A Silent Happening

Chapter 1

What does being a good person mean? Does it mean simply saying 'good morning' to your neighbours on the way to work? Does it mean donating a bunch of clothes because you don't need them anymore? Does it mean not murdering?

But what happens when a murderer is also the person who donates clothes to the unfortunate; bakes them warm, chocolate chip cookies on a cold winter's day or smiles every morning to his giddy oblivious next-door neighbours? Does that make them a bad person or a good person?

Honestly, are there even two clear categories?

As I lay on the highest hill I could escape to, these thoughts pound into my head one after the other with no sense of time, they just keep riding on the wave that crashes through my mind every time I'm surrounded by silence. But not here, here it's as if I'm the atmosphere and music is clobbering through me, through the whole universe.

It has started.

Let me explain, silence is something common in the world now, or at least in the part where I call home. Ulkaya has become a city of zombies you could call it, no they aren't dead, but ever since the war, ever since all the deaths... there isn't much to talk about anymore.

But here, the sky is still bright and blue like it was before everything happened, the sea is still a scary dark vast full of life that we can't even imagine and the grass? Oh, the grass is still as luscious as it was 8 years ago when we came to do barbeques on it.

Simpler. Easier. Times.

It's just all different, no one has anything new to talk about, no one wants to find anything new to talk about honestly and it fucking kills me.

I ease into the slow rock that's surrounding me and just let go, I mean if you don't want to live in silence then listen to something right?

The breeze tangles my hair and sweeps it onto my face, the greyish blue strands get stuck onto my cheek relentlessly holding on as the wind tries to move them again.

Fresh clean wind.

It feels like minutes have passed but I know I've been staring at the clouds for probably hours by now...

The tree that so generously offers me shade dances along with the wind, my eyes dance along with it as I follow the green leaves that are so full of life, wishing I could mimic their joy.

I can't believe I have a pink dress on, my mind must be consumed by the pretty pictures that I so imaginatively paint in my head. Pretty in pink! Funny.

A muffling sound takes over as if the invisible speakers are being suffocated to their fateful deaths.

I sit upon the once heavenly green grass that has now turned into a muddy brown mess. No more radiant flowers to sneeze from, instead fleshless snakes with neon spots grind their bones into the ground trying to make their way up my legs.

I kick and scream naively, but no one hears me.

How could they, I'm trapped in my own mind.

Suddenly, the tree that gave me comfort now howls in pain not understanding where the beautiful painting that existed a minute ago vanished too. The silence is slowly eating away at me and my body starts to sink into the mud. First, my toes seep under the gooey texture and quickly suck my legs in with them. My arms and torso aren't far behind and I take one last deep breath before I go under.

Before I go home.

My back is met with hard, wet concrete before my mind regains consciousness and with my sore body, I try to make it up onto two unstable feet. I'm met with a shattered mirror that reflects my mental state to my atrocious physical one. No longer do I have a breeze blowing into my hair but twigs and dead leaves are tangled into the brown mess that sits on my head. I'd always wanted dark blue hair but in reality, I'm too much of a coward to even bother trying.

The pretty pink dress is replaced with ripped apart blue jeans and a bralette that can't keep itself together. My larger frame is bruised and cut all over, my curves shivering from their exposed state.

And the silence? Well, the silence is deafening.

I fumble around for my headphones quickly trying to cover up dampen air that lingers near my ear. I'm still in the alleyway that I went 'under' in, I guess no one moved me away this time. I see the garbage truck in the distance coming in for its 05:00 am morning routine to pick whatever broken or disposed of thing they can find in these parts of town.

I was under a lot longer this time.

I pull out the bag of pills and see I only have a couple left. No, no, no that won't last me till the end of the week. How am I supposed to go to work and still function right at home?

You must think at this point that I'm some junkie with control issues and a scrambled brain that has no sense of anything really. Well yeah' guess I sort of am.

*bzz bzz*

I take out my phone and see that I have about a hundred missed calls from my mum and dad asking where I am even though I told them I was staying at Tyler's house. Fucking Tyler must have told them that I wasn't at his place' his goody-two-shoes act is really getting on my nerves lately.

I start making my way out of the alley and light myself a cigarette when someone strong walks into me and knocks it out of my hand.

"Hey! Watch where you're going dumbass."

He completely ignores my comment and continues walking away. People can be such idiots, rude dumbass idiots. I realise my playlist kicks into Lana Del Ray gear and go along with it' forgetting about the incredulously ignorant asshole who wasted a cigarette.

You see, my world actually reflects the zombie-filled post-war apocalyptic vibe that has me so desperate to escape reality. The sun can no longer shine at full capacity because of all the dust particles that choke the sky, the sun simply doesn't smile anymore and is instead going through a moody teenage faze that it just doesn't want to get out of. To put it bluntly, the grass is dead, its life sucked out of it the day humans decided to be reckless, selfish jerks. And the sea? Well, it's just angry at the world, and it never stops reminding us of it.

All the city has become a maze of dark alleyways, one more full of lowlife rats than the next but you know. Home is home. It doesn't mean I have to deal with it like everyone else but still.

Well, I can't even go home now since classes start in two hours and then I have to work in the afternoon... the good thing about community college is that the hours are flexible so I really do as I please. Okay, I'll go to class for an hour and then sleep this high off as fast as possible before going to work. I love planning things. It's fun.

My boots drag along behind me as I try to keep my body upright to make it to the bus station. I light up another cigarette and... wow you know what fuck it, class is way too early and overrated and Tyler needs a good ass-kicking anyways.

Now we go kick Tyler's ass.

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Ahhhhhh can't believe I posted the first chapter!!!
I'm gonna be posting weekly updates so please criticize away or dm me if you'd like!!

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Hope you have a lovely day, keep smiling :)
May 💕