Suicide Tree || ✓

2. The First Note

The next day both Sam and I skipped school. It was a Friday, and I just didn't have it in me to face the music that is high school. There was something nagging me at the back of my mind but I couldn't quite understand what it was.

"Sam?" I whispered. I was wrapped in a tight embrace with only my arms free and Sam refused to wake up. I poked his nose but still got no response. I placed a small kiss on his lips and pulled away when I saw them faintly twitch. I smiled softly before capturing his lips in mine and slowly kissing them. Sam kissed back, awake, but I moved away before he could go any further. "I knew you were awake."

"If only I could wake up to that every day," he smiled groggily. That was really corny. I resisted the urge to cringe and instead brushed his dark brown hair away from his coffee coloured eyes. "How are you feeling?" he asked, rubbing his eyes. I frowned, slightly confused, before the events of the night before rushed back to me. I had suddenly remembered the piece of paper I stuffed in my pocket and jumped out of my bed, startling Sam. I began frantically searching for my jeans in my closet.

"Scarlett what are you doing?" he asked with a deep, hoarse voice that made my stomach warm.

"Yesterday, when Lily and I," my voice broke but I cleared my throat and started again. "Yesterday, when Lily and I found the corpses," I refused to say their names, "there was a note nailed to the trunk of the tree." I refused to say the true name of the willow tree. "I don't know why I took it, but for some reason I did and – yes I found it!" I exclaimed abruptly. I took the damp, black paper and spread it out on my table. Thankfully the words were still decipherable.

"Kill yourself

End your life

Leave this world

In the night

When you're gone

The world goes on

So make your way

To Suicide Tree

A place where you'll

Cease to be."

I wish the note had been ruined by the rain. I sucked in a ragged breath, stumbling away from the desk and sitting heavily on my bed. Sam looked at me in concern before going to read it himself. I heard him suck a sharp breath as I sat there with my head buried in my hands.

"Why would they write something like that?" I whispered.

"Scarlett," Sam said with an odd tone. "I don't think they did," my head shot up with surprise and my neck cracked.

"What?" I asked disbelievingly, rubbing my neck.

"Come look at it, some letters are more slanted than others..." he trailed off, a cute but confused look on his face. I went to stand beside him while he took a pencil and began writing.

Kill l d i h t e m e l a

"I thought at first that maybe that's how they write their e's or l's but it's only specific ones," I glanced at the individual letters but they made no sense to me. "My dad...when I was little, we used to highlight individual letters within an ordinary sentence. Remember he's in the military? Anyway, the sentence would have some clue what the letters could mean put together, like their theme or simply a code word so when you scrambled them together they'd make –" his fast-paced talking came to an abrupt end as well as the pencil that he was furiously writing with. My eyes drifted to a blank piece of paper scrawled with messy writing.

Kill, dill, theme, them, all, kid, kit

all meet Kid dill

Kid theme

I Kill theme all d

I Killed them all