Merida Bell

Photo by Michael Matveev on Unsplash
Merida and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. From childhood crushes to the heartbreaks of adolescence, we went through it all together.

Back in the 1990s, when we were both roughly eleven years old, she and her family moved into the beige mansion across the street. I remember that day vividly and how the warm, sweet smell of baked apple pie wafted through the air as my late mum and I crossed the street to greet our new neighbours.

In those days, people had a greater sense of community and relied on each other for support during trying times. It was customary to welcome a new neighbour with baked pies and friendly conversation. This tradition, once cherished, was now only alive in the world of cinema.

I found the Bells to be reserved individuals who kept to themselves. While my family was very sociable and loved to engage in small talk, the Bells were the opposite. I still remember the way Mrs Bell’s voice trailed off after thanking us, and how she stood in the doorway as if to ensure we wouldn’t insist on getting invited.

My late mum, who was a housewife with traditional values, perceived Mrs Bell as rude and bad-mannered. In these parts of the countryside, it was common courtesy to at least offer a drink to someone who came knocking on your door.

Given the circumstances, my mum cautioned me not to get involved with the Bells. She believed they caught a disease that afflicted only city folk and made them think too highly of themselves. She was worried I might catch it, too. But like many other mischievous boys, I had a weakness for all things forbidden.

I rounded up my friends Dani, Mark, and Carlos after school, and we set out to pull a prank on the Bells. We couldn’t help but feel giddy with excitement at the prospect of what was to come.

We planned to ring the doorbell and then scamper away before Mrs Bell could answer. We’d made a habit of it – knocking on doors around our usually serene neighbourhood and then hiding from plain sight.

We crouched behind the bushes, feeling the dampness of the grass beneath us as we waited for the perfect moment to strike. Dani and I had a clear view of the front door and garden, but Mark and Carlos had to strain their necks to see the fun from their spot in the thorny bush.

Things didn’t go as we planned. No one answered the door. I could, however, see some movement through the window reflected on the curtain. The Bells were at home; I had no doubt. So, I rang the doorbell again. This time, I stood in front of the front door, nervously tapping my foot as my friends giggled from the nearby bushes.

The sound of the doorbell echoed through the entire house for several seconds. But there was no sign of anyone coming to answer it. I strained to hear any noise from the other side of the door to no avail. I couldn’t hear anything except the sound of my shallow breathing.

We presumed the Bells were out after all and played football in the nearby park instead. As the sun set and the sky turned dark, my friends headed back to their homes a few blocks away, leaving me to walk alone past the beige mansion.

The closer I got to the Bells, the more aware I became of the eerie silence that hung in the air. The mansion was cloaked in deep slumber, not a single light piercing the pitch-black murk.

The beige mansion weighed heavily on my mind during supper. I almost asked my mum about the Bells, but her piercing stare made me change my mind. I left my plate half-eaten and retreated to my room.

Although the beige mansion was barely visible from my bedroom window, I could still make out the intricate details of the architecture with a little effort. It was remarkable how such an old building managed to withstand the test of time – without a single crack, at that.

The wind howled that evening for hours. It carried the sound of creaking branches and rustling leaves as I stood frozen and stared at the imposing mansion. The darkness was absolute. I couldn’t even see my own hands on the windowsill. It was like a thick blanket covering everything and everyone – like a black hole swallowing the world.

I turned around and checked the clock behind me. It read fifteen minutes past ten in the evening. Where were the Bells? Returning my gaze to the beige mansion, I caught a fleeting movement out of the corner of my eye. A figure darted around the side of the mansion with such speed, they seemed to disappear into the shadows.

Scowling, I leaned against the window frame, frustrated that my view was obstructed by the overgrown bushes and the towering walls of the mansion. The cool breeze brushed against my skin as I leaned forwards.

Footfalls.

I whipped around and nearly lost my balance and toppled backwards. With my heart racing, I could literally feel the sweat on my palms as I turned around in a heartbeat. The heavy, rhythmic thud of footsteps grew louder and louder as someone climbed the stairs and drew closer.

My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest as I closed the ajar window and dived under the covers. The door handle twisted not long after and my mum stepped inside. She asked if I was asleep. I didn’t respond. She switched off the light before she left my room. I lay there for a few more seconds, eyes closed, before finally tossing the covers aside and opening the window.

The beige mansion stood empty and still as death itself, like a ghostly spectre haunting the night. The sheer beauty of it took my breath away. Something about it arrested me and I couldn’t explain what it was. I had to take a closer look.

I cracked open the door and listened to the quiet hum of the house before advancing. The floorboards creaked beneath my feet as I tiptoed down the hallway. My eyes were fixed on my mum’s bedroom door the entire time. Thankfully, she did not wake up.

I hurried downstairs, grabbed my jacket, and stepped out into the chilly night. The lampposts cast a soft glow on the deserted pavement. The only sounds were the chirping of crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl at this hour of the night.

My house was just across the narrow road, so I could always retreat to safety if anything should happen. However, what I didn’t consider was the intricate nature of life, which my child’s mind couldn’t yet grasp.

It was a terrible idea. I knew that very well. Of course, I did. But something compelled me to act the way I did that night. It was like my mind was a tangled ball of yarn, and I couldn’t find the end to unravel it. Looking back on it now, I realise I was just a kid – a dull kid who didn’t know any better.

