My Tale: Selima

Chapter 6: The Kill

     As soon as I woke up, I checked my chest for the wound. All that was left was a tiny scar that was slowly healing. I then got curious and felt my neck only to feel that apart from thee two holes for my esophagus and windpipe, it was now completely covered in a layer of really sensitive skin. Covering it up was like covering up both my eyes and ears at the same time, which was an odd sensation to say the least.

     As I sat up however, I realized something horrifying. I was lying in a coffin. I was at the city morgue; the police must have taken me here when I was passed out. I slowly got up and carefully climbed out of the coffin I was in, thankful they hadn't shut or locked it yet and started to make my way for the entrance. It was now the dead of night, so the place was empty save for the dead bodies in the back with me, why had they left mine open if they were closed by now? Probably a lazy employee I reasoned to myself. Though I felt a deep chill down my spine when I saw a coffin labeled "Jason Bennet", I put a hand to the coffin and silently wept to myself for a second before moving on.

     "Soon we'll be back together again. I just hope you can forgive me, on the other side." As I continued towards the front, I silently sang We'll Meet Again to myself for comfort, before coming upon the locked door. I silently panicked for a second, afraid I'd be trapped until morning when the morgue opened again until I realized how to unlock the door, however this set off the alarm in the building. So, I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. Undoubtedly, they'd see me on the cameras, but I didn't care anymore, I had to find Dianne.

     Finding Dianne wasn't very hard to do, I found her, or rather she found me when I went back to the alley where we first met. She was still attached to her body she stole from that poor woman.

     "There you are darling, I see you learned you can't be killed, but still you're late" she said scornfully. With all the hate for this vial creature flowing through me and with the warmth of the light still inside of me I lunged at her and wrestled her to the ground. Despite the attempts from the knife to stop me, I fought back ad began pulling at her to yank her from her stolen body. At first it didn't feel as if it were working, her spidery legs kept her firmly attached to the neck of this body. It was once again as if she really was the head of this body. However, with all my strength I persisted, and she slowly started to pull out of the neck of the body. Slowly but surly her legs became visible as she slowly lost control of the body, it spasming on the ground beneath me like a seizure. Finally, I pulled her from the neck as she wrapped her own spidery legs around my arm and tried to climb up me. Perhaps she was going to forcibly use me as a body? I do not know, all I know is I slammed her against the ground as hard as I could, which caused her to cry out.

     I grabbed the knife for the first time of my own will and for some reason it didn't start glowing this time, for some reason it stopped fighting back as I slowly approached Dianne.

     "Wait, darling think about what you're doing! I'm your head, you need me as a partner! You can't kill me!" Dianne pleaded, but just as my own pleas had before, so too did hers fall on deaf "ears." I chopped off her spidery legs first to make sure she couldn't scurry away before finally jamming the knife as deep as I possibly could into the soft spot at the back of the head. With one last cry of agony, Dianne slipped away. The whites of her eyes fading as she hopefully went straight to hell.

     "While that wasn't my intended target, you still killed of your own volition. Good job follower, now to make more" the knife creepily said to me. However, I ignored its words. I was able to fight its control this time, with the help from the light so I knew I'd be able to fight it again. So, I snuck off home, this time actually heading home so I could make a disguise to hide my headless ness with a mask and a hoodie. I reasoned with the knife that without Dianne, I'd need some way to hide my disfigurement until we made a new follower and it agreed.

     Upon arriving home, I very quietly entered hoping not to wake my parents and made my way to my room. As I entered my room, I heard quiet footsteps in the house, my parents must have been awake. So, I grabbed my hoodie very quickly as well as a mask and hid in my closet. As I partially closed the door, I saw my dad walk into the room with a gun in hand, my mom wasn't far behind.

     "Oh Harold, what if it's her? What if she came back?"

     "What if it's an intruder honey? Stay in our room." I wanted so badly to say I was home, that I was ok. I knew however that it would only cause more pain and confusion than it was worth if they saw me like this. As a result, I waited in the closet for them to leave the room. Although he didn't check the closet, once my dad was satisfied that no one was in the room he left. My mom on the other hand sat on my bed and started crying into a pillow. I kept waiting for her to leave but eventually when I tried to adjust myself inside the closet to avoid getting too uncomfortable, I accidentally fell out of the closet. My mom initially screamed upon seeing me. She must have obviously thought I was simply a dead body, but her scream became even worse when I rose to my feet. It was a cold scream, a shrill cry of horror. The kind of scream reserved for the truly horrific moments, like seeing the skin walker creep away after you accidentally shot your best friend.

     "Mom, mom it's me I promise. It's really me. I know I look different but it's really me." Upon hearing my voice, she went dead silent as I heard footsteps approaching, dad was coming. She very visibly had many chills running down her spine as she watched this undead body claim to be her daughter in the dead of night.

     "No this can't be true, it's impossible- Selima my sweetie, she was just here two days ago. She was fine, and she had a head!" Just then my dad burst into the room and pointed his gun at my, looking just as disturbed as my mom by the sight of me.

      "Alright now you have until the count of three to explain what sort of sick twisted, demented joke this is. Halloween was months ago, scaring my wife like that."

     "This is no joke! Really! I can prove I'm Selima! Ask me something only she can answer."

     After a second of thinking and seemingly from desperation, my mother simply asked, "on the night of your sixth birthday, which cousin came to spend the night with you?"

     "Trick question, they were all sick with the flu that year. I felt so sad because I didn't have any friends at the time and I didn't have anyone to celebrate my birthday with, but you and dad made it up to me by getting me an ice cream cake." At the sound of the answer my mom covered her mouth with her hand with a small gasp as my dad lowered his gun, taking his finger off the trigger.

     "Selima, is it, really you? My sweet baby whatever happened to you? Who did this to you?" Before I could respond my mother ran to me and grabbed me, pulling me into a tight hug. Though the knife tried to get me to stab her, I was able to hold it off as I simply hugged her back. My dad simply stayed in place, paralyzed by fear, unsure of what to make of this. It was as if he wanted to believe just as my mother did, but still felt the coldness of the knife in the air and as a result still felt doubts.

     "Now we can be a family again!" My mother cried. "And don't worry dear, I promise we'll work through this somehow. We will, you'll still be able to live your life, I'll make sure of it." Despite wanting to match my mom's enthusiasm about being able to continue on this way, I still knew what I had to do. I had to finish my mission. However, I'd play along just long enough to be able to sneak back out of the house was my plan, even though I knew it'd hurt just as much for them as it would for me.

     "I'm tired mom, real tired" I told her, hoping that I could get them to go back to bed.

     "Oh, my you must be exhausted after everything you've been through; do you need any help getting ready or into bed?"

     "No thank you"

     "Alright well if you need us, we'll be right in our room, won't we Harold"

     "Huh, yeah sure, dear" dad said as if he was caught in a trance of deep thought and debate.

     "Goodnight, dear" my mother told me as she closed the door behind her and dad.

     "Goodnight" I said as I got into bed to complete the illusion. However, I must have been much more tired than I realized, or maybe I simply missed my bed a lot more than I thought I did as I fell asleep almost immediately. That night I dreamed of the light again, and this time I saw Jason standing in the light.

     "I'll be waiting for you" he said to me, I would've smiled if I was able to.