TH1RTEEN || ✓

CHAPTER 9: Unhide

This was going to seem as if I was in a dream. I thought maybe I was. Like it always had been before. Just a dream. Just a memory of a dream. Or, a dream in a dream. However, it's not. No matter how many more times I scratch my thighs. No matter how many more squinting of my eyes were to happen—this wasn't a dream anymore.

    This was true.

    Ava...Lewis, Rosie and Allison.

    Diya...Ricky

    Now I could remember.

    Noah and Monica were gone...and I hadn't noticed. I did not bat an eye.

   Andrea...how could have I done this to Andrea?

   Kimmy...Louis...they weren't with us that day...

    I thought they couldn't make it...it turned out, they really couldn't in the first place.

    Why have I done something like this?
 
     Why did it have to be me? Why me?

    "Now. Do you remember?"

    I did now...everything...even before anyone reveal it to me. I remember now.

    "You helped Sadie Brooke set this up. You believed this, this nonsensical practice. You made all eleven of them look through this useless mirror to complete a ritual? This hoax? Something that crazy people just created out of madness?.

     The more I hear from him, the vast the memories become. Yes...the mirror. That mirror Ava bragged on us. I remembered Sadie scowl at Ava that afternoon. She resent Ava for everything that she was. But Sadie and I...we successfully did it. One by one, they all looked through the mirror. And that was everything that was needed for me to start what she wanted me to finish.

    "Mr. Cohen, this station has heard of everything there is to hear about that mirror. And I'd be damned to believe in deities or gods. It's the people. People do this because of some belief! Because of this tale,  you caused death of young people. How are you supposed to defend yourself, huh? You are caught red-handed. You hear me? This is the type you cannot escape from no matter how great your lawyer can be. And trust me, I won't let you get away with it."

     My tongue glued itself in its place. Should I explain? What else was even there left to explain?

    "You slowly killed them off."

    I could not help myself but laugh...and cry. Everything was coming back to me...rather promptly.

     "Here, look at them, Mr. Cohen. Look at these eleven people. Look at your friends."

    I didn't want to! I did not like looking at them one more time! I wouldn't.

    "Kimberly Ashton. Louis Elmore. Both of them were found dead. By the cliff."

     Sadie told me to start with Kimmy. I made it clear that I did not want to kill Kimmy. She was my best friend.

    But I had to. Or something would've happened instead.

    Because I couldn't lift the knife, Sadie told me to make use of the cliff. That cliff was my favorite view of all. But she made me bloody it for us. So we could be together, like she told me. Like it was so stupid of me to fall for that trap.

    "...Andrea Jeane Staniewski. By the lake..."

     Andrea told me off. She told me there was still a chance. Time. I couldn't bear watching Andrea drown in the hands of her own friend. Sadie yelled at me for being such a coward. She did the job herself.

    "Monica Stones, Noah Miller. Killed."

    Drugging them was the way, Sadie instructed me. Being that Noah's built would be impossible for me to tackle down easily. Sadie hid them in the trunk of a car truck. For a week. Without the medications to counteract the poison. I hated their slow death. But Sadie would bruise me if I whined one more time.

     "Rosie Anne Hunding. Rickson Cole. Diya Anand."

     Sadie warned me with Ricky. Since he would always have his dagger with him. He even managed to wound Sadie's ear, but she was strong. She mentioned how the offerings were granting her favor to the goddess that her might was beginning to strengthen. But I haven't felt anything in me that gained advantage. She told me maybe because I was hesitant in finishing our friends off. She stressed how the goddess from the shrine was sensitive with loyalty.

     "We found Allison Betterment near that building you keep on calling the floodgate."

     I feel like this man had been speaking different languages as I drift off to my thoughts. I could clearly only hear their names.

    My tears did not hesitate to roll down.

   Why wouldn't they?

   After everything I put my mind into committing.

   Just because I wanted the girl I liked had me by my neck.

    "Lewis Clarke..."

    I did not need to hear what was next. He was nothing but kind! To me! Only kind and nothing belittling came from him! I could not believe I had done it to Ralph. My best friend. How could I do it to him?!

    I could not take it anymore...

    If I could just save them...

   "And Ava Amir."

   Sadie wanted me to make her last...because of how much she hated Ava above all. I did not understand why. And my foolishness prevented me from ever questioning everything that Sadie ordered me to do.

    "You think that this journal would bail you out? You think anyone could possibly believe everything you've written in here? Mr. Cohen, there is no floodgate nor those crazy people you insist that lived there-"

    "But they do! They do live in there...they, Sadie made me go there. I've seen them. And the mirror...that goddess Sadie always told me about. How she wanted to use it to get what she deserved. A life...that's."

     "Sadie Brooke maybe did trick you into this, but even if it's her fault, you murdered those children. You didn't even seem to realize what you were doing, did you?"

     She never really understood me, but I loved her. And she used it to get what she wanted. Promising our lives to intertwine with one another if she ever get to become what she said the goddess promised she would be. In the expense of thirteen lives.

     "Sadie, where is she?"

     "Sadie Brooke is dead. We found both of you. Ava Amir lifeless just beside you. But, Sadie Brooke moved quick, she finished herself off. And you ran away. Four hours we couldn't find you. Once we did, we had to deal with your episodes of passing out and waking up in inconvenient times. Without a metronome, you'd scream like hell just so you could get back to sleep. You were on hospital arrest. We couldn't get you to talk for forty-eight hours, twelve of those you spent wasting our time. You even managed to hurt one of my colleagues. And for what? You aren't even worthy of this interrogation anymore, after what you've done.

     "You made yourself believe that something isn't wrong. You wasted eleven perfect lives for being selfish and an idiot. These people paid for somebody else's foolishness. And what do you have to say for yourself? Nothing. I'm just here to remind you of what you did. At least this has to be a punishment to you. You deserved it. And, now I want the truth.

     "Talk."