Turning around the side of the mansion, the rustling of leaves in the dense bushes startled me way more than I wanted to admit. Rooted to the spot and unable to move an inch, I perked up my ears. But whatever had caused the sudden noise faded away.

Something else caught my eye. One of the lace-curtained windows was slightly ajar—not a huge gap, but enough for a breeze to slip through and brush against me.

I was never one to snoop around, but my curiosity got the better of me. I took a glance in, assuming there was nobody at home. That one mistake set off a chain of events that led me down a path of ruin. If only I had turned around and returned home…

The drawing room was a sight to behold, with its opulent decorations and gold-dusted ornaments. A chandelier hung in the centre, its crystals catching what little light there was and sending faint rainbows dancing across the walls. Looking around, I couldn’t help but notice the oblong table across the cherry settee. The table was covered with china plates and gleaming silverware, and in the centre was a steaming turkey that looked mouthwatering.

Sensing a strange presence, I looked behind me. My heart raced as I scanned the area. No one was there – yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching me. That was when I figured it was time to go back home.

But as I turned my back to the ajar window, a loud clatter echoed through the air, like the sound of silverware crashing to the ground. My initial thought was that a gust of wind had knocked the dishes off the table or something. None of the plates or silverware, however, were toppled over or shattered into pieces. Where had that noise come from?

As I let my darting eyes search every nook and cranny for an answer, they soon settled on the redwood door in the far-left corner. It was closed moments before, I was pretty sure, but now the door was gaping wide. I squinted to see it more clearly, intently trying to recall whether the door had been left open this entire time or cracked open just recently. That was when I saw it. The shadowy figure.

The ground slipped beneath my feet and I stumbled backwards. Panic gripped me as the shadow grew larger with every breath. Everything around me came to a sudden halt as if by magic, even time itself, and I covered my mouth to stifle a gasp. I didn’t even realise I was holding my breath. Not until the shadowy figure locked eyes with me and crawled out of the window.

I struggled to get up from where I had fallen on my buttocks, but once I did, I charged across the road like a maniac. Sprinting home with all that I had, I locked the door and collapsed.

I gasped for air, my heart pounding like it would tear through my chest. When my mum ran downstairs, she found me in a daze. No words escaped from my lips. It was like I had lost the ability to speak.

I cried my heart out, shuddering from the peril I’d just escaped, and my tears soaked into the fabric of her nightgown. But there was no reason for me to cry.

Yes, I saw something, at least I thought I did, but at the same time, I didn’t. Was it a person? A ghost? I couldn’t even tell. All I knew was that something really terrible would’ve happened had I not regained my senses and fled.

From that day on, I avoided the beige mansion like a pest. The boys stopped hanging out with me; they mocked me for chickening out, saying I was acting like a scared little girl. Maybe I was. A scared little girl, that is… All I knew was that I would never set foot there ever again. But my friends ditching me wasn’t even the scariest part.

No one ever laid eyes on the Bells after that night. They vanished without a trace. It was almost like they had been erased from existence – as if they had never been alive, to begin with. But that was hardly possible. My mum and I both saw Mrs Bell. I didn’t make all these things up in my mind. Everything I saw was real – even if I couldn’t prove it.

Time slipped by unnoticed, and before I knew it, several months elapsed. Little did I know, things were about to take a turn for the worse.

The world froze in time as the winter morning frost settled, and the only sound was the crunch of footsteps on the icy grass. The hills of powdery snow rose all around me, and there she was, standing tall amid it all and beckoning me to come closer to the beige mansion.

A wintry princess in black, surrounded by snowy hills – like a macabre painting from a distant past.

That was the first time I saw her. Merida. Merida Bell. Even after all this time, the mere mention of her name made me shudder. She haunted my mind like a parasite, feeding off of my memories of her. From sunrise to sunset, she consumed my thoughts.

I was on my way home from school when I spotted her for the second time. She sat on the porch. Her head was buried in her pale, slender hands. I recognised her immediately, but she seemed oblivious to my presence. I decided to watch her some more. Was she crying?

She lifted her head, and her eyes locked onto mine. But this time, I stood my ground instead of backing away. Surrounded by the hustle and bustle of people, I knew I had nothing to fear. She tilted her head to the side and her pearl-black eyes narrowed. I tried to be friendly and waved, but she ignored me and slipped back into the beige mansion.

The third time I saw her was at school. We were part of the same batch. But she ended up in a different class than me. She spent the entire day staring out of the window, lost in her thoughts and oblivious to her surroundings. My friend, Ryu, told me that her name was Merida Bell and that she had transferred to our school from a city that was a 40-mile drive away.

It didn’t take long before everyone was talking about her. The rumours spread like wildfire. It was blatantly obvious that she came from an affluent background, but no one knew why her family moved to the countryside. Hearing the nasty stuff the other kids came up with, I kind of felt bad for her. But who was I to butt in and make myself a target? And it didn’t exactly look like Merida cared for these rumours, anyway.

Leaving the classroom that same afternoon, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and made my way back home. It was then that I saw Merida’s curly hair bouncing in the wind a few steps ahead of me on the pavement. She dragged her foot as if she was too lazy to walk properly.

Some neighbourhood kids threw things at her, shouting insults, but she kept advancing without even once glancing at them. I chased the kids away and followed closely behind her, staying out of sight as much as possible while keeping a watchful eye on her. How could she be like this? So oblivious to those around her.

