Dead Jealous

Poison

Sky cautiously sniffed the bitter smell again. It certainly didn't smell like the pungent, spoiled scent of old perfume that she had smelled before. If she knew any better, she'd say it was a rat poison or other toxic chemical, but Sky didn't want to come to conclusions.

She had to ask herself, though: had the perfume gone off? Or was poison intentionally hidden in that innocent little bottle?

She felt a surge of frustration. If only Tara was there, Sky would actually know what happened.

But she wasn't there. She was dead. Someone had killed her. Unless...no. She couldn't let herself think it. But that bottle was, indeed, an ingenious hiding spot. No one would think to look at it, apart from the user itself. Maybe she had committed suicide and planned on poison but instead stabbed herself?

She sunk into the desk chair, holding her head in her hands. She was so fucking tired of this mess. What the hell had happened? What was wrong enough with Tara to do this to herself? And why, oh why, was Sky there, possibly witness to this tragedy or crime?

Sky finally got up and went to bed early. She couldn't stomach dinner.

She lay in bed, unable to slow her racing mind or drift to blissful sleep. At one point, she was dozing off and she felt like she was falling. She jolted awake, heart racing, and she didn't doze off again for an hour.

That night, once she finally fell asleep, she dreamt that Tara and Christian were standing either side of her. For some reason, both of them held lethal, shiny knives out to her.

They both said in unison, voices robotic and without emotion, "Choose who you will kill."

"What do you mean? Why would I kill one of you?!" she said. The sound of their dead voices made her nervous and want to shake them.

"Choose," they said monotonously.

"No!"

"Fine," their robot voices said, and they both plunged the knives into their chests. She was paralyzed and couldn't cry, or scream, or help them. All she could do was watch as their blood soaked their shirts and they died on the ground in front of her, skin paling and rotting and withering off their bones.

When she woke up, tears were still wet on her cheeks.

She eventually got out of bed and went downstairs to make breakfast. She was pouring a bowl of muesli when suddenly a memory resurfaced and she gasped.

Sky is eating her favourite brand of muesli. She turns her back to the bowl to pour hot water into a mug, to make some tea.

She turns back to her breakfast and carries it to the table. Tara sits there already, eating a piece of toast and watching Sky.

She puts a spoonful of muesli in her mouth and is about to swallow when she tastes bitterness. She spits it out, and looks in her breakfast. Looking closer, she can see oil-like formations on the top of the milk.

"What the fuck?" she says. Maybe the muesli is off. She suddenly looks up to see Tara watching her quietly. A smile slips from her face and is replaced with a worried and confused expression, but it is too late. Sky knows Tara put something in her muesli. And on the day of the dance, too!

"What did you put in my food, Tara?" she yells.

"What do you mean?" Tara frowns. "Whats wrong?"

"Don't screw with me, bitch. You slipped something in my cereal. Why? Huh? And why have you been such a weirdo lately?!"

Tara's innocent expression slipped.

"Bitch, I did it because it should be ME going to the dance with a boyfriend. Christian should be going out with me! And I should be going with our friends, not you. You stole them from me!" she started screaming. "You have no right! You brought this on your fucking self!"

Then a wall went back up in her mind and she couldn't remember any more.

Oh, god. So her mum was right; there had been some tension - if that's what you could call it - between them that month. .l

And what had Tara meant by saying she had stolen her friends? Maybe Sky was right in the suicide theory. Tara could have been suffering from paranoia and depression.