Soul Chains

My Key is Lost

When my soul threatened to flit away

I bound it tight, with lock and chain

Sadly, now, when I need it most

I have long since lost the key

Nowadays, I leave myself

To drown in my emotions

Since the day this first began

I've needed swimming lessons

As my soul begins to struggle

I feel an aching in my heart

And I know without a doubt

I've long been living in soul chains

That drown my heart and mind

~Sammy's Diary

"Samantha Mortimer Coraline, get down here right now! I demand an explanation for this letter!"

I looked up from my diary, eyes wide. My thoughts froze momentarily, and I forgot what I had been doing.

She had found the letter before I had.

"No, no, no, no, no," I muttered. She couldn't have found it. She couldn't have. It was a letter from a college she applied to, secretly. She was only in eighth grade, but she was smart enough that, by now, she could have been running a major corporation. Her mother, however, wanted her to stay in school and not skip any grades. She thought I needed friends. I could never have friends, though. No one could ever be on my mentality and maturity level, let alone an eighth grader.

"Not now, Mum, I'm writing in my diary," I yelled down to the first floor. It was a last-ditch attempt to distract her from the letter, even though I never wrote in it. She couldn't know I applied to every college in the world, hoping to get out my own oppressive house. I applied for every scholarship as well, enough so that my mother wouldn't have any say in my decision. However, I had overlooked one major flaw in my plan: college letters.

"I swear, Morty, if you don't get down here this instant, I will never let you see the light outside ever again!"

I gulped. Her threats were, sadly, never empty, as I had learned through living with her. And she knew that the nickname Morty made me angry, so that meant this couldn't be any normal college letter. I flung open my door, which had on it a sign that read "24 hour closed-circuit television surveillance", and trudged down the stairs. Now, before I continue, I will say this: I have never had a normal life, and I never will, but what I saw that day was abnormal, even by my standards.

My mother was sitting in the dining room at our night-black dining table, staring straight ahead. I walked down cautiously, taking each step one at a time.

"Mum," I said, a bit confused, "Are you quite all right?"

I walked up to her. She didn't move an inch. I don't mean she was just sitting still, breathing, but actually still, like she was a statue. Her hands were folded on each other on the table, sitting on top of a single letter. I held my breath, and waved my hand in front of here eyes. Not even a twitch. I held the back of my hand to her cheek, suddenly worried about her. Her skin was a sickly pale, and her temperature was dropping by the second. I tried to lift her hands off the letter, when, all of a sudden, her eyes fixated on me.

I shrieked and jumped back, completely terrified.

"Mum?"

It was her eyes that were scaring me the most. They weren't their usual colour. They had turned a repulsive yellow, the kind of yellow that reminds you of Yellow Fever. And, worst of all, they were staring right at me.