Julia Lelieveld and the fifth element

~8~

Ten minutes later the movie started. They were indeed zombies from hell.

People were slaughtered in big numbers and either died or became zombies themselves. After five minutes I was already done with it.

I just couldn't stand seeing all that blood anymore. Images came back to my mind of my father, my mother and I in our old house. How my father was tied up, I was assaulted by a knife to my throat and my mother. How there was more and more blood. I could still feel my clothes getting wet and warm from my own blood. My mother's screams and the fear in her eyes. My own pain that I had as the knife in my throat cut deeper and deeper. The screams of the gang members. No, I couldn't do this.

I got up and walked out of the room, without even looking at Eva or Bas. I came out in the hall and continued to the other room where we had had the party earlier. The room now looked large and deserted. I sat down on a couch and held my fingers to my temple. I took a deep breath in and out a few times to calm down and get the images out of my head. I wondered if this would bother me for the rest of my life?

What I feared so much should probably happen anyway. I had to give my friends an explanation for my behavior. Should I tell them what happened? Or should I try to put it off as long as possible?

Probably the latter.

I tried to relax and sat down a little more comfortably. I heard the screaming of the movie in the background. A nice background music would be nice, I thought to myself.

I looked around and saw an MP3 player. That's better than all that yelling.

There was good music on, music to relax. I stretched out on the couch with my eyes closed. I thought about tonight. To the fact that Daddy hadn't been able to take me away and that I hadn't heard from him yet. The conversation with Eva about Lucas and Bas that he hugged me and kissed me like a friend. I was extremely grateful that I could consider Eva and Bas as friends. They are really nice.

As I lay there on the couch, sleep overcame me. I didn't realize I was so tired.

I really enjoyed tonight. It cost me a lot of effort to ignore all the bad thoughts. But I had actually laughed for the first time in a long time. I got up quickly before falling asleep. I walked across the room and saw pictures on the mantelpiece. Let's take a closer look, I thought to myself.

They were family portraits.

Eva and Bas had a younger sister and an older brother. They both had that jet black hair too. You didn't have to look far to find out who got them. Their parents also both had black hair.

So that was the older brother Daan that Eva was talking about. She had told him he was in the army. Her brother looked good. He was almost a head taller than Bas. His jet-black hair was in sporty quills. He smiled openly and honestly in the photo. Everyone looked happy. A stab ran through my heart that resembled jealousy. We could never be photographed as a family again.

Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, I startled and turned around. Bas was looking at me. Oh shit, I still had the mp3 player on, I quickly turned it off.

"Sorry, all the screaming from the movie got a little too much for me." Embarrassingly, I held up the MP3 player and placed it on the chimney. "It doesn't matter, I thought I'd come and see if you're enjoying yourself a bit. But it looks like you've discovered our embarrassing family photos." He nodded with a smile at the pictures on the chimney.

"These are beautiful photos, anything but embarrassing. You look happy."

Bas looked at me for a moment. "Well, it just depends on how you look at it." He raised his shoulders. "What shall we do?" he asked me.