The strange, unexpected, & supernatural

The attic (Lilith Armstrong)

*Warning - Suicide

I don't speak to my parents anymore.   They ignore me.  It's been that way for a while.  They don't make me a plate at the dinner table, just set an empty one in front of me.  It's okay.  I haven't felt hungry in a long time.

I heard them again last night:  The voices in my bedroom.  Tyler, Hayley, Brendon, and Dallon. "Can she see us?" Dallon asked.  "No," Brendon spoke.  We can't even speak to her until she figures it out."  I considered responding to spite them, but I've learned to tune them out.

I remember when it began.  Six days ago, I woke up and got ready for school.   I went downstairs and greeted my parents in the kitchen, but they brushed me aside.  Strange, I thought.  My school day was pretty normal, as I'm a loner anyway.  But when I got home, ambulances were outside and a gurney was pulled out with a cloth, covering what must've been a body.  I ran inside to my dad sobbing at the kitchen table and mom massaging circles on the small of his back.  "What happened?"  I asked.  No response came.  I decided to leave it alone and went upstairs to do my homework.  Later that night, I went to use the bathroom and saw mom on a step stool, shutting the attic door and locking it.  As she climbed down and took the stool, I swear, she wiped a tear as she disappeared into her room.  No one's been up there since.

Every day has been the same. Until today.  I come downstairs to see my parents in black attire. Funeral attire.  "I didn't know there was a funeral today," I say.  Dad's struggling with his tie and mom comes over to fix it.  A drop trickles down his cheek and she hugs him.  "We have to go," she whispers, "Lilith is waiting," and they leave.  I'm still here.

I ascend the staircase and notice the attic lock is undone.  I've inferred since mom closed it that whatever's in there, they don't want me, or anyone, seeing.  It wouldn't be a secret unless it was bad.  Really bad.  Why unlock it today?  I stand below the cord, and hop, seizing it and step back as the ladder falls.   An acrid smell fills my nose and I groan in disgust, shielding it with my arm. When the ladder stops at my feet, I take my arm down and gaze between the floor and the hole of the attic, unsure if I want to know what's up there.   But at this point, it truly is now or never.  I grab onto one of the bars, hoisting myself with methodic steps, higher and higher until the darkness of the attic is filled with the cloudy, outside light.  I stand on the ladder, my head high enough where I can survey everything, and there's a sight that paralyzes me.  Confused and perturbed, I climb the rest of the way so I'm on the floor of the attic and apprehensively draw myself nearer to the source of my fear.

An overturned chair is on the floor as I'm hanging by the neck from a wooden beam in the ceiling.

"It's not you," I swiftly turn to Brendon, reclined on the back wall.  "It's just the spirit of you." Memories inundated me.

I look back at myself, backing up until I don't know where I'm stepping, and lose the floor.  I try to catch the ladder but plummet through the opening, landing hard on my back.

"You know," Tyler says as I prop myself on one arm.  "There aren't scratch marks around your neck where the rope was.  Did you even struggle?"

I scramble to my feet and run downstairs, not even acknowledging Hayley and Dallon.  I push the door open and sprint outside.  I'm on the front lawn when a tingling sensation overcomes me and I stop.   My hands emit a yellow glow, and they're fading.  So are my legs, then my whole body.  I scream.

I jolt awake to the darkened sky.  My shriek reverberates around the walls of my mind.  I'm on grassy ground, my fingertips unable to sense the blades.  I sit up and note my surroundings.  I'm in a cemetery.  Standing, it's slightly foggy and nobody's here.  My hoodie hangs off of my shoulder and without touching it, I'm cognizant of the faded, darkened noose imprint on my throat.  Suddenly, I know where to go.  My converse's crunch everything beneath them.  I don't glimpse at the other grave markers.  My mental map is locked in, and I'm not the least bit hesitant in my steps or body.  Although, my body doesn't feel like my own, and it never will again.

I remember it all: the day I wanted everything to be over was the day I ascended the attic, rope in hand.  Tyler was right, I didn't fight as it tightened after the drop of kicking the chair.  I gagged a little and my dangling shoes twitched as my sight faded.  After that, it was just a matter of falling asleep... forever.

I make one turn, reaching my final destination.  Lilith Armstrong - aged 18.  More crunching sounds are behind me.

"My family hates putting birthdays on Tombstones," I tell them.  "They say 'Their life may be over, but their day of birth stays with them.'  Pretty stupid, huh?"

More crunching and a hand is on my shoulder.

"Parents are the worst at letting go," Brendon says and I face him.  "Especially in the manner we left."  He lifts a part of his hair, exposing the bullet wound where he shot himself.  Behind me, Dallon's vertical scars are clear in the moonlight alongside Tyler's needle holes in his neck from his drug overdose, and Hayley removes her slouch cap revealing a chunk of her head that had broken when she jumped off a building.

"Living or dead," Brendon continues.  "You're not alone."

I redirect to my engraved concrete slab.  "I've never been a part of anything."

"Consider yourself one of us."

He lets me go.  I watch him pass the trio, who follows suit. I do the same and we fade into the night.