Condemned

Chapter 2

At night, that’s when my mind comes alive. When my subconscious starts to rave and burst with color. And this color isn’t always fireworks or meadows, art or anything graceful. It’s death, torture, murder—hell. All of my dreams, my nightmares, they’ve all been centered around living in such a place.

I’ve seen hell as the cliché fire pit that’s it always talked up about as. Or the version where your phobia surrounds you and you can’t escape. Your family being killed in front of you. Your closest friends being choked to death. You yourself being murdered in cold blood, torn limb from limb and put back together again only for the action to be repeated.

Oh, I’ve been to hell. But only has my mind.

Soon, Leslie Hale will be there physically. For it is her highest dream she wishes to achieve.

Off to school, Mr. Hale says,”Don’t forget your lunch. ______ will be back later this week. She misses you.”

And by ‘you’ he means Hannah.

Have a great day. Watch before you cross the street. Don’t fall asleep in class. Get a good grade on that history test.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

It’s all that fills my ears every morning, and it’s all pointed to sweet, dear little Hannah that seems to be some sort of shitty Goddess or something. I never thought I would hate a mere child so much that I would get nauseous at the thought of her.

If only I could wring her little neck and choke her, hold that scrawny, useless, son of a bitch child up to the wall until she—

“Here we are, have a good day!” Mr. Hale repeats.

I’ll try, Leslie Hale repeats to nothingness.

The day drags on. Nothing interesting catches my eye other than the usual jock or nerd, the prep or the Goth—all those school stereotypes that you see in your movies and cliché books. All those written and filmed lies. They always make school seem so interesting and fun—well, it’s not, kid. You’re going to want to slit your throat or hang yourself, throw yourself off a bridge by the end of each day no matter who you are. It’s a suffocating, nauseating form of Hell that you can physically step into without signing any damn contract or dying.

It’s amazing, when you think about it. A place as simple as walking into that makes prepubescent girls and boys and hormonal teenagers want to end their pathetic life and destroy the path that they engraved for themselves, whether it be off to a stable job and a family, or selling meth and cocaine on the street corner and flashing your tits for a twenty dollar bill and getting fucked in an alleyway by a total nasty, revolting stranger.

Once you take that knife to your throat and flick your wrist, you destroy whatever the future holds for you. And, hey, if you’re lucky, someone would care if you died.

Briana and Noah are talking about sticking a needle in the back of someone’s neck and hitting their spinal cord, causing them to die instantly. They’re talking about making a murder look like natural causes. To leave no blood spatter, leave no hand prints or poisons, odd markings or notes. Not like anyone would leave a note at a murder scene. Who the hell would be that idiotic? Someone out there probably would. Someone like Briana or Noah.

A group of girls gives us a sideways stare of horror and it looks as though they’re about to cry.

Good, Leslie’s eyes say. Cry and tell the principal about these two imbeciles again. I’ll just have to deal with the explaining once again and prevent them from getting sent to a crazy house.

It isn’t until the next day I tell them about my plan. My destiny. What the future has paved out for me.

I tell them of my plan to go to Hell.

They stare at me like I own another head.

It’s simple, Leslie Hale says, gesturing to the air. You sign up, if you’re willing. You kill yourself, you end up there anyway. You die and you end up in Hell against your will—that’s your own fault, you dumbass.

They seem to be catching on.

“Hell doesn’t seem that bad, honestly,” Briana says, twirling a lock of damaged blonde hair around her bony finger. “I just imagine it would be hot.”

True.

Noah agrees.

“Seems comfortable,” Noah states. “Can’t see any silk beds or any beds being made down there or even existing, but sleeping on the floor isn’t that terrible of an experience.”

I agree.

Sometimes I really love you guys. And by love, I meant resent. They really drive me up a wall, at times, and even though they should scare the living shit out of me, they don’t. Their rants are interesting. Different. Special, as some would say. Fucking terrifying, as the girl at the table next to us would say. Her clique agrees with a nervous shake of their fake blonde heads.

Briana and Noah switch the topic to how they would love to see the leader blonde’s neck cut off slowly with a blunt knife.

Poking at my freezer burned, lukewarm peas on my foam plate with a weak plastic spoon, I just sit there and listen. Soak in the details. Take mental notes for later use.

The usual.