Silent Pantomime

Chapter 37 | Pretty corpse

Chapter 37🌌: warning; this chapter is going to include some trigging themes about ED and suicide, so please don't read if these matters can make you uncomfortable (me included) because I don't want anyone to be upset. I don't go too deep into it but still remember that you are all beautiful and this chapter is just for the purpose of showing the extremes of the characters, and nothing else that is meant to cause any harm. You are all perfect.

Silence is the most powerful scream. Your shouts can only reach so far, and even your piercing shrieks of sheer terror and agony don't have passports. More often than not, your silence can become addicting: you like the thought of it dangling in the air; you like the thought of it grabbing attention; you like the thought of people hearing it. Silence is addicting. You can be silent because you're angry, depressed, frustrated, sad, desperate. But then you start to be silent for no reason, you just begin to want to feel that numbing pain of seeing others match your scars.

The problem with silence is that everything is suddenly all in your head. Thoughts are the darkest thing the world has to offer, because nothing else can pull that trigger. Dark thoughts lead to dark things. People can't destroy you, but the thoughts they put in your head can destroy you - even if it's "just a joke". Silence doesn't mean you can't hear the rest of the world, but you start to look for your own worlds because the dying ecstasy in your mind is all null and void. You will begin to look at your mirror, wanting to ask it if it knew where your smile had gone, as it seemed to have disappeared. Of course the mirror stole that smile, but you won't ever realise that in the world of silence. You think too hard and overanalyse everything, resulting in you creating these nonexistent problems in your head, just for them to mix with the already existing problems.

That was why I hated being quiet, and that was why it was used against me.

"Hey Hazel,
I know you have been desperate to know what happened between you and that girl. But you must remember that I make the rules for this game, which is why I'm not going to tell you just yet.

The problem with being as desperate as you are is that you will do anything to get what you want. I saw that pretty little poem you posted, which was nothing but a mistake as it shows how crazy this situation is making you. Crazy people can do crazy things, which is why it is time for the next phase of our game.

The rules for this round are very simple. So simple in fact, that I am not expecting you to do a thing. I want you to be a ghost.

What was the best part of being locked in that little hotel room for three days? Well, I'll answer that for you - your sanity was saved with the hope of people worrying about you. It's sick really, but as long as people were thinking about you without your presence, then you'd see your life legacy before you die. Almost like the trailers before the actual movie.

The next round for our game of thrones will be quiet similar, but this time much more interesting for me. As I said, you will be a ghost. In my imagination ghosts do not eat or speak. Of course a ghost will be allowed to drink water, I'm not that mean; but you will have to handle being part of the living dead, otherwise you will just be dead.

You have a lot on the line here Hazel, but look on the bright side: your silence will be like a battle cry. I hope for your sake that your friends will be just as worried about your lack of loud mouthing than they were when you upped and left, because wouldn't it be devestating if they weren't? Just pray to the stars that people will notice the newer, quieter version of Hazel Fitzgerald, because if they don't understand your silence, they won't ever value your words. We live in a world where listen and silent are spelt with the same letters, so trust me that meaningful silences are better than meaningless words.

And as for the not eating, this game only lasts a week. Humans can last up to three weeks without food, so seven days are nothing. I'm doing you a favour really, because you have been eating much more recently, which can't be good for your cover girl looks. Don't you want to die a pretty corpse?

Unlike your mum that is."

After I read the letter, all I could do was stand and stare at my fridge door. I supposed I could have looked on that supposed bright side of people noticing my lack of noise, but in the long run all silence could do was cause harm. However, I knew that I would have had to do whatever my letter benefactor said, because I couldn't live with the ominous guilt build-up, or I wouldn't have lived at all. Something about these letters seemed much worse than empty threats, considering I knew that whoever wrote them was a murderer.

Every bright side has a shadow, so all of the attention I was going to get was going to be dark. I still fully stood for my negative attention is still attention policy, but I could barely think about that considering one thing. My stalker was right.

I had been eating much more food recently, and I hated it. I ditched all of my diets, and I barely checked the amount of carbs of whatever I had eaten recently. If I wasn't pretty enough, why would I have deserved any attention? At the end of the day, I was worth nothing more than bones, pounds and calories, and the empty space between my thighs was getting smaller day by day.

Beautiful people get looked at, it's a sad and simple rule of life. And if I wasn't a pretty corpse, maybe the stars wouldn't have remembered me. Then I wouldn't have been the star of the show.

Sighing, I took a sip of water. I felt weirdly disgusted drinking it, as a "ghost" I was consuming something that is one of the most basic things people need to live. A huge part of me was wondering if it was even worth drinking the only thing I was allowed to have as a way to slightly survive. During the next week all I was going to be was an on-edge mime.

My mum ditched the water, so why couldn't I? Maybe these letters were just signs to prove that my legacy was up. My dad had moved on with his new life, wife and daughter, and I felt like a shadow in my own home, so maybe I could have rejoined my mum.

My friends were worried enough about me when I had left for three days, so me being a real life ghost or actually dead wouldn't have made a difference because they would have easily missed me either way. If I lived as dead, I would have felt the extreme pain of watching myself from outside my body while the inevitable attention occurred. If I was dead, the attention would have happened without the pain.

I could have lived a few days out of the week of games without food, then I could have ended the strange enigmas that were fogging up my brain. What's a little hunger if I became a prettier corpse?