Eloise - the secret behind the mask

Chapter 1

Beep. Beep.

     The alarm woke me up as it did every night from my dreamless sleep, gloomy, sad, and alone.

I rarely dreamed of anything, which from a certain point of view wasa good thing, given that the only images which rarely entered my mindby night were of monsters, shadows, dark presences, and strangesymbols.

     My nights were either alone and abandoned or filled with terror.

     I opened my eyes and switched off the alarm.  I turned andnoticed that the space in the bed next to me was empty.

     Mark stayed out until late with who knows who, doing who knowswhat, but I wasn't really interested to know who he was with and whathe was doing.

     Sometimes he stayed out the whole night and he would only returnin the early afternoon of the following day without so much as anexplanation or word of kindness.

     These were things I no longer expected and had ceased to ask forand expect quite a while ago.

     I got up and headed towards the kitchen to drink a sip of orangejuice:  I reached the small room which divided the bedroom from thekitchen and felt a cold draught of air on my body, which came fromthe open window in front of me.

     I watched the curtains move, fluttering in the wind, dancing asif they were alive, as if they wanted to run away, run away dancing.

     They inflated and deflated, they swayed to the right and thenthe left, they intertwined, they rose and fell, all accompanied bythe play of shadows which had formed thanks to the brightness of theMoon.

     It is nature which creates in the most simple and special waythe small wonders which surround us.

     And in that gentle breeze and in the dim light provided by theMoon I felt a little less lonely and a little more protected.

     I approached the window cautiously, as if I were afraid ofdestroyed that wonderful dance. I could almost hear the notes of 'Moonlight' in the background,  and I started humming to myself.

     I opened the window a bit more and looked down.

     It was well past midnight and the street was almost completelydeserted:  the cars, the dogs barking, the thousand voices of peopleintermingling during the day were gone.  They were all asleep under asafe roof.

     I felt, though that nothing was safe, and that everything onlyexisted in the present moment.

     I looked down again, I put both hands on the parapet and Ilifted myself up using my arms as levers.

     One foot and then the other, I  curled up into a ball, and myarms were still poised on the metal railing.

     Then I let myself go.

     I felt my arms and legs slip way almost at the same time. Attracted by the force of gravity, I fell down, and still furtherdown, with the wind rushing through my hair, with my heart in mythroat, and my limbs rigid.

     They were rigid from fear.

     It was only in that moment that I became aware that I wasscared, scared of dying, scared of  no longer being able toexperience anything wonderful, scared of  dying such an horrendousdeath after having wasted by brief life.

     I wanted to do something with my life before dying.

     And so I tried to shout, to ask for help, but no sound came outof my mouth.

Everything spun round fast in front of me.  I could no longer makeout shapes, I could only see the pavement below me which was rapidlygetting nearer.

     I wanted to close my eyes to not have to witness the impact, butI could not do it.

     The ground was ever closer.

     Rapidly ever closer.

     I could already feel the pain and the shapeless stain thatformed in front of my wide, fear filled eyes seemed like it wasbecoming a living thing.

     That symbol, so alive in my memory, and yet so strange.

     It was a symbol I had already seen, yes, but what was it?

     What did it mean?

The pavement was close now, 2 metres, 1 metre.  And it was allover.