Halfway down the street, however, she paused and turned around. Embarrassed, I dropped my eyes and felt a rush of heat on my cheeks. Did she catch me staring? I didn’t mean to come off as a creep, but I think I did.

Taken aback and unsure of what to do, I looked up to see her making her way towards me. My heart skipped a beat when she called me by name. My mind went blank, and I was left stunned. How come she knew my name?

Her black eyes seemed to hold all the secrets of the world, sparkling like the moon reflecting off the surface of a shimmering lake. The colour of her plump lips was so vibrant that it was almost as if they were painted on – a perfect shade of cherry red. She was beautiful.

“What do you want?”

I stood there, searching for the right words to say, unsure of how to explain myself and not come off as a weirdo. I must have looked more confused than I thought I did – or wished – for she repeated her question and added one more.

“Why are you following me?”

“I think there’s a—”

“I saw you looking through the window that night. You’ve been watching our house ever since.”

“That night?” I racked my brain before the gravity of her words finally settled. That night! That meant she saw me? But I didn’t see her. How did she—I looked up.

“Why are you doing this? You do realise stalking can get you in juvie, right?”

 “I… I didn’t mean to go to your house, it just… I thought I saw something and I wanted to—”

“Saw something? You’ll have to do better than that to fool me!”

“I- I did see something! I swear! Or… at least I think I did.”

“Right,” she said, adding nimbly. “You seriously expect me to believe that?”

I resigned myself to the situation with a sigh. She wasn’t going to believe me no matter what I told her.

“Forget it; shouldn’t have said anything.”

She rushed up to me. “Are you being serious?”

“Never mind what I said…”

“What… what did it look like? The thing you saw.”

I looked at her, my mind churning as I tried to process her words. She repeated her question, each syllable clearly pronounced so that there was no room for misunderstanding. Seeing my bewildered expression, she looked around us before dragging me along.

“I know a secret place where we can be alone. Follow me.”

She’d just accused me of stalking, and now she wanted me to follow her. As I broke free from her firm grasp, she slipped away into a dark alleyway a few blocks away from our neighbourhood. Despite the bright daylight, a sense of unease crept over me as I approached her.

“So, what did it look like?”

She stressed the word ‘it’, drawing out the vowel sound as if trying to make a point. I shut my eyes for a moment and tried to recall the past I tried to forget. She repeated herself.

“Honestly, I have no idea. It… it was pitch-black. I couldn’t see a thing.”

“You said you saw it.”

“I said I thought I saw something.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Look, I don’t have a clue, all right? Can I go now?”

Just as I was about to leave, she clamped onto my arm with an unearthly force. I winced as her nails dug into my flesh.

“Just… just tell me what it looked like.”

“I told you – I don’t know!”

“Please, just say something – anything!”

My words caught in my throat as her desperate voice cracked. What was up with her? Why did it even matter?

“All I saw was a table full of food and—”

“Table full of food? What are you talking about?”

“What do you mean? You said you saw me! Then you must’ve seen the table as well!”

“No… no, I did not.”

By this point, my patience was wearing thin. The images from that night replayed on repeat in my mind and haunted me. I knew what I saw, and none of it was a hallucination.

I wrenched my hand free from her grasp and retreated. She shouted something, but the distance between us made it impossible for me to catch her words.

My jaw was clenched, and my fists were balled up as anger coursed through every fibre of my being. Being accused of being a creep was bad enough, but now I was being accused of being a bloody liar as well.

I lay in bed that night and listened to the sound of the rain tapping against my window. Her words echoed in my mind over and over again. I couldn’t tell if my memories were real or just a product of my mind any longer. But if they were real, then why did her words get to me so much?

Even though it was obvious she was lying, one way or the other, I couldn’t help but feel like there was some truth in what she said. Was I mistaken about everything? How? Why? Was my mind playing tricks on me? No, that couldn’t be it.

That night, I was completely awake and alert. The opulent table was right there in plain sight, I was sure. Merida must’ve seen it too, or at least, caught a whiff of the dishes. But she said I was wrong, she said there was no table. Nothing made sense. It was driving me up the wall.

With a grunt, I sat up in bed, feeling the weight of my thoughts pressing down on me. It was like I was losing my grip on reality, unsure if I was being gaslit or if my brain was meddling with my memories and showing me things that never happened.

When I arrived at school the next day, I was surprised to find a note on my desk. I snuck into the boys’ restroom to read it. The message used a strange mix of capital and lowercase letters. It was so short that it could hardly be called a letter.

I Know wHat yOu dId

Why did she feel the need to tell me this? I couldn’t wrap my head around the way her mind worked. I tossed the note, watching it swirl down the toilet bowl and vanishing from sight. With the note gone, I decided to invite Ryu over for a game night. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway.

We were so engrossed in playing games we lost track of time, and before we knew it, my mum returned from work.

The smell of exhaust fumes filled the air as Ryu’s mum pulled up an hour later to take him home. As much as Ryu’s presence helped me forget about the beige mansion, I couldn’t help but feel drawn to it again as I gazed across the road.

I stood in the doorway, listening to the sound of my mum’s footsteps as she went back inside, while Ryu’s car disappeared around the corner. The beige mansion loomed before me – its eerie grandeur impossible to ignore.

