message in a bottle | soudam

Day 09 : A Cry For Help (With Free Delivery)

A dreary week had passed since I had discarded the message from the bottle. Regret had crept into my every thought; I found myself acting less and less like myself. I had attempted, plenty of times, to evoke some sort of joy in myself, but I discovered I could not - and had not, since my original discovery.

I was met with an interesting sight as I walked into class that morning. Sonia and Gundham were sat away from each other, the latter casting dark glares in Sonia's direction. As I sat down, I leaned across to Chiaki to ask, ''What's up with Sonia and Gundham?''

She shrugged a reply, but spoke only a moment later. ''I think they broke up.''

As much as I had suspected this, a true smile took over my face for the first time in a while. I thanked Chiaki with a dip of the head and resumed my pretence of listening closely - it was not, class registration that rested in my mind.

The day came and went like most others and I soon found myself in my last period. I positioned myself in the Academy's parking lot, by the main gate, to fix a few vehicles.

I was in a rather awkward position - hand in the bonnet, legs under the car - when a familiar figure crossed my vision: Gundham Tanaka. Intrigued, I pulled myself into a more comfortable posture to watch him leave the school. There was nothing unusual about this apart from the object clutched under Gundham's arms and his suspicious-seeming hunch.

I could only glimpse what he was holding, but I took in that it was greenish and very small. He caught my eye and hurried away, and I returned to my work.

I began home in a dissociated, mindless state. It was both this and the loud sounds of Hawthorne Heights in my headphones that diverted my attention from what could be mistaken for a well-planned burglary. I would come to find a dark-clothed figure had taken temporary residence in the hedge near my front door, having recently slipped a small, green-tinted plastic bottle through my letterbox.

I almost tripped over the bottle walking in - likely not the intent of whoever planted it. With a curious frown, I scooped it up. To my dismay, it contained a second note.

I carried it swiftly to my bedroom and turned it in my hands for a few conflicted minutes. Why had this bottle been in my house? Who had written its message? Would it meet the same fate as the last?

Shaking my questions away, I tipped the paper into my lap and placed the bottle beside me. My hands trembled like guitar strings as I unfurled the nervous scrap. My eyes widened into pale saucers as I took in the single, scratched word that it featured.

Help.