Chapter 10 ~ The Escape to a Familiar Place
After everything that had occurred only a week before, the event was still running though her mind. In her dreams, when she was attending classes and even when she walked the busy hallways of the school. The same questions just managed to seep up into her mind. She remembered everything up to that time everything around her was soaked in a thick blackness.
She was currently seated in the cafeteria at the same table her friends and herself sat every lunch, and thinking back to when the murderer whose name was known as Markus, had known how her parents had died, even after all the police and detective's efforts, but they couldn't find a single clue as to how they had passed away. She of course was eager to know what he knew, desperate to find out how they died, who killed them? And why they were murdered, or if they even were murdered or just taken away from her without a trace of how they did it felt behind.
In her train of thought she could hear her name being said over and over by a familiar voice. She snapped out of the trance and looked to see the owner of the voice was Jazz.
"Huh? Yeah sorry... What was it you said?" She asked her friend who was seated beside her.
"I was just asking if you're okay...You haven't been looking well lately or even paying any attention to anyone." Jazz stated.
She looked at Jazz apologetically and nodded in response. "Yes I know," She let out a soft sigh before continuing. "I've just been thinking, Jazz... I'd rather not talk about it here." She said quietly so only she would hear.
Jazz nodded, understanding, sending her a small smile. "I'll be all ears when you wanna tell me." She said assuringly.
Paris nodded twice before standing up with her barely touched lunch and made her way over to the bin and threw it into the bin carelessly, making her way back to the table of her friends she gave them a small smile. "Guys I'm just gonna go to the bathroom, I'll be back in a minute." She said and turned away to make her way out of the cafeteria, but was stopped when a strong hand held her wrist. She turned her head and body around to see who the hand belonged to; she looked up to see Matt.
Matt smiled down at her, "I'll come with you." He offered, but more demanded.
She shook her head and pried her hand from his strong hand. "No no, I'm fine... Really, I just need to go to the bathroom, I don't need any company on the way otherwise I would have asked Jazz. I won't be too long." She assured and walked out of the cafeteria leaving Matt to sigh softly and re-approach the table.
Paris walked down the hallway of the school mindlessly watching her feet as she walked towards the bathroom. Again everything from the awful excursion trailed back into her thoughts, making tears fill the corners of her eyes in remembrance of her once happy family to her new life here. Yes it was good, she made amazing friends who care for her, but that didn't stop her from missing the good times she shared in a normal public school with her family in a warm home.
She opened the door to the girls bathroom and released a breath she hadn't known she was holding. She made her way to the bathroom sink and looked at her own reflection, seeing her red eyes from tearing up and her saddened looking face. Today her hair was pulled up into a messy bun and she hadn't applied any make-up, but today and the last couple of days last week she hadn't really cared.
She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly while turning on the tap and cupped her hands under the cool running water, filling her hands with water she brang her hands to her face flushing it with water. As she reached up to grab the paper towel she opened her eyes staring at her reflection before covering her face with the dry paper towel which dried off her face. She sighed heavily and scrunched up the damp paper towel and dumped it into the bin before heading out of the bathroom.
She lowered her now refreshed face and watched her feet mindlessly again as she walked, but unlike this time she bumped into a slim figure and stumbled back slight, steadying herself to not fall backwards by her heels. Felling alleviate that she didn't fall on her butt and humiliated herself in front of whoever it was she bumped into, as she looked up to meet the eyes of Alyssa standing above her, standing as if she wasn't affected by the encounter.
"U…um, sorry I wasn't concentrating on where I was going." She said, refusing to make eye contact.
Alyssa foldered her arms neatly over her crest, raising a perfect brow her way. "Obviously, otherwise you'd have walked around me." Alyssa stated as the corners of her lips turned up into a slight smirk. "Why aren't you inside the cafeteria with your friends?" She asked.
Paris fiddled with her own fingers subconsciously before looking at in-between her eyes on her nose, making sure to look as though she was making eye contact but not exactly doing it, looking back on it her father had taught her that when she was 9 years old. "Because I was just in the toilet, but I was on my way back before I bumped into you." She explained stepping to the side and walked around her.
Alyssa leaned her hip onto one side of her body, keeping her arms folded. "Do you get your obliviousness from your mother or your father?" She asked, hoping it'd push Paris's buttons.
And it did in some way because Paris came to a halt at the mention of her parents, forcing herself to restrain the tears that were at the corners of her eyes before making herself turn around to Alyssa. "Wh...What? You don't even know my parents!" She stated sharply.
Alyssa's body now turned around and looked at her, with full smirk lifting onto her lips. "Don't I?" She said.
Paris froze, trying to appease herself. "You couldn't possibly know them, you're new here and I have never seen you in my life outside this school, so do not talk about my parents like you know anything and everything about me, to which you certainly don't." She said sternly and walked away from her back down the hall.
As she pacify slightly from the fuming anger she felt towards Alyssa, still feeling that slight anger she didn't want to take it out on one of her friends in the cafeteria. She needed to get out and pacify herself. She opened the lock of the back gates that caged in the students, and to her relief the lock on the gate wasn't locked, only looking locked. She pushed open the gate and closed it quietly, putting the lock on the way it was before rushing down the car park where cars would park when students had family members had come to visit their sibling. Nobody ever came to visit her while on her stay, not even her old high school friends, but she would still stand by the gates, waiting to see if someone would have the decency to at least show up, after months and months of repeating this she eventually gave up and chose to forget about even getting out of bed on those days.
