Keep Your Head ↠ IANOWT ² [O.H.]

i. the aftermath

CHAPTER ONE
❛ the aftermath. ❜

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H A L L I E
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THEMES:
hidden in the sand — tally hall

A SQUIRREL EMERGED from the shadows; the darkness casting somber maroon hues on its fur. It scurried a few steps to the right, then the left, attacking floating tumbleweeds of plastic waste and hurdling over snubbed cigarettes on the sidewalk. When the streetlights hit it, the fur was illuminated in a stranger, different red...

     Not far off the blood I was drenched through with.

     It was starting to dry now. My hands sat fidgeting in my lap, trying to pick it out from underneath my fingernails, interrupted every now and then by the sudden paranoia that I was staining the bench, in which I'd haphazardly shoot up from my seat and check the bloodless wood. Nothing.

     I couldn't really remember much about what had happened at first — it was all a blur, right from the moment Brad died... right to when Stanley found me in the street, slumped and exhausted right after my knees gave way and my dinner had made a reappearance. I don't think I really snapped out of it until he shook me by the shoulders, firmly, forcing me to look at him. He found a park bench not far off from our school, and we took a seat. He gave me his jacket (I was shaking like a leaf, apparently) and we just sat in stunned silence for a few moments — me unable to tear my eyes away from my angry blood red skin, and him tenderly massaging the spot where Brad had thrown a punch just moments, before he got gruesomely one-upped by Sydney.

Jesus Christ...

     Part of me still doesn't quite believe it happened. Part of me thinks, hopes it was just some weird fever dream that I'll soon wake up from. But that would be wishful thinking after these recent days.

Stan seemed like he was still trying to make sense of it all, because he started recalling what happened, and starting asking me all these questions... some kind of post-event commentary, as if I wasn't the one who was stood right there when he—

I hated this.

"...It was lying right there," he was saying as I tuned back in again, "right next to his body, and then it just... disappeared. Into thin air."

"Stan, what are you talking about?" I asked tiredly.

"The diary."