Emmit stared long and hard at me, constantly looking from the tree to his house probably wondering what was the right thing to do. I wouldn't blame him if he left. I walked up to the tree, placing my hands on the soft bark that felt like a plush blanket. Hearing those muffled screams from the outside shook me to the very core.
"Have you-" I hesitated. "ever done this before?"
"You know the answer to that," Emmit replied, looking at the tree. "I don't know what's going to happen when we get inside. But we're wasting time just standing here. Come o-"
A circular glow appeared on the tree, creating a small portal as if to welcome us in. Nervous, I swallowed. Almost convinced to turn back around. "Is this for us?" I whispered.
We stared at the glow for a few seconds more. It was so bright that Emmit had to shield his eyes. He grabbed my hand and took a step back, however, the more we stepped away, the smaller it got. Almost panting, he looked at me. "It's for us," he nodded.
Hand in hand, we walked into the light. I tried to pay attention to my surroundings, but things began looking distorted. My fingers seemed longer, Emmit moved in slow motion, and my feet wouldn't walk straight. I tried to speak but couldn't which caused me to panic more. That all change when I felt my face hit a soft, cold surface.
I breathed but immediately started coughing.
"Olivia!" Emmit yelled. I felt him pick me up off the ground.
I looked at him before looking down. As if something out of a horror movie, we stood in a large cage-like chamber. That cold surface I had fallen on was a white sheet wrapped around a body figure. To add to my horror, there wasn't a visible spot on the ground because there were wrapped bodies everywhere. The screams snuck up on us, one by one, coming from underneath the sheets.
Emmit wasted no time. He grabbed one of the sheets and tossed it away. A female figure with damp gray short hair and grey eyes laid there, seeming almost lifeless. Her clothes were casual, dirty, full of holes. Her skin was withered, full of scratches, open wounds, and burns. Her mouth was open, and she was screaming. However, the screams didn't come from her body. Nothing of her moved in any way, nor did she breathe.
"Look at her arm," Emmit kneeled down, grabbing her hand. Small cuts began to appear down her wrist until about 10 formed one by one. He put her hand back down.
"What's going on?" I asked him.
"I was told some of The Lovely Suicide Children were punished by watching their parents, friends, and siblings live their life," he said. "I never wanted to believe the other thing I was told."
"Which is?"
"They're reliving the last moments of their suicide...over and over," he balled his fist, trying his best to contain his anger.
I almost wanted to cry myself, looking around, hearing the screams. It was sickening and...it was my mother's doing now. "Let's find him. He has black hair with dyed red tips. Hazel colored eyes and is probably wearing a Nirvana shirt."
Emmit nodded, and the both of us began taking off the sheets. As I searched through the gray eyes and tortured souls, I wondered how I could possibly save them. There were so many bodies that I was starting to think I wouldn't find him. However, for the first time, I was lucky I didn't have to go through every sheet to find him.
Robert. Robert Parker laid on the ground in front of me, grey eyes, mouth open...his screams. The sound of a shotgun made me jump. An open wound appeared on his head, bleeding. I watched as it healed again before the same wound showed over and over. Tears began to fall like faucet water down my cheeks as I realized he was killing himself over and over again.
"Hey," Emmit walked over to me. "is this him?"
"It's him," I hugged Emmit, not wanting to watch Robert suffer. I was sure Emmit didn't want to see the same because he took the sheet and wrapped it around Robert's face. He then put Robert over his back and looked up. "Um, grab onto me," he said.
Emmit began to float towards the ceiling which seemed solid. I didn't think we'd go through it, but we did. Right away, I had the same slow-motion feeling while being surrounded by the white light. Emmit hung tight to Robert who was drifting away from us. I tried to tell him to hold on, but I couldn't talk. Each second seemed to take forever, but we eventually crashed onto the ground in front of the tree. The crystal moon was still there. We made it out, and we made it back to The Lovely Suicide world.
"We have to go." Emmit took the sheet off Robert. "Let's fly."
I grabbed onto Emmit but as he rose into the air, my hands lost grip, and I fell straight to the ground, back in front of the tree. Emmit was about to descend to me, but something reached out of the three and grabbed my leg. The moonlight revealed a black wing and reaching from its fur, were human hands pulling and pulling at me.
Morphan. I thought. My mother.