breakout✗d.d

Chapter 7 - Dreaming

Sitting at my house, surrounded by my family and friends. I'm on the sofa with a half empty glass of wine bobbing near my lips. My younger sister, Leah, sipping at hers with a respectable posture. Leah was 7 years younger than me but I was closer to her than I was to my elder brother, Mike, who was only 2 years older than me or my elder sister, Amelia, who was 5 years older than me.

I scanned my eyes around the rest of the room, my parents were there, my aunt and uncle with my baby cousin that I had met once before I left. My former best friend, Alice, sat by herself in the corner. She looked lonely. She didn't have a drink like everyone else and was on the floor whilst everyone else was on some kind of posh chair. She sat where the room seemed to darken and cool. She was crying and shivering, he knees pulled tightly to her chest as she ever so slightly rocked back and forth, he head hitting where the two walls met each time she leant back. When I knew Alice she was always so cheerful, always had a smile on and if you asked me to describe her I would simply say: Hates the cold, loves her wine. She wasn't an alcoholic, or at least she wasn't last time I saw her, but it's the only bloody alcohol she ever drank! Never had beer, vodka, whiskey, champagne only red wine. And she never ever went out in the cold, she hated winter, the night even autumn or snow or wind or rain, she despised it all. I noticed her weary eyes, as if her sanity was peeling off at the edges with every tear that rolled down her dim, lifeless face. No longer with rosy cheeks and an enchanting, courtly smile but the opposite.

Everyone around me was gossiping and laughing but I had no idea what they were saying. I could hear words but nothing made sense and I didn't know why. Everyone looked at me now and again, their expressions changing every time they laid their eyes on me. However, I couldn't bring myself to look at any of them directly, I just kept my eyes on Alice. She didn't look up once, didn't say anything didn't move from where she was, what the hell was wrong with her?

I decided I should speak up. I opened my mouth and attempted to say Alice's name but no words came from my mouth. Just sort of mumbles, a growl almost, hard to describe but whatever I said, I didn't mean to. Everyone in the room then looked at me, including Alice. I looked directly at everyone this time. This was not my family and friends. Everyone, even that baby, had fully black eyes. An endless depth of ink, sorrow, and pain. I could not see whites of their eyes nor the vessels that flowed through them. They were depths of hell holding a thousand souls yet there were none to be seen. The charcoal colour, swirling in the sockets, staring right into mine. I then noticed that Alice's were not like the others, they were the same as they used to be, her eyes the green of admirable, glistening emeralds, flecked with the colour of nutmeg.