Jane Mattingson is contended with her life. She was living in an extravagant mansion with her loving father and annoying but secretly doting brother where reality seems more of an illusion. She couldn't ask for anything more. Or so she thought. As a...
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JANE MATTINGSON
How did things turn out this way again? I don't quite recall - save for a few bits and pieces that would pop in my mind every once in a while - the events that occurred at the funeral.
"Will you please tell me what happened?" Inquired Adrianna Diane, my appointed therapist, as she eyed me curiously through her lenses, possibly even judgingly. Her voice was soft and compassionate but I knew all to well it was a mere part of her job to pretend as though she genuinely cared or understood her patients. "Take your time. I don't want you rushing into things. Processing what happened before is a troubling experience."
My lips subconciously parted to answer her pending question but the words I conjured up remained stuck in my throat. I was scared. I wanted to say. Really scared. Scarred as well.
"Don't leave out any detail. Tell me in your own time." Her tone was still as gentle as earlier but it was doing nothing to me. Even her reassurance was futile. If anything was coming to a result, they were making me wary. She sounded too motherly, too feminine, too safe. It sickened me, somehow.
"I saw . . ." I begin in a shattered croak, voice broken and traumatized. "Everything that happened."
And I'd do anything to forget it.
She nodded slowly in false understanding. "It must have been difficult for you."
You must have said that to all your other patients. Do you think saying that will make me feel any better?
Regardless of what my brain was urging me to tell this woman, I settled by nodding back and biting my tongue to refrain from snapping. "Everything was going so well. The procession went smoothly and we cried, that was supposed to be it." I started. "Then the person beside my brother suddenly fell to the ground. At first we thought he just passed because he felt overwhelmed but upon closer inspection, there was actually a small hole on his chest. A bullet hole. He wasn't breathing anymore so it didn't take long for us to know he's dead."
I took in a deep breath. "I don't know when it started but then there were bullets shooting at all of us. I didn't see any of the gunmen so I guess they were shooting at all of us from a distance. Conrad Mattingson - that's my brother - pulled me behind a large post to keep both of us safe. He was probably the only one who thought of hiding because everyone else was just running aimessly and trying to get to their cars. It obviously didn't go well. Whoever those people shooting at us must be freakishly good because from the reports I received from the police, everyone died from a single bullet aimed straight at their heart. If I was crazy, I would have thought they were trained to kill to perfection."
