Author Games Compilation [Cycle 1]

Task 7 - All is Still (NN)

Thresholds: the equivalent of relief. They offer the greatest release mankind can ask for, the greatest chance at granting weight off one's shoulder. Look at it this way: say a prisoner has been locked up for twenty-five years time. If he's been sitting in an orange jumpsuit, eating nothing but bare scraps and getting his ass beat constantly - or maybe the other way around - he has wasted 219,000 hours of his life. Over two hundred thousand hours of his life: gone, gone with the wind that breathes frost into his cell. So when he passes that threshold, it's gonna be like the angel's have drifted down with their lovely voices to sing "hallelujah" in his ears.

But then again, would getting out after that long really be such a good thing? A relief, yes, but what about the few hours following his release? His family may be long dead, or long gone, one of the two. People he once loved would've grown to hate him for whatever crime he'd committed. Tough time getting a job, starting a new life. He'd be forced to live on the streets. No walls to fight the cold, no love to keep him warm. He would be alone, battered by the elements and the whispers of those around him.

And what could be worse than that?

If he were framed.

The threshold wasn't so relieving after all, now, was it? It only took him to a place worse than what he thought was Hell at its finest.

Reality.

The sirens blazing in the distance were certainly something far from reality, that Naomi was sure of. There was nothing. No one was coming for them. No one was going to pull them past the thresholds of this school, no one was going to whisk them off to a safe place, no one was going to end this hell that had become her own reality.  

Even Radley was fuel to the eternal fire that burned her flesh from the bone. Ever since that dream, Naomi's mind kept floating adrift to the kiss, to his anger at her response, to the confusion he'd suddenly implanted on her brain. It was eating up her ability to think of anything other than itself, consuming her mind, draining every last bit of energy she had to divert her train of thought. It was a tumor, and she was subject to its cancer.

It hurt  her.

There was a sizzling ache in her chest, a soreness inflaming the flesh around her heart, a kind that made blood fizzle every time it flowed on through. Usually, she'd be able to cure this ache with the medicine of her own warm voice and nonsensical jokes. But now her mask had broken, and with it fell the guards around her heart and mind. There was nothing to repress the pain, there was nothing to repress the memories.

But she was gonna damn well try to repress them. If she had to ignore the sirens, she would. The blaring in the distance did nothing to relieve her; it only brought memories up to the surface. You don't just get all artsy and craftsy and make a mask for no reason, she thought bitterly, glitter and feathers, pinks and purples. All of it's supposed to make you forget.

It was better to think of these things than stare at splatters of blood on the art room's cabinets. She told herself it was just paint, and she might've been right. Kids always flung paint. That or Andrew came and rubbed his face all over the cabinet to clean his face after what I did to him.

Usually, such a thought would pull a wave of laughter from Naomi, but now it seemed that sort of miracle was impossible. The "tumor" sucked up any sense of humour she had left. Not even the zombie apocalypse team consisting of Lady Gaga and Thomas Brodie-Sangster can save me now.  

Naomi moved her feet mindlessly to the teachers desk, a teacher she once knew well. All she saw was the sight of a puddle of blood that had leaked out from behind the teachers desk, long dried, and a ghostly pale hand. She turned away immediately, not because of this death, but because of the ring she saw on his finger.