Prism Book 1 (Complete)

Chapter One: Rainbow

PART 1: SPECTRUM

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Today's the day.

I'll try to make my death look like a freak accident. Something that appears to be both unplanned and unfortunate. That's what the police will say.

My eyes adjust to blinding light as I wake. I peer out my bedside window and sigh when I see it. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and a touch of purple. The rainbow taunts me, promising a cheerful day when it knows good and well what I have planned.

By now, I'm used to the void inside of me when I get up--a monster that I've named Nothingness. Instead of a beating heart and veins that carry blood, my insides are hollow and dark. Nothingness lives in a massively deep hole and eats away at every good thing inside.

"Iris!" My Aunt Rebecca calls. I sigh again. What will she think of me when I'm gone? Maybe I will leave a note, just in case the police do rule suicide.

I drag myself out of bed and walk to my desk. Grabbing the notebook I use every day at school, I rip off a page in a diagonal jag. It doesn't matter. The note doesn't have to be pretty. I just need to get my message across. As I pick up the pencil, I go through the possibilities in my mind.

Don't blame yourself. This was entirely my decision. I don't like it. She will blame herself anyway, at least for a while.

I'll be with you in spirit. Great, now it just sounds like I'm missing a birthday party or dance recital!

My note needs to be simple. Vague, even. Sorry I left you alone.

That's it. Aunt Rebecca has never been married. She's in her mid-thirties, and goes on countless dates. I don't know if she's single because she's picky, or because none of the men she goes out with are compatible with her. Ever since I was taken away from my mother and moved in with her, there's never been any one else in the picture.

After I'm gone, she will have no one.

I scribble down the words and throw the note in my desk drawer, pausing to picture Aunt Rebecca finding it. Her face morphs from confusion to despair, or maybe the other way around. Then I think of my dad, receiving the call in another part of the world. Would he mourn more because I died, or because he didn't even know me, his only daughter?

"Iris, are you even up? You have thirty minutes to be ready! I repeat, thirty minutes!"

"Alright already!"

I promised my aunt that I would go to church with her today and every fiber of my being rejects the idea, but it's the least I can do for my aunt before I end my life today.

I wash up and get dressed, finishing off by slipping on my new black jacket that I received last week on the second of February. My seventeenth birthday.

Aunt Becca waits for me at the bottom of the steps. She looks just like me, or maybe I look like her. Dark brown skin, slender, yet curvy physique, curly dark hair.

"Well, don't you look good! See what a little makeup and nice clothes can do for a person?" She smiles. I give her a half-hearted smile, and she laughs as we head out the door.

* * *

During church service, I tune out the overly energetic pastor and subtly glance around to people watch. I've always loved people watching, even though I don't necessarily love people. I love the information I receive by studying them and wondering how different or similar their lives are to mine. When I go to my favorite spot--the railroad tracks by the mall-- I have the perfect view to people watch for hours after school.