I squinted. What was that? A person? It moved closer to me, whatever it was. I blinked and stared down at my feet, feeling the weight of the world as I stood there in silence. My feet felt glued to the ground. Why couldn’t I move?

With each step, the shadowy figure moved more erratically, its body contorting in unnatural ways. I felt my body tense up as panic flooded my senses, leaving me gasping for air. I shut my eyes. The weight of dread settled in my stomach as I prepared for what was to come.

Then I felt the rough grip of two hands pulling me back into the hallway before the door slammed shut. Collapsing on my knees, I heard the click of the lock as my mum peered through the peephole. It was real. I wasn’t hallucinating. But the thing we saw couldn’t be explained by science or reasoning.

My mum yanked me up, and we dashed up the creaky stairs. She opened the hatch to the attic, and I reluctantly climbed up. She followed, trying to ascend as quickly as possible, but her efforts were cut short by a loud bang on the locked door.

She put a finger to her lips, warning me to be quiet before descending the wooden ladder. Peering through the gap in the hatch, I could see her fingers gripping the doorknob as she stood there, trying to keep whatever was on the other side locked. Not once did she turn around and look back.

I could hear my heart pounding in my chest as she finally twisted the doorknob and opened the door. The echo of her footsteps faded away, and I knew deep down that this was the last time I would see her. Tears streamed down my pale cheeks.

The sound of my mum’s screams reverberated through the empty hallway. I blocked my ears. I didn’t leave the attic. I couldn’t. That night, my mum disappeared without a trace. The police found no evidence of foul play. They believed she left on her own.

I lived with my grandmother afterwards. Ten years went by. Merida and I stayed in contact. She believed me, she was the only one who did. The tragedy that befell her family also affected mine.

The creature, she said, was fuelled by curiosity, and the more I tried to uncover its secrets, the more it yearned to be noticed. I summoned it, she said, and now my mum was no more. But it wasn’t like that. It never was. In the end, it was the moment I stopped grieving that made it angry, only I learnt this too late – far too late.

Night after night, I witnessed my mum lock me in the attic and disappear down the hallway. It was driving me mad. I couldn’t shake off the guilt that was eating away at me, and waves of shame kept hitting me time and again.

To break the vicious circle, I fell asleep to the image of her smiling face. It was the only thing that kept the nightmares at bay. Merida told me to stop dwelling on the past and to focus on tomorrow instead.

Try as I might, I couldn’t do it. It was always on my mind, the shadowy figure, and I couldn’t help but think about it. My heart yearned for its arrival. I wanted it to take me to my mum. But it never came.

Merida and I developed a romantic relationship in our twenties. She said she liked me since the first time she saw me but couldn’t confess her feelings until our late teens. I didn’t feel the same way about her. For a long time, all I felt was a sense of pity. But I needed her friendship and I couldn’t bear to see her leave me.

When she gave me an ultimatum – either her or no one – I chose her. She was in love, madly in love, which surprised me. I sort of always knew she had a crush on me but I never knew it was this deep and this persistent over the years.

Our first night… I couldn’t go through with it. I told her I couldn’t. I saw her more as a sister than a lover, and my complex feelings for her led us into this awkward position. She left in the middle of the night and didn’t return my calls for several weeks.

Without her, as strange as that was, I found myself in a more stable place. I was feeling better, much better. The heavy weight in my chest lifted, the nightmares ceased, and my mum no longer disturbed my sleep.

When Merida returned, I broke things off with her and decided to take a break and heal my scars. She didn’t take it well. A neighbour had to step in as she screamed and cursed at me. I had never seen this side of her – never imagined she could be so violent, so unhinged. It felt like I had dodged a bullet. A big one.

Soon afterwards, I landed a job as a butcher, just a short ten-minute walk away from home. Life started improving. It was the best decision of my life – at least while it lasted. But sometimes, I’d find myself staring too long at Gin, wondering if her laugh had always sounded quite like that. Or if the colour of her eyes had shifted. I chalked it up to paranoia. But was it?

Mr Jekeil was the one who hired me. We worked together most of the time, taking turns between the butchery downstairs and the counter.

Gin, the girl I fell in love with, was Mr Jekeil’s only daughter. She was out of my league in more than one way. Gin was a university graduate and had a 9-5 office job in a world-renowned investment bank.

It is kind of funny I think about this now, but she had the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. When she beamed, time came to a halt.

I confessed to her on the day we strolled down the street aimlessly – young, reckless and madly in love. With her in her arms, I was another person. She was the drug I needed to heal, the calm after the storm, and she was real.

We kissed. The rest is history.

Mr Jekeil had seen it coming for he told me one night to take good care of her. I intended to do that. Gin made my past non-existent. All those miserable events that shaped my life and my personality vanished in a puff of smoke. Yet, sometimes, I’d wake in the night gasping for air – not from nightmares, but from the absence of them. Like something was missing. Something that had fed off my sorrow for so long it couldn’t stand my happiness…

And like this, another decade passed in bliss. I was now the father of a three-year-old daughter, Emma, and I finally understood what my late mum must have felt when she locked me in the attic and faced her demise. I felt the same way. I would do anything to keep my baby girl safe.

I had no father of my own but I tried my best to be a good dad for my daughter and the best husband for Gin who made dreams come true. It was a miraculous feat, and I was fearing its collapse.

