Dark Paradise

Epilogue~

Epilogue~

Inspirational Songs: Youth Lagoon- 17

The day of the funeral was quiet and stormy. The only noises available were the distant rumbles of thunder echoing in the background. Celeste cried as they lowered Lydia into her grave. The casket was white with red streaks on it from all the tomatoes thrown at it. "She would've liked the red." Celeste murmured. "It suited her well, even if it was the only color she ever wore."

It'd been a week since Chasity left that Celeste finally broke. She went back to that hole and peered down. She threw a rock into the hole, and waited for three long, painful hours before giving up on hearing it reach the bottom.

At night, she would find herself in a bar, drowning her soul with liquor and men until Leah came and took her home. She became so scared of herself that she holed herself up in her room and cut words into her skin. "Fear" and "oblivion" were only two of the words she'd sacrificed into her skin.

Whenever Celeste was drunk, she would speak to Leah alone and attempt to make sense. She never did. It took her a long while, around five months, before she spoke to Leah out of her drunken stupors, saying, "See? This is what happens when I get too attached to things."

Leah just stared at Celeste. "What do you mean?" she asked gently. "What happens?"

"They leave me?" Celeste spoke, as if the answer was obvious. "They leave without saying goodbye? Or they die in the line of duty."

"Lydia would have wanted you to be strong for her." Leah commented solemnly. "And I know Chasity wouldn't have wanted you to hurt yourself."

"Why do people leave without saying goodbye?" Celeste asked, tears brimming her eyes. Leah shook her head. "I couldn't tell you that. Maybe... they just forget?"

"So the other person has to suffer through it? That's pathetic." Celeste got up out of bed and walked over to her bedroom's window.

"I left the Hearts Kingdom without saying goodbye." Leah recounted. "Was that stupid? Was that pathetic?"

"Hardly." Celeste snorted. "You didn't have to say goodbye to that wretched place and their queen. Just be thankful that the Queen of Diamonds took you in." Leah smiled and walked up next to Celeste, staring out of the window with her. "I'll be thankful for the rest of my existence."

"Look at the weather," Celeste said. "It's so gloomy."

"Yes, it is." Leah agreed. The sky was covered in greyish black clouds, and rain was beginning to fall. "Springtime is a rainy season indeed."

"What moth is it now? May?"

"May fourth, I think." counted Leah. "Why?"

"It's been five months since Chasity has been seen." said Celeste. Leah sighed and looked up at Celeste. "You still believe she's out there somewhere?"

"She's just afraid to come out of hiding." Celeste said sternly. "I feel like if she knows that it's safe to come back out, she'll do just that."

"What do you think would be safety for her?" Leah asked Celeste, furrowing her eyebrows. Fitz was sitting outside in the now-pouring rain.

"Probably once the Queen of Hearts is dead." Celeste suggested. Leah stared. "You mean... once she's been killed? Murdered?"

Celeste nodded. "Shall we consult the Queen of Diamonds on this matter?"

Leah nodded, and they did.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Selene drove me to the hospital the next morning. The drive there was long and agonizing, and I had a panic attack once or twice on the way there. Selene kept pulling over and asking if I was okay, and when I was calmed down enough to continue down the highway, I let her know.

“You know,” she said over Skylar Grey’s Words. “I sung to you every night you were in that coma.” I looked at her, tears filling my perfectly made up eyes.

“Really, you did?” I asked her. She nodded at me, and that made me smile. I knew it wasn't just a feeling. “I would sing you Comatose, and hope that you would sing back. Then, the night you woke up, I didn’t even expect it. I thought I was starting to hear things.”

We sat in silence the rest of the way there. The doctors told us that I was perfectly healthy and I could start school back whenever I felt necessary. Of course, I went back on Monday. But that didn’t necessarily change the nightmares that had gotten exceedingly worse, or the way everyone looked at me and pitied me like I was some lost puppy. I got so mad I threw a drumstick at someone in band who asked me if I was okay to play that day.

I wanted to choke the next person who thought it was okay to pity me. It wasn’t, and soon the whole school knew it and stopped staring at me like I was the most pathetic excuse for a human being. Selene knew better than to pity me, but she knew when enough physical or mental exertion was enough.

My mother had begun hiring a therapist about two weeks after I went back to school. She told me I had a bad case of inner turmoil inside of me and I needed to rid myself of them if I was to live on happily. I saw my therapist every Friday after school. Selene came along with me for every single visit. She sat in the waiting room until I was done with my session, and then I would tell her everything that had happened behind that closed door made of soundproof one-way glass.

Then winter break came along, and the visit I had with my therapist right before Christmas really struck a chord in my mind. She told me that when she had put me under, I had talked to her about Blackpool. She said that I was so comfortable talking about that world, it was actuslly sort of horrifying. I still didn’t know if Blackpool really existed, or if the place was just another figment of my imagination. But I didn’t care. Whether it was real or not, the memories of those Victorian British teen girls with nasty secrets lived on inside my mind.

On Christmas day, Selene surprised me with a trip to New York for New Year’s Eve. We went, of course, and on the first moment of the New Year, we spent that time cuddling close in the snow and cold in Times Square, our hot breath tickling each other’s cheeks as we kissed. Of course, we took pictures, and Genevieve put them in a scrapbook that she said she would give to the two of us when we graduated from Ocean Pointe High.

On the day of my first new-year visit with my therapist, she told me something I had never forgotten. She said, “You spoke of a place called Blackpool in your sessions last year. Now, for you to cope with losing this place in your life, you should write about it. Create a story. Share it with the world.”

I had already sat awake in my room for the longest nights, just thinking of what Blackpool would sound like in a story format. Then, I couldn’t take that denial of it any longer. I sat up in bed, and trying not to wake the sleeping teenage girl next to me in bed, I grabbed my laptop and opened up a website called wattpad.com.

To write a story of Blackpool, I had to be precise, but not too detailed it was boring… like Twilight was. I thought of a good place to begin in my story. It seemed like the perfect place, as I understood how to put my dreams into writing and make them feel real to the people around me.

Genevieve sat up from her bed across the room. “Chase… what the hell are you doing? It’s three a.m., you should be sleeping. We have school tomorrow.” She said to me.

I looked up from my computer and stared at her, smiling. “I’m doing what my therapist told me to do.” I said. “I’m writing about Blackpool.” Genevieve rolled her eyes and laid back down, sighing.

I looked over at Selene, sleeping soundly next to me. I grinned at her and whispered I her ear, “You and Celeste… are exactly like each other. That will be prominent. I promise you that.” I turned back to my screen, and ran my fingers over the keys with an extreme quickness as I began to write.

I ran as fast as I could. I didn't know how long this could keep up for, but I knew that I had to hold out as long as possible. My mind raced with a million thoughts as I dodged every tree and brush. Dogs barked behind me, men's voices circled me. But still, I continued to run. I had to, or else I may never stay alive. I understood just well the issue at hand…

The End