the secrets of ocean shores - a paranormal murder mystery

Chapter 14

Chapter 14. Kella

A school is a curious thing. It is an eloquent place to learn, a place with books staked as high as the Leaning Tower of Giza. It contains a multitude of peculiar human beings, beautiful starry-eyed boys looking to play somebody, academic girls with their posh and rudely standoffish attitudes, and everything in higher and lower places. It is a place where one comes to study the history of one's country or perhaps goes because they must. I had started as the latter, a freckled, wide-eyed girl with a worn-out green hoodie with a small tea stain right on the right elbow, a girl with only sneakers too big to fit her narrow feet, a girl full of resentment and begrudging confidence, blooming into what I have become now. School is a place of playful enjoyment, a place to escape the murders and mayhems that corrupt the empty pockets of my mind.

When I first came here, my mind played with the villain narrative for myself. The hero never fit. Nor did the sidekick. I was not a heroine or some great girl destined to linger in the minds of young precocious children. 

Last night another strange dream occurred. A handsome dark-skinned man screamed, echoes of the noise shattering the glass of the sour shop-owner glasses, tearing the Band-Aid covering the injury of the clumsy football player. A knife cut through skin, pulling at his heart, and peeling out the bloody beating element, holding it up to the sky as if sacrificing it to the Aztec gods. The blood oozed out, deep guts falling over his muscled torso. He gasped, a strangled little thing, as his eyeballs rolled back in his head, as his guts were pulled out, knife playing with the guts, yanking them out, one by one, little violin strings playing the melody of murder on the guts and hearts and eyeballs of the poor soul. The murderer, the deep cello behind the whole operation, used the knife to carve off the beautiful thick red rose lips of the man. Blood dripped from the spot, a gruesome image. I had made an attempt to peel my eyes away, but there was nothing to stop the image of his eyeballs being carved out, slime sagging onto the black glove of the murderer.

Early morning, Eve and I had received another magazine, this one with the same man that had appeared in the haunting dream that had came to me, just a whisp before it left. 

I picked around with my food, delicately prodding at the lemon curd pastry as my friends laughed and joked around me. My appetite would not come to me after the dream of mine. 

In science class, we had a substitute, and we were tasked with stitching up the bloody mess of a heart that we were given. It was hard to focus, considering the quite obvious. Dareth kept flashing his braces at me from across the room, keeping me awake and alert. I silently gave him a gentle thanks. 

Technology was quite the same. I was forced to work with a beautiful girl named Aniya Mahren. Her freckles were quite like mine, but she had thick brown waves, and blue eyes. Our simplistic task of the day was to start creating our own personal video game. I had brought up the idea of making something space-themed, and we quicky got into the discussion of matters of space and the wonders of our curious universe. Yet another thing to keep my mind away from wandering.

English passed like usual, with me continuing to work on my essay about women's rights. Math stayed the same, with more of the usual complexities. Art was laid-back, another sweet relief and break from the torture of my deep and murky mind. Orchestra and history were particularly enjoyable, two subjects that usually were not the source of much interest. 

Far later, practically eons ahead of my tech class, Eve and I were jogging in P.E. class when she brought up something odd. "Ravenwood, have you had any weird dreams?" She asked me, face flat, dark eyeliner highlighting her deep orbs as they reached into the depths of my soul.

"Yes." I placed my words out carefully. "What? Dreaming about a certain blonde boy?" My joke tumbled out. She gave me a rash elbow. "You know that's not what I mean." Her black orbs glistened sinisterly, as though to say, this is your last warning. It was hard to help it, though, when they were such a blatantly cute couple. The dark girl filled with dryness and wit, and the ball of Gen-Z slang and sunshine.