The past no longer haunted me, I swear it did not, but sometimes I found myself looking across the street and shuddering. The paranoia eating my heart out hadn’t consumed me yet. But both Gin and I sensed it – growing deeper, bolder, with every passing year.

She suggested we consult a psychologist – a former friend of hers from university. We arranged a session just two weeks later. I never went to that consultation. I never had the chance to.

It was the dead of night. Gin slept with our daughter in the next room in the hallway while I was still wide awake. We went to bed early that day since Gin had to go to work at half past six to finish a report. We woke up three hours later to a bone-chilling scream. I was the first to find our daughter hiding under her draped bed.

The window was open, the whistling wind chilling the inside of the room and rocking the window like it was singing a sombre lullaby. We were on the second floor by the way and the window was secured just in case. I still can’t wrap my head around how it became unlocked. It shouldn’t have. Gin slept with our daughter that night and asked me to wake her up at five o’clock.

I lay on the side and hugged the pillow I rested my head on, watching the moaning wind from our bedroom window as it forced the crooked trees to sway in a macabre dance in the middle of the night. I must have dozed off not long after.

I awoke to the alarm I set up and noted that it was still dark outside. After putting on my clothes, I dragged my feet across the hallway and opened the door to our daughter’s bedroom.

I was still groggy, but I knew the gruesome sight before me wasn’t a dream. The wallpaper was shredded, the rug torn down the middle, the closets stood wide and empty, and the lamp was crushed into shards of bloody glass.

I stopped breathing and backed away. There was blood everywhere. I pulled the ripped covers down and frantically tried to find a sign of life. When I didn’t find any, I looked out through the open window and out into the darkness, which was about to turn azure. No one was outside.

A shard of glass cut into my feet as rushed out of the room and downstairs. My eyes grew wide. There, right there, in front of the cracked front door, I saw a grin I knew too well.

I took a step forwards, holding my breath. The shadowy figure carried my little girl. It was as still as the rigid mountains, lifeless and stiff like the undead, just like how I remembered it.

I stepped forwards, my hands reaching out, desperate to stop it. It grinned wider than before. Had I brought it here? No, I stopped being curious about it the day I met Gin. I just wanted to live. I just… How did it find me?

I glanced to the left and noticed a wooden block with a knife on top of the marble counter. It was a gift from Gin so I took care of it like a baby, so that it would never become stale and useless. But it was too far away from where I stood. It would be safer to charge forwards than seize the knife. Still, it was the only thing that made sense at the moment.

I snatched the knife and lunged at it. The figure didn’t budge. I raised the knife and drove it through its hollow chest. Its wolfish grin turned into a horror-stricken expression, and the dark and hollow eyes turned brown.

I pulled the knife out of my wife, who collapsed with our daughter in her arms. It was first then that I noticed the pool of blood beneath my feet and found my little girl stabbed more times than I wanted to count. Her tiny head hung by a thread from her severed neck.

I collapsed beside them.

The bloody knife fell through my trembling fingers and my laboured breath came in short, ragged bursts. As I turned my head and peered out of the open door, I noticed a dark figure amidst the downpour.

I couldn’t discern its face at first, but I knew who it was. It spoke to me. A wretched shriek escaped from my lips as I grabbed the blood-stained knife and tightened my grip around the shaft. Merida. Merida Bell.

Running into the brightening darkness, I stabbed her until she bled to death and the rain washed her away. Only a trail of blood on the pavement remained as evidence of her existence. Every fragment of her presence in my mind evaporated with the prattling torrent.

That was when I knew Merida lied to me. The shadowy figure didn’t feed on my curiosity, it fed on my grief. The happier I became, the more I forgot the past and the hungrier it became. Mrs Bell didn’t invite us in out of rudeness. It all made sense now. She acted the way she did to keep us safe. Because once grief took root, it opened the door. And once it opened, it never shut again. And I had kept it open, all these years, without knowing…

That night, when I went out to explore what was hidden in bushes, Mrs Bell had already been murdered. Now I knew she was also the one who took away my mum. She wanted me to be all alone and hers only – her prey. She fed on me like the parasite she was. In the end, it was my fault – all of this.

I covered my eyes, my hands trembling out of control. I was still holding the bloody knife. But the trail of blood was no longer in the current. I don’t know if it was really her I killed. Maybe she was just another mask it wore. Maybe she never existed at all…

A car door opened behind me. Someone yelled at me to put the knife on the ground and raise my hands. As the police handcuffed me, I looked over my shoulder to bid farewell to my family. Dejected. Without hope. In despair.

I frowned. My heart skipped a beat. The woman on the floor wore Gin’s robe, but it hung differently, shorter than I remembered. Her hair was parted the wrong way, too. The little girl’s socks were green, not pink. Gin would never have let her wear mismatched socks.

That’s when it hit me. These weren’t my family. I had never seen these people before!

I shoved the officer aside and frantically searched the deluge, trying to find a trace of my missing family. The officer shoved me to the ground. I turned my head and looked into his eyes, pleading with him.

“It’s not them! These people, I-I don’t know them!”

He followed my eyes, I think he could see the last bit of good in me, then forced me up and into the police car. Something in his gaze told me he knew I was telling the truth, but he feigned ignorance, or so I thought. I’ll never forget the terror in his eyes as he looked into mine. Never. Like I was some kind of monster…

I wasted away in prison for over a decade. I was placed on death row for the murder of my family. But I didn’t do it. I saw it – clear as day! Those people weren’t my family! I had never seen these people before – not once in my life! The officer knew I was telling the truth – I could see it in his eyes. But no one believed me – no one wanted to believe.

