Till The Count Of Five ✓

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

People leave all the time. The dread that fills me comes from all that they leave behind.

Kiara

18th April 2019, Thursday
17:00

I was an artist's work gone wrong, horribly wrong on so many levels and she wasn't even ashamed of this piece. I was a result of her and now with no more whines to fulfill, I felt naked standing here. The red striped yellow t-shirt hurt my eyes every time I glanced down at it. Why was everyone dressed in full whites? My distorted mind jumbled up various images and gave me an answer. I shook my head as the scene transitioned to fire, fire rising till the roof, fire sinking in this building, moving, lapping around, desperate for a way out. Just like I had felt. When the flames finally rested, I saw ashes.

We stood in the middle of a cremation site. It was my first time witnessing a funeral pyre. Nine years ago when Grandpa had died, I hadn't gone with my family because children didn't accompany them. It was either that reason or something else, I didn't exactly know.

I removed my specs. My vision remained blurry, yet somehow the ashes were clear. Blackened shade of yellow. She was gone, maybe even at peace. I wanted everyone to hear this, gone, at peace but first, I had to make it clear to my own mind.

"Excuse me."

The flames rose again, throwing the ashes across the hall, on my face. They stuck to my chest. A laugh rose through my throat and carried the ashes out of my body. I looked up and saw a nurse. Excuse me.

This was no funeral, yet every time I looked at a nurse or a doctor, their white clothes against my bright tees, I thought back to the cremation day; her father and brother had been standing at the head of the crowd. I hadn't bothered to move closer. The flames had been dropping cold flakes on my skin even from afar. They had set her on fire, not her body but her.

As I reached room number 4B, I looked inside. There was no one around, no family, no doctors. Shay resembled those typical patients of the movies with wires dangling from machines, skin pale with numerous injection spots, sunken eyes. Movies did show reality. I had seen her last week at the school. She looked just as pale as she did in the hospital bed, only now her forehead had no creases but last week, she had freaked me out. Later, I had found out about her from Papa.

"How's school going?" he had asked while I had been standing at the top of the staircase, unwilling to step down.

"Kiara?"

"Your coat." He had no idea how much I loathed white. It scared me like every single thing that threatened my sense of security.

He had taken off his coat, all white in its glory and given it to Mum who had bothered wrapping her fingers around my red knuckles on her way up.

"Stop hurting yourself. It won't bite you," she had said. They knew I rarely listened.

I had been angry, mad and desperate, I knew but I was not sorry. I also knew they understood but I didn't want them to understand. I wanted them to nag me, question me, force school assignments down my throat. I wanted them to do everything other than feel sorry for me. I wanted to move on but I couldn't. They set her on fire.

I lifted my gaze to Shay's quiet breathing as Papa's words rushed in, deep deep down in the pit of my mind where I could truthfully address the issue.

"How was your school?" he had asked again.

"Fine. We did Zoology today but I swear our teacher told us yesterday that we would be doing Botany. Why do we even have one single teacher for both subjects?"