Paris sighed heavily at the memory and continued to walk, looking around as she came onto a pathway bunches of old memories came rushing back to her, like when she used to walk to school down a pathway like this one she was currently walking on to school. And when she used to walk to the shops with her parents sometimes, these memories brang tears to her eyes. She let the tears fall freely down her cheeks. How much she wished everything could just reverse time and she could be there before anything happened to her parents.
She lowered her head and wiped her eyes with the long sleeved shirt she wore and pulled her jumper hoodie over her head a little more as she looked around, noticing the busy roads of all sorts of cars driving down them and the small and large shops and buildings she passed looked really nice places to go inside, almost tempting. But right now she didn’t want to go into any of those shops she wanted to go to the train station, so that’s exactly where she was headed.
She reached the train station and brought herself a ticket with money she earned from some teaches when she helped them out with extra things they needed help with, she saved it up in a jar and now she guessed this was the time she should use it. After she boarded the train she made her way passed a teenage couples groping each-other and an elderly man doing crosswords on a newspaper, along with a drunken male standing with a sway and a half empty beer bottle in one hand and the other grasping the silver metal rail above his head to stay standing. But by the looks of it his drunken state wouldn't have kept him standing anyways. She kept walking until she found a single seat and seated herself there to wait for her stop, she watched out the window at the fast passing trees and open areas.
After at least an hour and a half of watching drunken people getting on the train and cringing at the smell of very strong smoke mixed with strong alcohol, she stepped off the train with a soft sigh of relief. When making her way to the exit of the station she was shoved and squashed against many different people who were rushing towards the doors of the train for god knows what. Luckily and thankfully she squeezed out of the crowded area of the train station and hurried down the side of the road, which looked all too familiar.
She closed her eyes as a cool breeze brushed over her skin and cooled her off, but was quick to open them again to see where she was going. She walked slowly, taking her time as she walked past her old school gates where students were behind, where once she was. Missing the school she used to go to she peered through the gates, watching to students, some even familiar faces. She wanted to call out to people she once knew but couldn’t, it’d only cause attention towards her and then they’d call the school she just managed to escape from. She suppressed a heavy sigh as she continued walking, hugging her body for a sense of protection, she looked up at the dark grey clouds above and looked at her surroundings before jogging down the pathway, she once went down every day to hurry home to her parents. She reached the end of the pathway and walked down the road until she stood in front of the familiar house she once called home.
It looked strangely the same, as if nothing happened to it before she left. No car in the driveway and no lights on. Strange... She thought someone would have brought the house by now. The same curtains were covering the front windows, odd they should have been taken down after her parents died.
She made her way over to the mandarin tree she used to pick from, they looked fresh and ready to pick. She picked one from the tree and looked at it; peeling the skin she ate one small wedge from it. A small smile lifted the corners of her lips before she approached the house and slowly opened the door, the insides of the house looked the exact same as it did before, and even the smell of the house was the same. Everything from the slightest detail in the house was the same before she left.
As she walked through the lounge room she let her finger run along the material over the lounge chair, remembering the woolen blanket she was touching was what her grandma had made a few weeks before she died of a heart attack. All the memories from this house all flooded back within her mind while she was walking through the abandoned home. Why was none of this removed earlier? She wondered while walking slowly up the stairs.
When she reached the top of the stairs she crept silently to the door of her room and grasped the door knob gently as if it was so old it’d break. Turning the door knob and opening the door she walked inside her room, again, everything in it looked to be in the same position and the exact items were in the same place before she left. She walked to her bed and sat on the edge of it, carefully, scared it’d break beneath her, looking around her room, the light brown wooden floors and the creamy pink walls, the white desk with her pencil cup and laptop sat on it and the cupboards stood in the same position, the light creamy white curtains still the same and the mirror still hung on the other side of the door, exactly the way she liked it, before anything happened to her parents. she slowly laid back and stared the ceiling of her room, only now just realizing her cheeks were wet from tears she hadn't known they were running down her cheeks. She wiped them with the back of her hand and closed her eyes. "Mum... Dad, I miss you so much." She whispered, sniffling as she lay there, letting memories wash back into her mind.
******
After what seemed like forever she opened her wet eyes and sat up, admiring her room before standing and wondering out of her room and into her parents. The same wooden floor and a queen sized bed, the cupboards and the two bedside tables. Her eyes focused on a book that lay on the beside table on her mum's side of the bed, making her way over she sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the book, she opened it up to the page with the corner folded in a marking of a page. The whole room still smelled of them. She felt a pang in her chest at the scent she remembered and missed so very much. She hugged the book to her chest and traised her fingers over the bed covers and pillows.
Suddenly the pillows began to mold away along with the blankets. She lept up in shock and looked around the old cob-webbed room around her. Her breath was caught in her throat, her eyes scanned the room she once saw was beautiful and smelled wonderful now smelled awful and looked disgusting. She held the book tightly to her chest as she bolted out of the room and down the also feral looking hallway and into her room, which now also looked horrible with spider webs hanging from the corners of the room and the curtains. Another pang was in her chest, a rat ran over her foot causing her to scream in sudden shock. She bolted down the now unstable stairs that looked dirty and gross before bolting towards the door. But stopped when she saw familiar shadows murking over the walls of her old house. The shadows looked exactly like her parents, only, a shadow...