Teenage Bones

Elijah Clarke

I have searched the kitchen cupboards, the coffee table in the seating area, the cupboards in the administrating room, my art room and now all that is left is my room. I touch the cold stainless steel handle. I don't think I could handle the blood all over the bathroom, even though Mr. Clarke said it was cleaned up, I don't know if I can risk it for my volatile sanity.

I have to.

 Twisting the handle, it takes me a few minutes of thinking if I'm ready to push it open. When it does open, the bed is clean and made crisply, not a drop of blood in sight. It was horrific, how such an event can be cleaned up and covered up with no evidence left behind, even the pillow looked new like they had been puffed by a nurse when you were in the hospital. Tiptoeing carefully into the bathroom and looking around nearly pushed me full force back into my room. There was absolutely no traces of blood, even the mirror had to be cleaned. 

When I stare at my reflection, I can't recognize the mess that stares back at me. Black rings take camp under my matte uneven eyes, my mocha skin wasn't bruised but lifeless, my hair had no volume and the curls are a knotted mess that reached halfway down my back and I had lost a considerable amount of weight- not that I minded. My cheekbones were so sharp and high, I thought for a minute that I was hallucinating until I touched them and my face just looked bare and emotionless. 

The grey uniform looks like rags that were hanging off of me and my hoodie just looked like a blanket with sleeves. My eyes are what caught me though, they looked hollow and on the verge of an official surrender- I can almost see the shape of my skull. A few tears begin to roll and I don't know what to think of the situation I am in. The tears kept rolling as I continue to stare at the stranger who stares back, no wonder Mr. Clarke has eyes full of pity when he saw me want to go with him, I look like shit.

I need the tablet.

I turned quickly away and determinedly yanked the door open to find a tiny pad, an unopened pack of pens and an electronic tablet with half of a broken charging cord levitating over my bed. The cord, even though it was not connected to the mains, sparked every now and again as it just floated and slowly turned, just like the rest of the objects. The pens were slowly shattering while being in the air and the pad was slowly ripping page after page out of it and letting the individual pages floating dependently, drifting to the ceiling and back down again. 

I reach my arm out to take the tablet in my palm and the rest of the object fall onto the bed, taking away the magic in the objects. Snatching the tablet and leaving the room, I settle for the sofa and pull the blankets over me. I type in my name: Esmé. It takes about five minutes to find the special lettering on the small book-sized tablet but I discovered you just have to hold your finger on the 'e' until the options come up. When it finishes with the loading screen, it comes with the background of a labrador puppy background, a search bar, a music icon, and an email icon. I click the email and discover my email is 'EsméPeters@experiment03.faetuskiros.lab.com'.I search for Elijah Clarke. 

His email is listed as 'Clarke@staff.personalguard.lab.com' and I press to start a new email to him. It starts with 'I want,' here should be the list but what could make this place better? I add 'makeup' which I hoped would just come in a giant bag, 'fluffy grey and white blanket', 'colorful pajamas', 'earphones', 'a pet which isn't a reptile', 'five bottles of red wine', 'a diary', 'a calendar', 'a five-foot teddy bear', 'polaroid camera with A LOT of film', 'scrapbook and masking tape', 'two balls of string', 'tiny wooden pegs', 'string lights', 'a pack of large pillar candles', 'spellbooks with all the ingredients inside it- including candles', 'origins of Fatus Kiros'. I bite my with uncertainty lip and write 'to go home' and hit send.

~*~

I had fallen asleep on the sofa when Mr. Clarke finally got home, his heavy boots being thrown aside wasn't what woke me but him settling on the opposite sofa, tangling himself in his own blanket and kicking some parts of it to get it to lay straight. I didn't open my eyes but I rolled to face him. "What did you do today?" I ask out of curiosity. My voice sounded thick with sleep.