Chained to Me

1: Rainy Days

I had always kept to myself, avoiding any conversations I might have with my fellow classmates, or what I refer to them as the lucky ones. Why? Well, because they can't see what I see. They are ignorant of their surroundings or they are just ordinary. And I am special, at least that's what my grandma had told me, but I don't feel special. I feel cursed. Why am I able to see these scary, spooky shadows lurking about? It's not something to be proud of, but my grandma was. She told me how lucky I am to be able to see the dead. Well if seeing the dead means seeing black blobs, and being unable to tell who's who, then I don't want it. Actually, even if I could tell who's who, I still don't want this sight.

But then again, who's to say we're both crazy people meant to be locked up in a mental institution?

And that's what mum wanted to do. She had started sending me to a psychiatrist every week from the age of eleven. It was when my grandma died, and I began lashing out when seeing the shadows. After just one session, the psychiatrist had labelled me as a delusional person, but if I go every week, he could somehow magically fix me.

Everything was fine until I was kicked out of school for being a dangerous being to my classmates.

...

That day, I had prayed, like any other day, to have my sight magically disappear, but unfortunately nothing of that sort happened. On the contrary, it was the day a shadow had revealed its face to me, for the first time. And it wasn't something to be happy about. I wished it was a dream.

The shadowy figure had been sitting next to the teacher for the past few weeks. I had grown used to its presence. It never moved. It was like a statue. But for some reason, on that particularly rainy and gloomy day, it moved. Carrying its heavy weight towards me, with every step, leaving a muddy footprint behind it. Then it stopped looking down on me, I had buried my head in my book, trying to ignore it.

I could feel its breath on my neck and its presence weighing down on me. Then, it was gone. I briefly took a breath, lifting my head from the book. It wasn't gone. There was a bloody corpse sitting next to me, instead of my classmate. Its face was barely recognisable as its greenish flesh was slowly falling off it, starring at the black board at the front of the class, as if it was paying attention to what the teacher was saying. It was dressed in tattered garments that were once white but now dark muddy brown, and wet, dripping onto the floor.

Drip. 

Drip. 

Drip.

The sound filled my mind, as if it was the only thing I could hear. And it was getting louder and louder. Staining the wooden floor under it. I slowly looked up at it, still staring at the front. Then its white pale eyes moved, staring at me, and soon enough twisting its head in my direction. I jumped out my seat as my heart started beating rapidly. I felt the walls closing down on me and the entire room going pitch black, leaving the two of us in that dark space.

At that moment, I didn't think straight. I forgot where I truly was. And I couldn't control my own body. Someone else controlled it.

My hand grabbed the scissors from my pocket and in one swift move, it punctured a hole on my classmate's desk, and that is when I had snapped out of it. I heard a loud scream and a bang against a solid ground.

Everyone had turned to see what was wrong, whispering things I couldn't quiet comprehend. And the boy, whose desk I destroyed, was on the floor trying to get away from me. I looked like I was about to commit murder to him. He was frightened, and so was the rest of the class.

Later that day, I was in the principal's office, together with my parents, the boy and his parents. We stood quietly while our parents argued with each other and the principal tried as hard as he could to keep the peace, but his efforts didn't make a difference. 

That was how I got expelled. On the most terrifying day of them all. I didn't know what it meant. Seeing its face for the first time. And on top of that, why my body moved on its own. It never had happened before. And it never occurred to me that it could.

Of course, I felt bad for being kicked out, but it was for the best. My classmates had always saw me as an outsider, and from that day, I was a monster. 

So, my parents sent me away to live with my aunt who lived in Berxley, a small town at the edge of a cliff, having most of its borders surrounded by the woods, a thousand miles away from anyone who knew me.

*****************************

Thank you for reading the first chapter of Chained to Me. 

Hope you felt the shadow's breath on your neck, I got goosebumps while writing this.

Anyway, this was an updated version of my comic going by the same name, which has now been unfortunately discontinued, but you can still check it out in the link below:

tapas.io/series/Chained-to-Me

other links: linktr.ee/erica_mallia