Masked (now an EBOOK on Amazon)

Chapter #19

                              CHAPTER #19

It’s all over the news; Ellie’s dead. Sky and I had turned the TV on and for some reason; we went to the news channel. I dropped my glass of water when I saw the headlines- “Ellie Pendleton; a student of Princely college was found murdered in her house. Officials alerted. Area under patrol.” Sky switched to another channel and saw the same. We kept flipping channels until we got to one that had live footage. A lady, her mother I assume, was sitting on the porch; head buried in her hands. I knew Ellie had no siblings; so her mother was the only one there. News vans were swarming all over the place.

I hated this. I hated seeing the death of a person on live television. I hated seeing their family grieving when asked questions by reporters- ‘How do you feel?’ ‘What is your take on the whole incident?’ What the hell are they thinking when they ask such things? I hated the fact that the occurrence of something like this becomes a public commotion and that the family gets absolutely no privacy in this matter. Why would you want to broadcast the ‘reactions’ of a family whose relative just passed away? I hated it; All of it. I almost threw my phone at the TV screen but then decided against it. I sat in silence as reporters screamed into their mouthpieces describing the whole ‘event’. A few minutes later, Sky looked at me with a shocked expression.

“Z, you’re crying,” she said, turning the TV off. She hugged me tightly until I was out of tears. I let go of her and sat up straight.

“This is inhuman. Why would someone kill her?”

“I don’t know, sis. I really don’t.”

“I didn’t particularly like her, but I didn’t hate her either. She was really sweet and she took care of random people like they were family. She was so nice to everyone, even if she was annoying sometimes,” I said.

“I’m sure she was a nice kid, Z. But things like this always happen to good people. You’re nice to everyone, they take advantage of you and this is how it ends. That’s the truth and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

“Yeah.” We sat there for a while, saying nothing. Sky looked at her phone and said, “Hey, it’s 1 a.m., you might want to go sleep. You have college tomorrow.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“Z. Come on, just lie down, you’ll go to sleep instantly. Your eyes are red and you look horrible. Seriously, just,” she patted the cushion on her knees and said “lie down here. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Okay, give me a minute,” I said and checked my phone. 2 new messages.

They were both from Ray- one said- ‘Just watched the news, terrible don’t you think?’

The second one said- ‘Don’t think too much, yeah? It’ll be okay. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.’ I decided against replying, because if I did, I’d never get any sleep. So I turned my phone off and lay down on Sky’s lap.

“Damn, I sort of miss this,” I said. She was right though, my eyelids were drooping shut.

“Yeah, me too. But for now, just shut up and go to sleep.” So I did.

Surprisingly, I had no dreams whatsoever; I guess I was too sleepy. I dressed slowly and was heating some leftovers from last night for breakfast.

“Is Ray picking you up today?” Sky asked as she made oatmeal for herself. I nodded. She was about to sit down as we heard the bell. I looked at the time; it was only 7. He usually got here by 7:30. She got the door and ushered him in; it was Ray.

“Hey, what are you doing here this early?”

“Hello to you too. I just thought we’d go out for a while and then drop by the college.”