As the injection took hold and darkness crept in, all I could think about was my wife and daughter. Where were they? What happened to them?

Mr Jekeil was there too, watching me, although I couldn’t see him through the glass. He would never forgive me – nor should he. I failed to protect my family. I promised him I would, but I failed.

The last image that burned into my fading mind was her.

Merida. Merida Bell.

Merida and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. From childhood crushes to the heartbreaks of adolescence… we went through it all together.

I wish we didn’t.

Dream Girl Evil

Photo by Siobhan Flannery on Unsplash
Sondra Kaufmann – a name so rare it was destined for immortality, one way or another, bound for stardom.

We first crossed paths in middle school, when she had yet to reach her full potential and become the person she was now remembered as. Her auburn curls used to drape over her shoulders, and her crimson lips used to be plump and temptingly kissable.

I liked her. She was an outcast, a miserable spirit just like me. And, being a hot-blooded teenager, I was naturally drawn to her pretty face and sharp mind. She was my dream girl, only darker, more dangerous. My dream girl, evil.

Nothing happened between us, though. I don’t think Sondra was, you know, interested in other people in the same way we normal humans were. She kept a low profile until graduation and remained a mystery – not just in my teenage mind, but in the minds of every other boy in our year.

Everyone was in love; Sondra wasn’t. I don’t think she was capable of feeling those kinds of emotions.

Funny to think about it now, but on the day of our graduation, I actually planned to confess to her. A stupid idea, I know, but it didn’t seem so bad at the time. As I said, she was pretty – petite and classy – and I was into her edginess. I mean, I was a six-foot-tall metalhead. I blame the hormones.

Anyway, the point is, I never confessed, and Sondra, being the eccentric girl she was, didn’t even show up to her own graduation. And like that, ladies and gentlemen, that love story ended right then and there – as it should.

I studied mechanical engineering later in life and sold my baby, my Gibson Les Paul, to focus on my studies. That hurt like hell, honestly. I mourned its loss for weeks.

My girlfriend at the time, Lily, thought I was being overly dramatic for no good reason. But I’m telling you that guitar had been with me forever. It was like a child to me.

I broke things off with Lily after two years of dating, for unrelated reasons, of course, but honestly, I don’t think I ever really forgave her for saying those things back then.

Don’t get me wrong. Lily was a good girl – too good for me – but she could be a little… How do I put it? Borderline obsessive? It wasn’t that she wanted to be in my life; she wanted to be my life. Well, you get the gist of it…

Fast forward to my first real job – a paid internship at one of the largest corporations in the country. I didn’t earn much, but I got by pretty well compared to a lot of my classmates, most of whom were still unemployed.

I ran into Sondra again, purely by chance, at the tube. I never thought I’d see her again, but there she was, standing right in front of me. She looked exactly the same as the last time I saw her.

To say I felt nothing would’ve been a lie. She was beautiful, disturbingly unreal, and I was attracted to her all over again!

Just like a scene from a romantic film, it felt as though we were the only two people in the world, completely lost in the moment. I was the first to speak. I said her name without even realising why. She smiled, and I knew she remembered me.

We spent the night at a nearby motel. The walls echoed with our passionate whispers, creating a memory that would linger in our minds for a very long time. But as dawn broke, we parted ways, and the morning air erased every trace of our intimate encounter.

Two days later, a notification appeared on my phone. It was a friend request from her on Facebook. Do people still use that platform these days? Well, I suppose that’s beside the point.

We started dating.

Sondra moved in with me after just three weeks, and everything seemed perfect. We even adopted a Golden Retriever from a shelter and named her Golden – pun intended.

I had never felt such overwhelming happiness before. I wanted to show her how special she was to me, shower her with passionate love, and make plans for our future together.

That was… until I discovered her secret. Or should I say, ‘secrets’?

Sondra, though an intelligent woman by nature, had dropped out of university shortly after enrolling in medical school. When her patriarchal, narrow-minded parents found out, they cut off her monthly allowance and, in her words, ‘disowned’ her.

I couldn’t understand how any parents could just cut ties with their child like that, but I believed her – I wanted to believe her. But this wasn’t even remotely close to what actually ended our relationship.

Things took a turn for the worse on the evening of my birthday. We had just had sex when she received a message on her phone and abruptly jumped out of bed. That was the first time she had ever done that.

Though I had no reason to suspect she was cheating on me, this incident kept me on edge for a long time. So, when I got the chance to check her phone, I took it and risked everything.

I knew her password – she didn’t bother hiding it from me – but what I found was beyond disturbing: grainy images, taken from what seemed to be some kind of photo album. The images showed people in disturbing positions, some naked, some intoxicated, and others seemingly stiff, like corpses.

All her messages, sent and received, were deleted, and she didn’t have a single phone number saved in her contacts – not even mine.

The nature of the images, especially those I believed depicted real human cadavers, made my blood run cold. Why did she have those images, and who the hell was sending them to her?

What disturbed me most, however, was that all the victims were people of colour.

I confronted her the same night. Although I wasn’t sure how to approach it, since I couldn’t predict her behaviour, not after seeing those pictures, I hesitated for a solid two hours.

