Underlying Truths

Underlying Truths - Chapter Two - "Emails"

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Underlying Truths - Chapter Two - "Emails"

I woke up that following Monday morning, five days after I initially got the gruesome image of my own dead body, and grunted in exhaustion. The way that these last few days had played out was not exactly how I had anticipated my days to be after a devastating death. For sure, I had foreseen the mornings where you just wanted to stay in bed and cry and the nights when you wish you could have said and done more with them before they had to leave this life. What I didn't see was that image suddenly coming out of nowhere and haunting my every thought. I didn't see the harassing messages repeatedly sent to me via chat messages daily--the screen name they came from never being the same one even twice. I also hadn't expected the sudden emails I got every midnight narrating every move I had made that same day.

The emails were the new development in these happenings that were scaring and peaking my paranoia more than anything. They didn't go into the very specific details, but they were specific enough to make me glance behind and around me almost every minute of the day. They were formatted like logs. There would be a time and an action. It always began with me leaving my house and when. Then, it would go on as the times I went and left work, the times I went to or left a shop, the times I got in and out of my car, the times I went in and out of my house, the times I went in and out of other people's houses, and the list went on and on. Any major move I made was there along with the time it was completed down to the very minute.

The feeling of being watched constantly hung over me and I didn't know what to do. The emails came every midnight, right to the second. I didn't know who to talk to or who to run to. Will and I still hadn't quite fixed things between us yet, though I knew we would forgive each other as soon as the first words of apologies left our mouths. I couldn't tell Spencer because I knew that he had enough to deal with without my own problems being added to the pile. My parents were out of the question since I could put their own safeties in danger if I got them involved. Everyone else simply couldn't be trusted. My trust wasn't something that I handed away easily. It took a lot for me to truly believe in a person and learn to be comfortable to lean on them when I needed to.

As I lied on my bed that morning and stared up once again at my ceiling, I felt completely and utterly hopeless. I've heard stories of things beginning like this and ending horrifyingly. I just felt so cornered and faith was not something I could find right now. I wanted to cry and have someone make it all better, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. The tears in my eyes were already welling up from fear, frustration, despair, and solitude. I willed them away and desperately begged myself to believe that I still had a reason to live. For the time being, I succeeded.

I sighed before running my fingers under my eyes, wiping away the drops of salt water that managed to escape and roll down my cheeks. I took a couple deep breaths before heaving myself off my bed and walking towards my own bathroom. I opened the left drawer immediately under the granite of the room's countertops and my eyes searched for my hairbrush and a hair tie. Just as I grabbed the brush and found a dark purple elastic, my eyes fell upon the dark maroon nail polish that were painted on my toes in that sickening picture. I grabbed the small bottle and threw it in the small trashcan, vowing never to buy one that even came close to that color.

I brought my gaze up to the mirror in front of me. My hair was thinning from the great amount of stress that managed to accumulate over such a short period of time. The bags under my eyes were a clear depiction of my recent trouble with falling asleep. My face was unusually pale from the recurrent bouts of fear that just crept up on me at random times of the day. I glanced at my reflection, seeing the pathetic image of what used to be me. I shook my head dejectedly and began washing my face.