Strawberry Leaves

Prologue

A steady shower of rain drizzled from the grey sky, speckling the sidewalk until puddles littered the streets and umbrellas sheltered every inch of the now wet pathway. Amongst the grey, winter palette of those who rushed out the building, a girl with a clear umbrella stood. Her hazel eyes downwards and hands clutching tightly on the umbrella's handle, she trembled against the slightest winds.

A part of her mind desperately wished for the warmth of the building residing behind the doors she rested against, but stubbornness, combined with exhaust, of her mind, forced her legs still. For the past several days, numerous all-nighters and shifts at work chipped away at her mind. She constantly saw shadows flickering from the corners of her vision; hushed whispers snapped in and out like whips that licked her sanity raw; and her hair was constantly in a messy bun with strands blowing gently in the air.

For a brief moment, a sudden exhaust passes through her entire body, and she slumps against the brick behind her, dropping her umbrella before desperately grasping for something -- anything -- to hold onto. The voices rip into her, scathing comments now conquering what crumbling bastion of her mind that remained. A panic attack surfaces from her defeat, a great Leviathan emerging from the murky insanity of the now corrupted ruins. She's breathing hard; hard enough that a dry heave erupts from her throat, a guttural scream nearly escaping as bile threatened to rise. Fear wraps it's firm, resolute fingers tightly around her neck, arms, legs, torso, jaw, fingers, and heart, it's nails cutting crescent shaped scars into every last inch of her skin.

A figure approaches and her panic turns to horror as flesh fell off of their body in clumps, with their image flaking off until only a faceless skeleton remained. They try to touch her, to corrupt her, but she runs. She runs and runs and runs; she runs even though her eyes are burning, she runs even though the voices will never leave her alone, she runs so she can regain control again. She's not afraid anymore; she's horrified. She's numb and panicking and the only command echoing beyond the voices -- a command she wasn't even sure was her's anymore -- is telling her to run.

Ever since she saw the childish doodles scrawled across her pastel blue room, trees whispered to her, the beating of beetles' wings seemed louder --harsher even. It was written in crayon, she remembered, the color Strawberry Leaves was missing from her crayon set. She was absolutely obsessed with cool colors, but she absolutely adored blue. Somewhere online in the deep crevices of the Internet, she read that blue was a soothing color; it alleviated stress and made you more calm. Ironic how the meaning turned in on itself when she saw the words.

It wasn't as if they were from a particular piece of poetry or part of some novel horror story; they weren't words that reminded humanity of its downfall --no, they were words written just for her. They were simple. They came on a drizzly Monday afternoon, after the thunder and loud, honking cars. They came before she was suppose to get ice cream in the name of yet another successful semester. They came when she was calm, collected, and content. They were oh so simple, yet alarmingly terrifying.

I'm here.