To Bottle Revenge

ｔｈｅ ｆｏｕｒｔｈ ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ

I bit my bottom lip hungrily as I leaned forward and pressed the search button on my browser. I waited, perched in the same position, for the few agonizing seconds that it took for the search results to load. Finally, a list of results matching my search popped up. Starting from the top, I clicked on the first hyper link, labeled "Whitefish Bay Directory". The page loaded, and a long list of names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails popped up. Excitedly, I pressed the control find buttons, and typed in his name. Ace's name. I hit enter, and the page zipped down to the one, highlighted match. So he lived in Whitefish Bay, interesting. Sure enough, Ace's name, address, phone number, and email were listed. Smiling mischievously, I copied his information onto a blank document, and returned to the search results.

The next hyper link was for prison records. I frowned. Ace...in jail? I didn't ever hear anything about this. Shrugging, I clicked on the link, and was directed towards a list of imprisoned citizens in the newspaper. Once again searching the webpage for Ace's name, I reached a match. Ten years ago, he served a year in prison. I frowned further. This did not make any sense, whatsoever. Sure, Ace was a jerk, and sure I never wanted to see his face again; but I felt as though I would've known if he was sent to prison. Confusing me further, there was no clue towards what his offense was- just the date of imprisonment, and release. I copied his short little paragraph devoted towards his confinement, and pasted it in the document. Next, I opened up Google Maps, and pasted Ace's address into the search bar. Once it had loaded, I clicked on "start route" and typed in my own address as the starting point. From the looks of it, it would take around 45 minutes to drive to his address. I typed this information into the document, then, I saved it as "Social Studies Study Guide" right as Xia walked into the room.

"Cleo?"

"Hi, Xia," I said nonchalantly.

"Cleo! Why didn't you tell me?" She sat down on my bed next to me, and I subtly closed my computer screen.

"Tell you...?"

"About Soren!"

"Soren?"

"Dying."

"Oh, that, um, I didn't think it was that.... Er.... Relevant?"

Xia wrapped me in a hug that I fought off.

"I'm sorry, Cleo, this must be so traumatizing."

Not really, but thanks.

"Yeah, um, real depressing, yup."

"Do you think we should move away?"

"Wait what?"

"It's just, it seems like these deaths happen so often here, I wonder if we'd be happier somewhere else..."

We absolutely could not move away- I was already far enough from Ace's house.

"Death happens in all towns. It's inevitable. It's the cycle of life."

"Yes, but murder, Cleo? Murder shouldn't be... this frequent, I think."

"Alright, so maybe murder rates are a little higher, but Xia, I'm safe. I promise. Besides, think of your job. You've worked too hard to give it up."

"Jobs are replaceable, lives are not."

"Xia, you're lying, and we both know it."

Xia looked hesitant, but then she said, "You're right, we'll stay." She squeezed my shoulder before standing up.

"And if you need to talk about any of this, just come to me."

I rolled my eyes as she left.

•••

The glass clinked against each other, crating a deafening, overwhelming sort of music. It wasn't good music. Like Chopin's Nocturne No.1 in B flat, which I listened to each night before bed. It was scary music. The kind of background music you'd hear in a movie, when the climax was building. Like right before someone died. That's exactly how the clinking and chinking of the glass sounded- like it was forewarning someone's death. And somehow, I knew, it was my own. I wrapped my arms around my knees, hugging them to my chest, as I sat there, curled up on the concrete floor. I was in my white nightgown, and my dark hair was loose, tumbling down my shoulders like a curtain. An old, ratty curtain. The glass bottles clinked closer and closer. They were huge. Enormous. Bigger than me. And they lurched forward, slowly making their way towards me. They encircled me, closing in from all sides, all corners, all angles. There were so many of them that they couldn't move without clinking against their neighbours, creating the dark, gloomy music. It reminded me of how mother and father clinked their wine glasses together on new years, except that was always a happy sound. This was not. This was a scary sound.

The bottles were now yards away, and silent tears were streaking down my face. Somehow, somehow, I knew that once they were upon me, they would swallow me whole, trapping me within their glass cages, trapping me forever. And I knew that as much as I screamed, and sobbed, and begged to be released, no one would hear me. No one would hear my pounding against the glass walls. No one would hear me. No one would care. I would forever be trapped within the bottles, beyond life. Beyond death. Forever.

The were almost upon me. A mere two feet away, and I only had seconds. I closed my eyes, just as they closed in. Closed in for the kill.

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-Violet