I WAKE TO a kick to the abdomen. I groan, clutching my side and rolling onto my side. I pinch my eyelids together, and take a few deep breaths, letting the pain simmer until I open my eyes.
I open them to stars glittering across the sky, the moon to the left, no lights pollution. Just pure evening sky.
"I thought you were dead." I hear Natalie's voice and my eyes roll back to see the masked face standing above me. "What happened to you?" She asks, moving round to my front, not offering a hand up.
I groan as I sit, hand still on my side.
"I was attacked by these birds." I say. "There must have been thousands." I tell her.
"Birds?" She asks. "Birds are extinct." She reads out to me.
"Well look!" I shout, showing her both of my pecked arms. "What other animal could've done that?" I ask her. She bends down, her eyes squint in the minimal light.
"Done what?" She asks. I frown.
"The peck marks!" I say to her, and she runs a hand over my arm, shaking her head. "Look!" I raise my arms to my face, and freeze, there's nothing there. I slowly turn my arms round. But there's not a single scratch on me.
"What?" I ask myself. I run my hands over my legs, nothing, over my face, nothing, through my hair, it feels how I left it this morning. The birds weren't real?
"I think you've lost a little too much blood." Natalie says. "Come on, home time." She holds a singular hand out, and I grab it. She pulls me to my feet and begins to walk. I don't feel dizzy, I don't feel like I've lost too much blood.
I've been there before, this just feels like I've passed out, everything a bit foggy, slowly remembering how to walk and my date of birth.
"About what Joanna said, did you really kill your mom?" She asks, her face deadpan forward. Why does she care about my mother so much?
"She was in my Heartless Test." I say briefly, "I couldn't kill her though, she killed herself." I say simply. She nods her head, one sharp nod.
"But she's dead?" Natalie asks.
"Yeah." I say. I hear a sniffle from Natalie but she keeps her posture strong and her walk fast. "Why do you ask?"
"I just think moms should be treasured forever. I never knew mine." She mumbles. I bite my tongue from saying anything else as she walks me to the Resistance doors, she opens them and walks me to the elevator.
The elevator pings open, and I step in.
"See you tomorrow." She says, and they slide closed.
Veronica has left a note on her desk. She'll be out late, there's food inside the oven for me.
I head to the kitchen and warm the pasta up and sit by myself. I light a candle and turn off the main light. It's way past generator curfew but Resistance perks I assume. Turning the light off, makes me feel someway like I'm home, candles burning around R's room, candles lighting up the corridor at 3am and you need a piss, candles burning off Luka's leg hair.
I take the candle with me when I finish, passing the portraits and heading into R's room.
I set the candle on his bedside table and change out my bloodied dress... might have to let Veronica know I need a new one.
I take myself to the bathroom, being careful of the mirror and the shower, and rub a wet flannel against my chest, the dried blood comes off, revealing only a small cut where Joanna hit me. I grab a band-aid anyway, covering it and hoping it will heal soon.
I head back to R's room, sitting on his bed, about to get cosy in the covers when my eyes spot them again. His journals. A nice neat stack of them.
Maybe reading one, won't be too bad. Surely. I trust the demon on my shoulder and I climb out of bed for the light reading.
I grab the top one and quickly scurry back into bed. I move the candle closer, leaning the book towards the light.
I open the book at the beginning.
'This journal belongs to Ronan Blanchard, aged sixteen.'
The year he went to the Old City. The year he lost his girl. Oh, I got a juicy one, maybe I can find out what happened to her, or who she was. Pay my respects, make sure it doesn't happen again, it doesn't happen to me.
I quickly skim to the very last entry.
'Fifth of June.'
Here we go.
'My mom is dead. Her body was found six hours and forty-seven minutes ago. Experts think she died just before she was found. She was cold by the time I got to her. They covered her body up to her chin, she hadn't been washed yet, I saw the blood matted in her hair, on the underneath of her chin.
My father sat at her other side, holding onto her hand; crying into his other hand. Veronica stood behind me. Give her a kiss now Ronan, make it quick Ronan, Veronica would say.
I don't want to give her a kiss and move on, I want to sit with my mother, and mourn and cry, and tell her the things I never got to. When I woke up this morning, I never thought I would come home to one family member less... if anything I wish it was Veronica on this metal slab. Not my mother. Not my mommy.
I kissed her forehead. I whispered her a goodbye, and I stood back. Veronica took me home.
But I wanted to see her. My girl. I snuck out, after dark, after curfew. I ran to her house, carefully checking her parents weren't awake and I stepped on the bottom window sill, and then pulled myself up to hers.
And there she was, fast asleep, cuddling a pillow, facing the window... that was her favourite thing to do, fall asleep watching the sunset. She only woke up when the morning sun hit her face... winters were terrible to her punctuality.
I banged on the window, waiting for her eyes to open and when they did. I was expecting her to do her usual. Put the finger up to me, but smile and open her window so I could climb in.
But she didn't. She screamed, loudly. Her eyes were wide with fear. It's like she didn't recognise me, despite seven hours and nineteen minutes ago, saying she would meet me at home after I had training with my father.
She scrambled backwards, I lost my grip and fell, smacking my head against the floor.'
I stop reading for a moment, leaning the book on my chest. It feels so weird reading R's scribbled handwriting, being inside of his mind. I wonder what he would think of me reading these books.
I look back to the pages, and frown, the ink is glistening... even in the moonlight, I can see the shine. It's like the ink is still wet, despite being wrote three years ago.
I slide my fingertips gently over the top of the words and they smudge. I frown. They don't smudge black though. I move closer to the candle, inspecting my fingers, my fingers are red. Like blood. They start to become tacky. Like blood. I lift them close to my nose, and the metal stings my nostrils. Like. Blood.
I drop the book with a gasp.
When I pick it up, blood it oozing out of the pages, the words are dripping before my eyes, the red liquid covering my hands, running down my arms.
The words melt away from the page, and I can hear the blood drip from my arm against the bedding.
I throw the book at a wall, the spray of blood covering the walls.
I turn myself over, shutting my eyes tightly, but that's when I hear more dripping and when I look over again, blood is dripping out of the other journals, pooling onto the desk and falling to the floor.
I gasp, getting out of bed, and I try to grab the journals in my arms, I rush across the hall as the liquid begins to drench my shirt, and I climb into the shower, turning it on quickly, and letting the water wash away the blood from the pages.
I see some words on one journal page which has fallen open.
'I love her'
I watch as it fades away.
My eyes widen as I realise what has just happened and what I have just done. I smack a hand over my mouth, and quickly turn the shower off, hoping that the ink is strong enough to hold onto the pages. I run back to the room, grabbing the candle and walk back, sitting in the shower, holding the soggy journals to my face.
In the candle light I can see the damage which is done. The ink is now just a thick, black smudge. Some words are visible, some sentences readable, but each journal is ruined.
At least I got the blood off them.
I look to my arms, expecting to still see the blood on them, but there is nothing there, just water and skin.
I grab hold of my shirt, and its clean.
I go back to R's room, and look around the room, at the bedding, the wall, the desk. No drips, spatter or pools.
I couldn't have just imagined it all? I look to my fingers; the blood is gone. There was no blood to begin with, I just imagined everything that happened. But it felt so real, so raw... like the Intruder in the bathroom and the birds from earlier...
What the fuck is going on in my head?