people who helped me to cope with my fears throughout.

I got out of the car when it took a halt in front of the two-story house. My home which gave me the warmth I always needed. I smiled and took a deep breath, taking the suitcase in my hand with the diary resting in my other hand. Ready to face my biggest fear as that soothing and smiling face welcomed me back in this strangest city.

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🥀a u t h o r ' s  n o t e🥀

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