Killing Chris

Part two: College

It's been a while since my last entry and that was no accident. The loss of Derek, Lake, and Margo was a finished chapter in my life but the memory of that night bled into my thought of the present and future. Knowing the killer wasn't done with me yet I spent the time after the massacre at the high school cooped up in my house alone. Waiting for the new chapter to start so I could run from my past... full sprint. When I got my college acceptance letters I was left with two options, a close community college or a college super far away with about twelve whole states in between the college and my home town. For someone who witnessed a massacre there senior year of high school, this was an easy choice. My thinking was, the more distance I put between my friend's graves and my college the more time I'd have before my past caught up with me.

I'd been to a grief counselor multiple times but I felt that none of them truly understood the level of grief that I was carrying. My friends didn't just die and I was grieving them... They were butchered in front of me. It made me feel helpless. It was a dark time in those months before college I was left to stew with all the mistakes id made and all the regret I had built up. I was a ticking time bomb and sooner or later I was gonna run out of fuse and explode and everything around me would turn to dust. I thought the college atmosphere would help... but it only made it worse...much worse.

I was the kid in school that the pain was visible behind their eyes, the ones you could tell went through shit. Nowadays they are labeled as edgy but for anyone who's ever gone through shit like me, labels are the least of your problems.

My parents drove me all the way to college to drop me off. For the first time in a long time, I was excited about something. A weight was lifted off my chest and I felt like I had physically left all that darkness. in my room at home. Was it wrong to forget that night? To want to forget about the people I lost so it didn't hurt so much? The whole ride there was made up of a game of twenty questions pieced together by my parents. When we got to my school it was a blessing because I knew that meant I was close to having my parents go home.

I went into the roommate selection process blind so my roommate was chosen at random. His name was Dane, Dane was a 6'3 skinny kid who was super athletic and decently intelligent. The first thing he told me when I got in the room was that he didn't chug alcohol and do drugs like a crack addict and nothing I say or do will change it. I liked that about him, he was not easily pushed by peer pressure.

I'll spare you the boring timeline of unpacking the car and carrying all the boxes to my room. Dane wasn't in the room when my family and I carried my stuff to it so they didn't get to meet him... thank god. My mom wiped my whole room and bathroom down with Clorox wipes twice before she left. On their way out my parents said their goodbyes and my mom left with tears in her eyes. I envied her depression down, that she got to cry about dropping her kid off at college while I cried about a psychopath cutting up my friends.

It was about six at night now, my parents bought me one last dinner on their way out and I sat in my room alone and ate. I had my chance at friendship and my friendship got my friends killed. I was sure that I would not make friends at college to spare people the suffering. if only I'd stuck with that then maybe I wouldn't have been forced to take a life. After I ate I began to unpack, of course, the first box I opened was my memorial photo album from high school that may as well been filled with those little notes you get from people's funerals. I was eager to escape my past, but I've never been one to live in the future. I went to open the photobook but was interrupted by a knock on the door.I swung the door open and Dane walked in

"Hey Chris, where are your parents"

"you just missed them"

"Why's my place smell like a girls shampoo?" Dane asked

"Sorry my mom went hard on the cleaning, she doesn't want me living somewhere too dirty for 

her" I replied

Lucky for me Dane had a car, even luckier for me I would be Dane's best friend at college. I pushed him away for a long time but my impulse to fit in was stronger than my urge to push people away to save their lives. I guess I got a little selfish, add it to the list of things I've done wrong. Dane realized he forgot to bring his old fashioned alarm clock, I don't know why he could just use his phone. So he and I went to Walmart so he could buy a new one, the trip to buy an alarm clock would be when I realized a daunting truth. No matter how fast and how far you run from your past it won't give you slack, it won't let you out of its sights... not even for a minute. Dane shopped for his alarm clock as I awkwardly trailed him, we didn't really know each other. His fear of doing things alone and my need to be distracted just lined up at that moment. On our way out of the store though is where it goes downhill. It was almost as if someone turned off the sun and the sky had just turned black right in front of my eyes. The beams of light from the moon lighting up the parking lot of the store. I stopped dead in my tracks.

A hand touched my side forcefully and I snapped my head to it, neon light lit up my face and my clothes as I stared at the mask of the killer. He started to chuckle at me as my hair stood up and my knees grew weak. A sudden flash of anger overtook me and I winded up and let off a punch right into his face. The sun was suddenly turned back on and the killer faded into Dane. Dane stood next to me hunched over nose bleeding. This won't be the first time you see Dane bleed, and this won't be the last time I inflict unintentional pain.

You probably think you got it figured out now. I kill someone random that I think is the killer while I'm one of the fake dreams. I wish that was the case, but when you add gas to a bonfire it explodes and that's exactly what happens to me. how much madness and anger and death can you bottle up inside one person before they ignite a thousand fires that burn down a thousand lives. So, Dane, I'm sorry that I reduced your life to ashes, it was never my intention to be your friend.

Chris Logged off