Without Her

It was in Surrey, British Columbia, that this story took place. The world was so big for the two friends, Elle and Grace. All around them were unknown people with lives and children, all too busy to care. These people and all their ignorance leaves them a sweet bliss of perfect humility. For some, this was a beautiful world of nature and forests, and for others, not so much.

For the latter, the world was a grand mystery board game, like "Cluedo" or, "221B Baker Street." Nothing was as it seemed to be, and everything came at a cost. It was a dark world of hidden secrets and gloomy mornings. They lived in a world surrounding it's society in superficial beauty. That society was purely constructed by "beautiful people" and anyone that did not fit the expectations were considered "losers" or, "outcasts" or even, "disgusting." This world was not too different from our own.

It's been a very long time since Grace had seen a smile upon Elle's face. Everything that she once knew about her forlorn friend had faded away, and been replaced by...other thoughts. Grace didn't know what to do for her best friend. It was like Elle wasn't even there anymore. Grace now only knew a shell, or even a shadow of what Elle had once been. And now she questioned if Elle was even real.

Poor Elle was always so depressed, always from her dark, black thoughts that she never really owned. Elle doesn't believe she has her own mind, let alone brain. She was falling into a pit of broken dreams, forgotten happiness, and empty memories. The world lost its colour and vibrancy, herself turning blind with the dark clouds taking over. She became nearly deaf, the screams in her brain constantly there, voices screeching and wailing like banshees in the daylight. The only external noise she heard was from her own sobbing, some nights it continued to the break of dawn. The pain throughout every hour of the sunshine was muffled with bittersweet numbness, taking her over like the arching waves in the serene, Pacific ocean.

She relished the few nights that blessed the burdened girl as she lay awake numb, unable to feel the horse she carried on her bleeding shoulders, and all other feeling gone and out of existence. To feel numb is almost like being dead, only with breathing included. She adored these holy situations.

But soon, the frozen moments thinned out, they faded until the point that they were nonexistent. At first, she thought this meant she was better, that maybe now she can face this nightmare and all her sleepless demons that tried to haunt her in every hour. She started speaking up in class, talking to friends, even stopped going to her therapist every Friday for awhile. But this was not meant to last.

She realized so after the winter times ended, that the torment was back, the shadows in her heart were nastier, more creative, the demons were worse than ever before. And so, with every insult and disgustingly vile word that spewed from the mouths of the banshees, she started to draw blood. And in that moment, as she pulled the sharpened scissor blade across her wrist, she said,

"My skin is paper, and the silver blade will draw with my blood as its ink." And the girl of fragile glass broke once more, the cuts seeping out like a red parade of lines. Her world was broken with her lost sanity.

And then, she started to receive that falling feeling once more. She fell and fell and fell and kept falling for eternity. She screamed from her dimly lit room in her empty home, "When will this agony end?" And she received no answer from the fog of oozing black and misty-eyed grey.

So with this agony of bruised arms and cut up wrists, she started losing friends. One by one, the candles in her glass heart began going out. Each one giving an excuse, a horrible reason to why they can't see Elle anymore. But, the last, single flame stayed, and Elle hadn't the slightest idea why it was still there, flickering with its wax melting down its sides, never dying away or leaving her. It had a pair of beautiful wings, black as the night and they shine as if they were made of stardust. Smooth like silk, the feathers were gorgeous and grand. The last one candle she would call her little Raven. What a beautiful name for such an astounding bird, luxurious and designed with simple textures to create the single flicker of light within the darkness of her brain.

"Why are you still here Grace? Why do I still matter to you?" Elle asked with honest curiosity.

"Because I don't know what I would do without you. I don't have any intention on leaving you, Elle." The other girl spoke with reverence in her voice.

Oh, how Elle wanted to believe Grace. She so desperately wanted to trust her words, but with much disbelief, she did not believe or listen. "This is all a trick," the demons whispered to the girl. And she was convinced they were right. She believed the ugly creatures and their foul cunning was, because Ella just knew that this was too good to be true.

And then something happened. A horrible, unspoken act was committed. The world fell silent at that moment.

"She took her own life. No, no! This-this can't be true!" Grace cried while on the carpeted floor, tears falling down her blotched up face. She looked up once more, hoping to see the miracle of Elle standing there, glowing and smiling wide with open arms to embrace Grace within. But all the heartbroken girl saw was a darkened room with the lack of light bulbs in place. She instead saw her friends body hanging from a fan on the ceiling, bruised neck to match her own bruised soul.

But to much dismay, it was all true. Elle had died; She passed on; She flew away from earth to live with the Angels. All these things Grace heard from the multitude.

And so, with the gloomy, lost hearts of Elle's few loved ones, they all held a modest funeral.

Her gravestone was a large a slab of shining stone, black like the world that overtook her life. In the silver italics, it read. <<Eleanor Paige Fleurae>>: time: 2000-2016; beloved daughter, sister and friend.>> And in silver letters of bold, it read, "Rest in Peace"

Grace watched by silently as her friend's casket was lowered into the six feet deep hole before her headstone. And once was covered with soiled earth, the people were given permission to give flowers and cards to place on the mount of soil in front of her gravestone. Once after the Fleurae family placed their offerings. Grace caressed a bouquet of blood red roses that she lightly put leaning on Elle's headstone , where just moments ago, it was being buried with a black casket with her dead friends body carried inside of its hold.

The months passed quickly , life turning into a messy blur without the girl there to keep life together. And as the weeks passed, it came around to the day that Elle was born. So, with an unsteadied heart, Grace bought the girl another bouquet of scarlet red roses. She traveled to the cemetery where her best friend lay. Placed down the flowers to replace the wilted dead ones. Grace said with tears of silver rolling down her fallen face, looking down at the tombstone,
"Missing you here, Elle."

~The End~