Entangled in Darkness

by Lindsey Webster

  Chapter 13

  Chills crawled over my body, goose bumps on pale flesh, as I sat against the late October breeze. It was crisp and cool. Dry leaves flowed through it, leaving a stream of orange and brown speckles through the air. It would have been a beautiful sight on any other day. But this day, as I sat in the park alone and saw the leaves fall from the trees, I thought only of the death of nature. Every year it died, went dormant. The trees became skeletons; the ground became buried under dead leaves and eventually the snow. It never occurred to me that every year there was this massive death all around me each fall. And if I had thought of it, it would never have mattered. I didn’t know death. I knew what it meant intellectually but I had never known the deep meaning that death caused. It wasn’t until I stood a few hours earlier at a cold October gravesite and buried my little sister that I knew what real grief was.

  I returned home from the park where I had sat numb against the cold for hours trying to get away from it all. As I walked home, the horizon was an orange-red sky behind me. I walked east into the darkening sky where faint stars had started to appear. The moon was absent from the sky that night, though I knew it was there somewhere cloaked in the darkness of a new moon. I reached the front door and stood with my hands trembling. My breath quivered and tears filled my eyes. I turned around and sat on the steps. The cement was cold on my butt but I knew it was even more frigid inside. The door creaked and I saw a shadow hovering over me.

  "They were worried about you. You’ve been gone for hours. You should have told us where you were going." Lydia’s voice was heavy as it slunk down over me.

  I didn’t turn around but instead huddled inside myself and wrapped my arms around my legs. I buried my chin in my knees and let the tears fall. There was a chilly breeze giving me goose bumps again. Little blond hairs were standing up on my pale arms. The shadow behind me never moved. I could feel her presence standing heavy behind me.

  "I needed to be alone. I went to the park." My voice was dead and heavy as it dropped out of my mouth.

  She came and sat beside me, hugging her knees in the same way as me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her red tear-filled eyes staring forward into an abyss. I looked out towards the horizon to see that the orange-red had disappeared and darkness was falling fast over the entire sky. The stars were now dotting the dark blue. I stared up at them and wondered if there was anything meaningful in any of those stars. Maybe they were more than just stars. Maybe they were more than just old light shining our way from a billion years ago. I wondered if there was anything special about starlight. Were the stars a window to a heaven where my sister was watching over us? Or was she dead and gone, buried in the dirt to rot and never exist in any form again? I looked over at Lydia expecting her to be staring at the stars as well but her eyes were hollow and blurred over. I frowned and looked forward into the nothingness that I knew she was staring into. We sat there silently for awhile.

  "Do you think—" I started.

  "I don’t think anymore," she said in a dull voice, not moving her fixed gaze.

  "I just... what if there is more than this... more to existence than this life. What if..." I choked on my words as the tears fell down, tickling my cheeks.

  "There is nothing more than this. She’s dead. Gone. What a waste of a life," she said shaking her head. She began to sob, holding her face in her hands. I watched her back rise and fall erratically.

  I put my hand gently on her shoulder but she swatted it away.

  "This wouldn’t have happened you know. Not if—" she stopped and sobbed harder.

  "Not if what?" I asked with a snap in my voice.

  "You." She looked deep into the abyss as she slowly, rhythmically shook her head. "You had to bring us down. You had to make her sad." Her voice was slow and even but low like death.

  "What?" I cried loudly. "What the hell? You think I did this? You think it’s my fault?" A lump in my throat began to choke me. I whimpered and gasped. I broke down and sobbed into my knees. I could hear Lydia sniffling. I looked up at her with eyes that could pierce into her flesh. I wailed in a shrill voice that edged deep into my throat, "I didn’t mean to hurt her. I didn’t mean to make her want to die. I swear to God I didn’t mean to." My whole body shook as my chest ached tightly.

  She didn’t look at me and instead spoke in this calm dead voice that was barely above a whisper. "But you did do it. You did it and now she is dead."

