Ashmoor

Five

|Altaira|

   She was never right after her dose, she never said what it was but it made her feel all cosy inside like she was 'hugging starlight', as she would put it. But the lows were low and she never was the person who saw the trains about to collide, she was simply a sleeping passenger, and when the train hit June Whitlock it hit her hard.

   'Me too, buddy.' Is what I wanted to echo back not that she would listen— or could. 

   I even followed her, necause that's what friends did when the other was losing it, right? Or at least that's what they tried to do. She was the beacon and I was the shadow, the starlight was within her, guiding her. And I had to trust that the moonlight bouncing off of her reflective shoes would guide me because we were lost. Every so often trees came and went, dark, foreboding. Even the willows danced sinister shadows as the ever constant stream of thickets and tall grass lashed against our ankles and faces, grazing us as we waded deeper into God knows where.

   "It's funny, don't you think? Be a photographer, go take photos. You like them, don't you? You like them June. When will she fricking realise that I'm not him!" She exclaimed as she kicked her frustrations out on a tree stump.

   Her blue highlights stood out on her hair, now a blanket covering her face and arms as she wept into her hands. There again was nothing but the moonlight bathing the clearing as June Whitlock looked dead in her white dress. The kind of ethereal dead, a transparent one, one that almost looked like a faefolk in its element. My heart beat harder as it did each time June got into her episodes, and this time it was pretty bad. 

   "Come on June," I said as I hesitantly approached, "Let's get out of here." 

   A sniffle and a huff appropriately brushed me off of that notion as she lay down on God knows what, at least it wasn't wet. 

   "Come on," she summoned, "Don't be a buzzkill."

   Ah, an introvert's favourite kryptonite. Shuffling closer I sat down and then lay against a surprisingly warm but very much wet patch of soft grass. My mind urged me to take a shower, to clean off this muck but I pushed it away and came back to the present.

   For a while, all was right in the world. A world of pretend. June pretended she wasn't drugged up and I pretended we weren't in the middle of nowhere, rattling every parents' age-old warnings of being out in the middle of nowhere at dark. At this point we'd have only ourselves to blame if our names appeared in the Saturday newspaper June's dad actually read, appearing in the obituaries. 

   "I'm gonna miss you," she said, probably looking up at the few stars that hovered around the moon like specs of dust. 

   "You're only a few hours away," I responded, trying to trace those specs impossibly with my fingertips.

   "Do you think he would've liked a place like this?"

   I sighed. There it was again. A Spectre. A lost one. The infamous he. I tried not to look at her, because no one liked looking at a sad person and knowing exactly why they felt it. 

   "I don't know." I whispered.

   "I think he would," she continued, "I think he would have become a famous photographer just like mum thought he'd be."

   It must be hard living up to an older sibling, especially one that was missing or dead. We didn't know where Danyal Whitlock was and it's been much too long a time, ten years in fact, to think he'd weather the elements of the woods surrounding that picnic that day on June, to be anything but an inanimate body buried slightly under mud after heavy rainfall.

   "Do you think I would make a pretty picture?" 

   Odd of her to seek validation for something she already knew.

   "You're pretty. I don't imagine why you wouldn't."

   "I think you should come find me." 

   "I would love to," I sighed, "but I don't think my parents would like me going that far away. You know how Bengalis are."

   "If you don't find me now, no one will."

   "Wait what?" I asked, shifting to face her only to find her gone. The quiet solitude of the woods seeped into me. The darkness surrounding me like a thick blanket.

   "This isn't funny, June. Where are you?" I yelled, promptly standing up.

   Her voice was quiet now behind me as the low droning of something filled my surroundings.

   "Come find me."

   I turned swiftly around and tripped over a tree root, falling on my back. The droning continued as I scrambled for purchase but I kept slipping on the wet grass, and then, like the cut of a phone connection, it stopped. I couldn't muster the energy to call her name again, all I could do was stare up as a lifeless body swung like a pendulum in front of me. 

   The tree that June was hooked on creaked every so often. Blood dripped off of her feet, her mouth that was drooped in terror let out a piercing shrill that sent the birds flying. Her voice echoed but her mouth no longer moved as her eyes stared dead ahead at mine.

   "I dare you, Altaira. I double dare you. And if it scares you, then we're both winning."

   I woke up with a scream, thrashing against my duvet. 

Thanks a bunch for reading my story, 'Ashmoor' so far. After struggling through almost two years of writer's block and stress I tried my absolute best, as difficult as it was, to enter this ONC and write this story. Let me know what you think!

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