Stories About Hope

The Killer

His eyes widened in shock. He had expected to open his window, like every morning, breath the fresh air like every morning, hear the birds singing in the tree that stood in the garden like every morning...

But it was totally different.



There was that girl at school nobody liked, not just because of her weird personality, which included her shyness, her distanced behaviour, her sudden outburst when she had enough of everything and screamed and cried and swore to kill them all.
Not just because of her looks either, she wasn't what you'd call thin, she was rather muscular, wore her black hair short and was flat chested so she looked like a boy sometimes, plus there were many scars on her arms and shoulders which distorted her.
It was mostly because of three boys that seemed to have fun bullying her for what she was.

Those three boys called her ugly, a butch, a good-for-nothing, an overreacting little child, gossiped about her every time they had the chance to, pushed her around, broke her things, hit her, kick her...
And all students on that school kept their distance because of this.
They heard the rumours spread by the boys, saw her reaction to the bullies, the boys bullying her and were afraid.
Afraid to be bullied the same way if they said something.
Afraid to be an outsider if they were seen with the girl.
Afraid to be as lonely and desperate as her.
So they kept their distance.
And nobody was there to help her.

So she decided to help herself.



He couldn't believe his eyes as he looked out of the window this morning, he, who was worst of those three.
There was a tree in the garden, a very old one that's roots reached deep into the ground and thick were its branches.
But there were no birds sitting on it singing their anthem of the morning like they used to do.
And it was not the fresh, new air of the morning that hit his face like it used to do.

Instead there was the smell of blood and death, a lifeless body hanging on the old tree's branches.
It was the girl.
Her arms, her shoulders, her whole body was torn by cuts she did to herself in all those sleepless nights of loneliness and despair, when she had to do something to sidetrack her from her mental pain.
New, red, still bleeding wounds and old, already bleaching scars.
The ground was covered with her blood, so was the tree's bark.
The rope around her neck had bruised her skin, revealing how her body still had struggled while her mind was determined to end it.

On the ground there lay a letter.
Curiously he opened it.

"You know...", he read.
"I often thought about what to do, when you hit me, kick me, treat me like trash.
I often wondered what I had done in the past that you hate me so much.
I was innocent, I didn't understand, but now I do.
Maybe you are happy now?
Seeing me dead...
Yeah?
Maybe you did everything, just to archive this goal?
Who knows... I don't and I don't care much longer either...
Do you even know yourself?
What you did?
How you tortured me?
Every day?
Over and over again?
I guess you don't, just like you don't know what you did to me.
How could you understand?
You have never gone through this hell...

Most people who kill themselves write in those letters that they thank the ones they loved or they are loved by...
I won't.
I just want to say one thing:
Look at me.
Look at my dead body.
Look at the scars, the cuts.

This is your work.
It's your fault, all alone.
You did this to me.
On your own free will.

And it's not even the worst you did to me.

Do you regret it?
It's too late for it and you know it.
It's too late.

You killed me.

And now you will have to live with this burden."

His hands were shaking as he put down the blood smeared piece of paper.
Her words rang through his head over and over again.
"You killed me."
"You killed me."
"You killed..."
He killed her.
He was responsible for this.
For the blood.
For this death.
For this pain she felt.
For this horrifying realization that he was a monster. A murderer.

He knew his parents would ask questions, so would the police and maybe even the other students.
It was his fault.
He would have to tell them the truth.
The truth that he killed her.
He would have to admit it.
They will hate him.

That's the burden she was talking about:
He would always know the truth, he would always feel his sin.
He might regret it because she died, but even if he wouldn't regret it for this reason, he would because he was the outsider now.
The murderer.
The killer.