Winter had never tasted so bitterly drunk. The pang of alcohol's twisted knife-sharp fingernails scratched my throat as I continued to swallow my liquid courage, leaving my stomach raw. Godly snow performed small ballet variations onto my shoulders, and I stare at the snow covered grass under my worn-out dark brown Ugg boots. They were a Christmas gift from a few years back. From my parents. I could have vouched the whispering in my ears was coming from the wind... The wind. Whispering. This wasn't happening. I was supposed to be home. Warm. Drinking not whiskey but hot chocolate. I wasn't supposed to be sitting near a tombstone but a warm fire. I was supposed to be alive- not dead. I had catechized it in my mind before, what it really is to be alive. Because life isn't exactly berating at some moments- which I was, knowing my breaths were steady as my beating heart. But in another way, I had died long ago... Because couldn't death really be the factor of people knowing you're there? Here's what I mean... Because if everyone... Everyone forgot of your existence for even a second- wouldn't you technically be dead to the world in that second?
Therefore, I must have been dead... Isn't that what everyone thought? Didn't everyone think my heart stopped beating with my breaths months ago? Didn't I trick them? Didn't that mean I was dead? But I was breathing still. Though blood still ran through my cold, ruthless veins, I was dead. I knew then what I was, alive but not living. My chest was simply heaving up and down, not being filled with emotion. Despite the tombstone in front of me reading my name, my age, date of death, and a short- uncaring message for me, I was still alive.
'You've done it, Princess.'
I began to feel the bottle I was still holding slip to the ground silently in surprise, as it frowned at me from the unsympathetic grass.
"I have."
'And you've worked so hard- twice- to be dead without dying.'
"For you." I spoke, emotionlessly. Emotion had been rid from me years ago.
'It was for yourself. You'll realize it someday.'
"If it was for myself, how come I don't know why I did it?"
'You've done it twice now, Lois. You'll find out soon.'
"Don't speak my real name again."
My first parents... My real parents... had named me foolishly. Lois means good, when you summarize it up. Did they think I would be good? The name had more against me than it's meaning. My first name... My real parents. It brought back memories I didn't want anymore. Blood. I guess I was sick, in a sense. Who am I kidding, I am sick. They called me insane while I sank knives into their flawless skin. I saw... More than blood. It was their fault. I told them not to open the windows. When the windows are open, the wind can talk to me as it was at that moment in the graveyard. It can command me, control me. Tell me to do things I honestly don't want to do.
Yet right as I was more than ankle deep in trouble due to the wind, it got me out of the trouble. Even though my body was never found, the wind made sure I placed perfect false evidence of my suicide. Nobody knew I got away... I had been with the wind on the streets since then until months after. Hiding. I turned 15 on the streets. It was a nice summer. I felt free... With limits- of course. The wind had warned me- everyone knew my face. I heard them talking all about Lois- the child murderer and her death while they walked on the streets. I had to stay in the woods until it wore off and nobody knew who I was anymore. I came out from hiding in my late 15 years. I looked almost nothing like my old self at that point- hair dirty from the natural world, making it black instead of light brown, my skin pale not tanned, my eyes darker than when I went in. I knew I smelled of dirt, grime, and no longer innocence, but I liked it. But I knew once I went back to society I'd have to change back to eye-pleasing Lois. At that moment, the wind and I both sparked the best idea... I wouldn't be Lois. I was tired of my name and it's meaning of "good" anyways. I wasn't "good." I wanted another name. Something fresh. I wasn't Lois anymore, I was a playing a new character; Hana. I looked into what the name meant that time.
Hana would be exactly what her name meant; bud or blossom. A fresh start-clean slate. So when playing Hana, I would have a new start or budding. To add characteristics, details, things I didn't get to be when I was Lois. I dyed my brown hair black, reminding me of the woods I felt I belonged in at the time. I wore brown contacts over my green eyes, and makeup. Lots of makeup. Making myself tan, clean, and more appealing as well. I soon became Hana Blossom. This character would be a tad sweeter. A characteristic I wasn't playing in the scene in the graveyard I was previously playing out for you. I was more of Lois- my old self. Dead inside. Emotionless.
'Excuse me then, Hana,-'
"I'm not Hana anymore, either. Don't call me that."
'Then what are you?'
"I... Don't know yet."
'Don't you know what to do now? You still need my... Help?'
"I know what I'm doing."
I'm doing just what I did last time after I got out of the woods- "I'm skipping that step" I'd thought. I would find a place to stay, nobody knows what Hana did yet. It's not in the papers anywhere... Yet. Hana Blossom killed a 13 year old boy. Bobby Trench. Another boy who went to her foster home. She also committed suicide- something I wasn't planning on doing with whatever my new character was going to be. I liked Hana better than Lois. She was more fun to play when going to trial- nobody expected the sweetest girl they'd ever met to turn like that. But then, the fun ended. I was back at a gravestone- where I'd started. Just like Lois. Not knowing exactly what was ahead, and preparing for the wind to instruct me.
I had played two characters, and it was time to beget a third.
"Where do I begin this time? Where do I stay?"
'I thought you had grown out of this question thing.'
"Where."
'Find a motel, Lo-'
"Shut up."
'Lois was a beautiful name, why can't you accept i-'
"Memories, damn you." I grunted.
'I see.'
"Do you?"
'Just find a hotel, ungrateful bastard. If you can succeed in doing even that, I'll help you out later. Open the windows.'
My original thought was to buy bleach for my hair right away, let the skin tan spray wear off, get eye contacts, or something. But wind insisted on going to the motel. I at least knew by then it was a better idea to listen to the wind; not myself. It had always been right.