Her response – I can still hear it clearly in my fading mind – chilled me to the bone. She said it with such calmness too, in such a nonchalant and detached manner, that I struggled to process whether she was aware of the morbidity of her own words. But, boy, she sure was!

“My slaves,” she said. “They are our slaves, don’t you get it?”

Dumbfounded, I stood there, and it took me a moment to recover before she repeated herself. I couldn’t believe it. She was dead serious.

“W-What?”

“You don’t understand! We’re superior, Elijah! We come from a noble and pure race! We have to preserve it!”

Disgusted by those words I’d never expected to hear from someone this special to me, I instinctively stepped away.

“Are you… are you okay?”

Her features softened as she noticed the confusion in my voice, inched closer and let her finger run down my cheek. Even now, as she said those disturbing things, even as I saw those messed-up images, I couldn’t help but feel attracted to her.

“That’s why I chose you, Elijah…” I let her kiss me, even for a brief second, relishing in her wet kiss before I pushed her away. “Together, we’ll retain our race and make it pure again—”

You’re not well.” I paused, glancing away to gather my thoughts, muttering more to myself than to Sondra. “This… this is madness. You weren’t like this before. Just—what happened to you?”

“I opened my eyes to the truth, Elijah! Don’t you see? Those people don’t work, don’t pay taxes, don’t do anything! They’re rats! Filthy rats living off people like us.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Rats? They’re people, Sondra, just like you and me. Humans! Humans who deserve to live an honourable life just like anybody else!”

“You call those people our equals? Muslims, Indians, Asians – they’re not like us. They never will be!”

“You’ve lost your goddamn mind, Sondra!”

“Open your eyes and see the truth for what it is! There are mosques everywhere! Mosques, for crying out loud! And those stinking kebab shops on every corner, and-and—"

“What's your problem with people praying, working hard, and trying to make a living in a world where people like us have an advantage? You can’t just label the entire population as bad and others as good. That’s not how this works. There are good and bad people, not good and bad groups or races of people.”

“You call stealing our jobs, taking over neighbourhoods, breeding violence, and polluting our race people working hard? Babe, our vets are homeless and barely scraping by after serving this country, while those-those rats are taking our hard-earned money!”

“Polluting?” I couldn't help but crack up. “You sound like a 60-year-old bigot—or some 20-year-old online incel. What the actual fuck, Sondra? Since when did you start hanging around with people whose only experience of people of colour comes from the news?”

“You don’t get it, do you?”

“No, I fucking don’t! And I think you’re ill. This isn’t you, Sondra. We went to school in the ghetto together! In the bloody ghetto! You know those things you're saying aren't true! We both know.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that those people are threatening our existence!”

“Fine! Let’s pretend you’re right. Even if your twisted theory holds up, what do you actually lose if our ‘race’ becomes a minority? Think about it. Weren’t you going to be a doctor? Explain to me how this makes any sense to you.”

“I’m telling you, our race will disappear—”

“That bloody race talk again? Fuck! Okay. I'll let you believe in that bullshit this one time, but by the time you and I cease to exist, we'll both be long gone, don’t you think? Who knows? Maybe a better race will come out of mixing races? Isn't that what survival of the fittest is all about? The greater the complexity of our genetic makeup, the higher our intelligence and capacity to adapt will be. If we all get stuck trying to preserve an ancient noble race there’s no fucking evidence of, humanity itself will cease to exist!”

“I can't believe I actually considered marrying you! You’re a lost cause, Elijah! And you’re no better than those bloody rats living off of us!”

“And I can’t believe someone so intelligent turned out like this! It’s a pity. Really. I… I really liked you. I wanted this to work and… never mind. It doesn’t even matter now, does it?”

“No, it does, babe! I’ll give you one more chance to do the right thing.” She paused upon seeing the smirk on my face. “Don’t give me that face, babe, ‘cause I’m not fucking smiling right now.”

“One more chance? One more chance for what? You expect us to work out after coming out as a racist?”

“Is this your answer? Elijah, babe, look at me.”

She cradled my face in her hands, those deep-set eyes boring into mine. Her face card was strong – impossibly strong – and her kissable lips hovered just inches from mine.

“Is this really what you want?”

“It’s not about what I want,” I said, stepping back again, fighting to stay grounded, to resist the spell of her voice, her touch, her everything. “I can’t be with someone who sees people this way. I’m sorry. I really am.”

Her expression hardened. Cold. Unreadable. Something in her changed. Those seductive eyes of hers, warm and teasing, went dead. Hollow. Predatory. Then she said it. The line that twisted something inside me:

“I didn’t want to do this. Not to you, Elijah. But you leave me no other choice.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” My throat tightened. “Sondra? What the fuck is that supposed—”

Her eyes flicked past me. Quick. Too quick. Like she’d spotted something in the shadows. And then… she smiled. Not a grin. Not a smirk. A smile that made my skin crawl.

I whipped around.

Click.

A camera shutter. And just like that, with a single click, I was gone. Just another soul in that cursed roll of film.

My final memory? A saw. A clean cut. My head leaving my body.

Then – darkness.

Just... darkness. And nothing else.

No God.

No angels.

No demons.

Just the endless click of the shutter. Out of reach, just beyond the veil. There and not there. Real one second, smoke and mirrors the next.

The footage never stopped.

The saw never dulled.

