I screamed into my pillow. I screamed so loudly I thought my forehead would burst my brain open into all the drool, snot, and tears that soaked both sides of my pillow. After a while, my throat gave up, and I just couldn’t scream anymore. I noticed faint police sirens wailing outside, getting louder and louder, until they arrived outside my dorm. I wanted to go check them out, but I knew the beast was waiting for me outside my door, so I just fell asleep.
“Names, Names!” called a familiar voice.
It was Kind’s voice. He was calling me from behind my back. Even though I could see the wall in front of me with my open eyes, my eyes were also completely shut closed at the same time. I tried to move, but my body wouldn’t respond. No matter how hard I pushed my chest and arms, I couldn’t turn myself to face him.
Kind kept insisting, screaming almost, until I realized something. Kind wasn’t screaming. It was the monster. The beast was right behind me, looming over my lifeless body, screaming at me to turn around. I needed to escape, but my body could only shake involuntarily. I kept trying to move, giving all of myself, until my tendons and ligaments felt like they would snap.
With all the force inside of me, I rose from my frail state to find myself in my childhood room. The pink bed that once seemed my whole world now barely fit my body. Sunlight streamed through the windows, and the wind rustled the apple tree outside, making its leaves sing a soft melody. Within that melody, I found a way to breathe deeply and smile in peace.
I opened my eyes again and found myself crying uncontrollably. My mouth was so open I felt my jaw would lock itself, and blood was flowing out of my nose almost freely. Archie was holding me carefully, tapping my bruises with a wet cloth, and whispering calm words.
One shower later, I asked Archie about the police sirens from before. He told me it had actually been an ambulance, and that there had been a suicide in the building. A bloody one.
He stood up and rolled the curtains up. “There’s something else,” he said, as he revealed hundreds of beautiful, enormous beings in the sky. They floated among the clouds, displaying their pink and blue bodies that glowed faintly. They had big heads with no eyes and dozens of long arms extending from them, resembling blood veins or tree branches that reached all the way to the forests and highways below.
“Kind would have loved this,” Archie said sarcastically. “It’s like they want to come to our graduation!”
I observed the legs of the beings, slowly waving in the wind as they floated above everyone and everything, staring at us in silence.
“I’m so mad at Memory too,” Archie said. “I hope he comes tomorrow for photos, at least. It’s unbelievable we didn’t take a single group picture together in four years.”
“Why wouldn’t he come?” I asked.
“Huh? Didn’t you hear?” Archie sighed. “He got caught cheating on the final exam, punched the director in the face, and got expelled.”
© Diego Ballesteros 2024-07-30