SHORT STORIES | THE SECOND ONE

+ PASSING DAYS | FEBRUARY +

+ 01.02.24. - 04.02.23 +

TW: Anxiety, Depression, Family problems, Swearing

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When one doesn't even have the will to live, they tend to not care that much about everything else about life. In only the matter of weeks, sixteen year old Georgie Alvie was able to experience everything she missed out on in the matter of weeks when Belle Greenwell came into her life. [one story]

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IT'S DAY 1335. Where this weird fervour is all I'm able to feel. So deeply passionate, and murderously strong. An intense nothingness. Where the world is completely grey, and life is a haze of moribund.

Depression is what they call it. I don't really want to name it that, because that would be claiming that I have a problem. I don't... I don't want to believe I have a problem, because that's just more of a reason to leave. And I just can't leave yet.

Fake it till you make it, I guess. Fake joy, fake smiles. So that my distracted mother and quiet father wouldn't have to endure the aftermath of my eternal absence.

Passing days, passing in a blur; vanishing in a blink.

I'm not even sure the mirror is reflecting me anymore, because it's showing me a girl that I barely recognise. I don't remember my hair being so long, and so dark; matching my once wide eyes. Did I lose my sight, or did my skin lose color, like the world? I don't know; I don't really know.

But it's day 1335. That I know.

I think I started counting the days in hopes that it'd get better and better as I go. But it doesn't. Nothing ever does.

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It's day 1336. Today is the first day of junior year. I've been going to this godforsaken school since the first grade; before my eyes decided to lose its ability to see the world's color. I know everyone here, and they know me; because no one comes and goes around here. But strangers, somehow. Strangers still.

I've wanted to leave. Go somewhere where no one knows me beforehand; not even my childhood blur. Where I'm just a misfortune accidentally set within this moment of time; where Life can't keep me, nor can Death take me.

I try to get good grades for my parents, so that they wouldn't have to live with the shame of a failing daughter. "Be more like your sister, won't you? Look at her—in the best university around, great potential awaiting her. And you're just... average."

I think grades have been becoming easier, when people in general have gotten more difficult. Being completely isolated gives me more time for studying and school. Is this really living? A glitch upon Time, producing beings that were never meant to exist. The birth of a dead person. I wish I was never born.

Nevertheless, I go to class.

People chatter, and they stare—but that's where any interaction ends. I make my way to the back of the room, and I sit where no one can see me. Like every other year, every other week, every other day.

"Hello everyone," a teacher says, snapping me out of my daze. I glance at the time—when did it become seven-thirty? I wonder. Time has morphed into nothingness too; going as though she has no end.

"I'm Antoine Bernard, or Mr. Bernard, which some of you may know if you took my French class last semester. I'm your homeroom teacher this year, and... since it is the first day, how about we go around and introduce ourselves?" Mr. Bernard says, "Say your name, how long you've been at this school, and... a hobby you have. Let's start at the back."