A little girl sits at the bottom of a winding staircase. Her soft blue dress and flowing blonde pigtails shine under the soft light above. The house is unfamiliar, irrelevant. I had never seen it before. I took a tentative step toward the strange girl.
"Hello?" I called to her. She didn't answer, choosing to simply tilt her head as a confused dog would.
I tried again. "Are you lost?" Still no answer, only this time a smile split her face, and chilled me right to the bone. I took another step forward.
The room goes black. The darkness creeps and crawls across my skin, making me uneasy. My eyes begin to adjust, vague shapes coming to life amongst the black canvas that is my vision.
When the lights come back, they are dimmer than before. The girl stands in front of the stairs, now decaying and looking increasingly unstable. Her soft blue dress is now stained red and her sweet smile drips with crimson happiness. Both her dress and her hair move in a startlingly powerful windstorm I cannot feel. She seems unfazed, and takes a step toward me. Cold spreads throughout my body and fear seeps into my veins. I take a harsh and unsteady step backward.
The girls eyes light up and she throws her head back. Oh, I could never forget those vibrant green eyes. Both the noise of her snapping neck and the startling screech that is released from her mouth startle me.
———————-
I bolt upright, clutching my chest. My breathing is uneven and my hands are shaking from my latest nightmare. I've always had these nightmares. Startling, realistic, eerie, terrible nightmares. They haunt my dreams and stick in my thoughts like an unwanted parasite throughout the day. How I've survived like this for so long is a mystery.
Concealing the dark circles under my eyes has been and always will be a serious issue. The only way I could ever rid myself of them completely is to get a few nights of peaceful, magical sleep. The problem is, how do you sleep through hell?
The darkness under my eyes disgusts me. Apparently, it disgusts others as well, as it's the source of never ending torture I receive throughout my academic career. Aspen West is my main issue.
She started this all back in third grade, with her taunts of "Iris the raccoon," and telling me it looks like I've been punched in the face. After all these years she continues, and she hasn't even developed any new insults. She's infamous for her money and her charm, but I think she has the personality of a box of raisin bran, bland and hard to tolerate. She's also known for her lackeys, Jess and Celeste, who I'm willing to bet are the only reason she hasn't flunked out of school yet.
I have classes with Celeste, and she's incredibly smart. Sadly, one of those classes, cooking basics, also includes Aspen and is half of the reason I've considered setting myself on fire. The other half of the time though, Aspen tries to beat me to it. At this point you're probably thinking to yourself, oh Iris where do you get these wild stories from? But that's the thing. This isn't a story- well I mean it is but it isn't- you know what I mean.
There's plenty of witnesses. It's been 8 fucking years of torture from her, on top of years of nightmares. Why don't you just tell the school? Or your parents? It's simple: Aspen West, or more specifically the West family in general, essentially owns this town. She chose her lackeys as those whose families also have heavy influence. So if I were to accuse her of bullying me? I could kiss my cozy-middle-class-life ass goodbye. They would slander our name, and my dear mother's business would be destroyed. I'd suck it up for her- she's lost enough, she doesn't need to lose her business.
But enough about me. Enough about my sob story- you want action: the gritty details. The glitz, the gore, the tears, the disgusting. But do you really want to know?
Don't say I didn't warn you.
