Voices - Xavier Thorpe

11

Wendi laid in her bed, the sun was going down and she was watching it as it fell. He thoughts traveled to a few weeks ago. Everyone met back in front of the statue for outreached day. The band began to pay and the statue was officially reveled.

She thought back to the joy that quickly turned to horror as everyone began to scream from a large explosion. Remembering how she was frozen, unable to comprehend what was happening. The screams being too loud, overwhelming.

Wen closed her eyes as the sun disappeared behind the ground, the moon now shining with the stars. She turned over in her bed trying to get comfortable. Kinbott didn't understand, no one did. It had happened three times since entering the school now. Three times she would begin to feel unwell and then a dead body would show up. Three times is a pattern, and Wendi was beginning to think she was punishing herself.

After the fire, Outreach was canceled and everyone had the rest of the day to de-stress. Wendi opted to walk around the campus trails to think. Her mind started to be plagued with sounds once again. She put headphones on to drown out the sound, although in her head the music worked for a while until Wendi couldn't stand it anymore.

Her volume was already on the max setting and she couldn't turn it up higher but the noise kept getting louder and louder.

A sharp clicking followed by a rolling clank before repeating.

Eventually she crouched down hands atop her head as she massaged her temples. Eventually the sound becoming to much resulting in her screaming. Finally with air gone Wendi felt peace and quiet.

Standing up, she quickly realized that she was no longer on the trail. Wen was standing aside a small broken-down shed, the sun now long gone. Wendi looked around wondering how it had gotten so dark before questioning where she was.

Walking up to the Shed, Wendi pushed the door open. It was barely hanging onto the latches and she could tell the building had to roof. But the rundown shed was nothing compared to the body that laid inside it. Claw marks all over the man as if he was attacked by a monster.

Wendi gasped as she quickly stepped away in fear. Rustling could be heard in the distance causing her to frantically look around for the animal that'd done it, but nothing came.

With tears in her eyes she began to run back finding a rundown road following it until she found something that'd looked familiar.

Wendi had told the group of nightshades what she witnessed the moment she got back to the campus, explaining to them what happened.

While they listened Wen described the weird feelings she'd get prior to an episode of loosing track of time. Always leading to her finding or being near a body.

The group began to question if she was drawn to dead people being it had been the 2nd (3rd) person she'd found.

While Wen wanted to deny she couldn't help but feel like a pattern was showing up, although unsure what it was exactly.

It had been weeks since then and they still hadn't figured anything out. While a blessing Wendi didn't have any feelings it made it harder for them to pick up on symptoms.

So far they deducted;

Weird trance
Noises
Dead body

Although not much, defiantly a start.

Wens therapy session that week had been very unproductive. She had become closed up once again causing Dr. Kinbott to be confused. the girl shed come to know suddenly reverted back to the girl on there first session causing her to have to push once more to get her to open up again.

Thankfully Kinbott knew just the right questions to get the girl to talk.

"Wendi, why don't we talk about how you respond to your trauma." Ms. Kinbott said, "You seem to freeze in confrontation, was it always like this or did it begin after your incident?"

"Um, im not sure. Possibly." Wen replied

"Okay, lets talk about how you felt during the shooting."

"Scared, confused."

"diving deeper, what were you thinking."

"I'm going to die."

"Wendi..."

"23."

Ms. Kinbott tilted her head, "23?"

"I just kept thinking 23 until it was over."

"Okay..." She gave a confused face, "how did this thought make you feel?"

"Like I wanted to scream."

"But you kept it in."

"I'd have died if I didn't."

"So then why are you still holding it in?" Kinbott asked. Her question causing Wen to pause in contemplation.

"Im not." She replied slowly

"Are you sure?" Kinbott pushed further. "Because I don't think your body knows your out of that bathroom stall."

"I don't understand."

"Wendi, lets put it this way. You were drowning far below the surface, you couldn't scream or cry because if you did that water would rush in. so you held those screams, those cries, those gasps for air in order to give yourself even a moment longer to swim up." Kinbott began to explain, "But now you've reached the surface, yet your still holding your breath as if your 20 ft under still trying to claw your way up."

"Oh." Wendi said as she looked down to her lap, her eyes focusing on her fingertips gently interlacing another.

"Can you try to describe why you feel like you're still underwater."

Wendi paused. Gathering her thoughts, she began to attempt explain, "Because when I do, I realize that I'm not above the surface. When I try to breath only water enters my lungs."

"Wendi, you're not at the school anymore." Kinbott says softly reaching over to her, "You can breath, even if if feels like you can't. You aren't alone in that bathroom with one person just as scared as you, now you have many people surrounding you. Trust they'll help you float."

~Not much character interaction in this chapter but the next ones going to be longer since there's a lot to unpack. So get ready for the next update on Friday!!~