  "I’m sorry, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to," I wept, my throat becoming raw, "I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry..." I choked on my words as I cried, "I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me too. I’m so sorry!" I screamed out, my whole body in violent shakes.

  "It doesn’t matter." I looked at her, tears a mess over my hot face, and she looked as if she were dead. She couldn’t even look at me. She just stared into nothingness. I pushed her. I pushed her hard. I just shoved her right over with all my strength. I wanted to kick her after that but I restrained myself. She grabbed my wrist and bent my arm upwards holding me there. She stared straight into me with her deep brown eyes until I felt terror breathing inside of me.

  "What the hell is wrong with you!" she spat out as she pushed me aside and briskly walked inside.

  I fell to the cement sobbing until it was hard to breathe and I had to gasp for air. I could feel where the bruises would form on my hip after I landed hard on the edge of the step. It was a good pain though. It was a well-deserved pain. And when I realized that, I cried even more and began to whimper. "I didn’t mean to hurt her. I didn’t mean it." My voice was broken and a whisper. It was barely recognizable to that once smart girl I used to be two months earlier.

  I quickly retreated to my room, managing to avoid everyone on my way in. I shut the door quietly and curled up on my bed letting tears fall onto my pillow. I hid myself under the thick comforter. Darkness was pervading me as I bundled my head under the covers. My heart beat fast and hard. It thudded inside my chest. I forced breath in and out in an effort to keep myself alive despite the feeling that I shouldn’t be allowed to live anymore. It was my fault she died. I brought the darkness to her and she drown in it, it sucked her into an abyss, swallowed her up until she couldn’t take it anymore.

  I tossed and turned until the blankets were tangled around me. I knew I’d never fall asleep but I needed a nap. I had barely slept in the last five nights. The preceding days had been a blur, a paralyzing daze. But the nights—I could remember them well because of what happened each time I closed my eyes. When I let my eyelids shut blood splattered across my vision. Her blood was everywhere. I could see her dead body swimming in a pool of it—the blood that had flooded her bed and the carpet around her with crimson red.

  My eyes pried open, muscles straining to keep them open as wide as possible. Don’t let them shut. Don’t let the darkness get to you. My eyes watered, blurred and stinging, as I felt the air on them. Don’t let them shut! I screamed inside my head. A chill ran down my spine and over my naked arms. Reflexively, my eyes shut for a second and a thick gooey red washed over them. I shuddered and held my breath. One... two... three... four... It will go away. Just ignore it. Five... six... seven... Breath rushed out of me. I can’t take this anymore!

  I whimpered into my hands as they trembled. My breaths went fast and shallow. My throat felt like it was in a cinch. My erratic heart raced. I cried, sobbed, whimpered and wailed. I threw my fists at myself, punching each forearm until I felt the ache spreading through them. I touched the skin on my arm and it was tender with red spots from furious knuckles blotched throughout. I pressed hard on the bruising tissue and I liked the pain. It soothed my head somehow. I don’t even know how, but it did. I pressed again and again, over each tender area and my head swam in a soothing numbness. And then suddenly, I struck out at myself again, punching my fists into my arms. Striking several times in a blitz, my arms were quickly a bright warm red. The pain in them throbbed as my mind was s
oothed over and over again.

  I sobbed in silence, stilled as the tears ran down my warm cheeks. I watched as the tears dropped onto my arms and ran over the red blotches of bruising tissue and then into my empty lap to the blankets below me. Each tear took the same path. Drip drip drip. Drip drip drip into a void. Tears were falling into the darkness below me, gone, dead. I was entranced by this. I let my eyes water until they blurred. My mind became synchronized with my slowing breaths and soon I had lay down, tears now wetting my pillow, and I started to sleep. Darkness. There was a soothing ache in my arms as I sank into the darkness again. Breaths slowing. Heart thumps fading. Asleep.