Hysteria

Chapter 1

Rubbing my freezing hands nervously, I tucked them inside the pockets of my oversized sweater, clenching the soft wool in my whitening knuckles, holding them close to my dropping stomach before taking them out once again to wrap them around my profusely shivering self. A cool gust of early winter wind suddenly swooshed past me, fluffing through the fabric of my clothes, making me clench the flesh on my arm with an even tighter grip. My jabbing fingers were close to cracking open my skin, drawing blood to mar the white of my sweater in an ominous scarlet tinge.

“It’s okay. It’s fine.”

Mumbling to myself in a low voice, I slowly let go of my reddening arm, trying my best to keep my eyes cast down on the firm concrete that I had felt under my sole after a whole year. The familiar site in front of my eyes was much more unwelcoming than any other place I had ever been to before. I could hear hushed voices, pointing fingers, wandering gazes, all directed at me; some subtle, some not so subtle. They were talking about me, I knew it and I knew what they were talking about as well.

The crazy girl had returned back to her hometown.

“Hometown...”

The word left a bitter inside my mouth. This was no home of mine. It was my personal living hell. There was no spot on earth that I despised more than this town, Delights.

“Ha!”

A sour look washed over my face followed closely by a mocking smile as I started laughing silently to myself at the irony of the situation.

The town’s existence in my life was in complete opposite to its name. It was anything but delightful in my memories. All this town had ever given me was raw pain. Its mere name was enough to send shivers down my spine yet here I was roaming the streets of the most hated place on my list, Delights, on the most hated night in my calendar, Halloween.

Suddenly a small herd of children dressed in a colorful variety of ghouls, skeletons and blanket ghosts ran past me, the chain from one of their costumes lightly hitting my jeans clad knee, halting my thoughts as I flinched impulsively from the unexpected impact,

“Arg- Shit!”

I was barely able to suppress my scream, but covering it up with a cuss word didn’t seem like a wise choice in the heat of the moment as a mother passing by me hurriedly placed her hands on her little boy’s ears while throwing dirty looks at me at the same time.

“Sorry.”

Murmuring a half-hearted sorry, I started taking longer strides, trying to put as much distance between me and the angry mother as possible. I was in no mood for a lecture or confrontation. Something much bigger was awaiting me, something much more sinister.

“Ugh!”

As soon as I turned the corner, out of that woman’s hearing range, I leaned my back against a tree, sliding slowly down the rough bark while letting out a loud groan,

“Why do I have to apologize for something I had no control over?!”

Lifting one of my trembling hands, I pulled the hair-tie out of my raven locks, letting several wavy tendrils frame my oval face, forming a temporary shield between me and the world I had no desire to face at the moment.

The street I had stopped in was rather less populated, small number of houses and even lesser people were present there yet those few visages, some familiar some unfamiliar, who had witnessed my mini breakdown didn’t forget to give me weird looks as they passed by my heaving, crouched figure. None of them asked me whether I was doing fine or not, they never did. They just looked, and judged.