My severed head never stopped rolling – thumping across the floorboards, trailing crimson like a signature.

And I watched her. I watched her keep going. Collecting more. Luring them in. Always the same setup. Same smile. Same bed. And those lips—

Still kissable.

Still killing.

Skin Deep

Photo by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash

Rule number one: never act on your feelings. Rule number two: always follow rule number one. Rule number three: breaking either rule means defeat.

During my nursing studies, I interned at the largest hospital in town, and two things happened: the student who was supposed to be supervised together with me dropped out of nursing school, and I was relocated from floor two to floor three in the infection ward after several nurses fell ill during a tuberculosis outbreak.

The dean of our faculty thus had to relocate everyone who was supposed to work on floor two; some were transferred to other wards but three of us were just sent a floor up. While the two nurses-in-training – my future colleagues – were supervised by the same mentor, I was, given the urgency of the situation, put in the care of one of the senior nurses who was supposed to retire the same year the epidemic broke out.

Needless to say, the old woman despised me and everything I represented. She was callous and bitter, and she took every opportunity she could to humiliate me in front of as many people as possible for the tiniest mistakes I made.

It was during this time of my life that I almost broke rule number one. It was pure coincidence that I was relocated one floor up and met the person I wasn’t supposed to meet. Like running into an old friend after many years, I knew I had to keep my distance to follow the rules I set for myself.

But the attraction between us was visible even from miles away, despite how distant and cold we appeared outwardly, and my supervisor wasn’t about to ignore it. The more she humiliated me, the closer the link between us became, like a deflated balloon that stretched endlessly and was difficult to rip with your bare hands.

I remember when she asked me to choose two or three patients to take care of for the day, and I picked one regular patient and one who wasn’t an ‘infection patient’ but was brought to our ward due to the epidemic. For her, this choice was yet another opportunity to mock me. As I was giving a brief of our regular patient’s well-being to the assistant doctor, he gave instructions on the kinds of medicine he was going to prescribe before I could give a brief of the other patient I chose.

When he was done and I had taken my notes, my supervisor stopped him and asked: “What about the other patient?” He looked at me, who was still clueless as to why he had skipped that particular patient in question and replied: “That’s not our patient. His own doctor will arrive later this evening.” I think he knew what my supervisor tried to do. And I think that was when it… when it became difficult to follow my rules.

The entire internship continued like this for a while and I was nearing the end of it. Despite strict regulations prohibiting it, my supervisor had already contacted my clinical supervisor at my nursing school and told her about how incompetent of a nurse I was. It was kind of comical when my clinical supervisor told me this, though. The patients, the other nurses and the orderlies all praised my knowledge and skills, yet there I was – a mere student whose words went against that of a senior nurse. I was bound to lose the battle.

Her demeaning behaviour affected me in ways no words could truly capture. When I learnt I failed my internship a week before my last day on the ward, I quit and dropped out of school. That woman broke me. She truly did. But it wasn’t just her – it was him too.

I hated the way I felt about him. We hardly spoke yet my walls seemed to have given in to him already. The day I quit, I went back home and decided to leave everything behind and survive this wicked world, no matter what. That was how my writing career started.

With the passing years, not only did I manage to close off my heart again, but also my mind to other people. Like a hermit living in the jagged mountains, I lived a life of enclosure and solitude. Living like this had its setbacks, of course.

There was increased pressure on my shoulders from all around, urging me to step into the spotlight and narrate my stories, my inspirations, and my aspirations in my own voice. I never accepted an award show invitation in my youth, never showed my face, and never took advantage of my position as a best-selling author, either.

That is, until I turned 54 and received an email from one of the leading magazines in the Western Hemisphere. I recognised the name of the sender, or rather, the surname I thought I had forgotten. How could I ever?

A photo of a young woman in her mid-twenties appeared in the search results as I typed her name. Goodwin. Lara Goodwin. An LGBTQ+ journalist who graduated from Harvard University with a law degree. Although the surname itself wasn’t uncommon, something in her face warmed my heart. Was it her emerald eyes, her rosy lips, or her straight, light brown hair? Or was it the shape of her face, the way her intelligent eyes seemed to seal all the secrets of the world or the way she talked?

Yet… deep down, I knew why.

Perhaps this insight, this resemblance, was what tore me apart as I noticed that she was raised by two men – her fathers. At that moment, when I realised the gravity of my belated discovery, a flood of memories washed over me.

How was this possible? As I sifted through distant memories, trying to make sense of my past and my present, all I could remember was a man in love with a woman. I knew this was the case even if I lacked the words to describe it. So how…? Had I been deceived, could my memories have been betraying me all this time—no, that couldn’t be the case!

But if that were truly the case, then how could I explain this newfound insight about the man I thought loved me? The answer came to me two years later one wintry evening when I least expected it.

The man who had almost broken me had transitioned. But it wasn’t just his body that changed – his face did too. It was like looking at a distorted mirror of my past self – of my youth – at a time when I was the most beautiful.

Then it dawned on me.

I wasn’t the one she was in love with. She was in love with my face, this feminine visage that was everything she ever wanted to see on her former face.

This happened during the 80s, mind you, when transitioning wasn’t as readily accepted at that age and time. I couldn’t help but wonder: had I given in to my feelings back then, would she have ripped my skin and put it on her own? Perhaps I knew this was the case, this was why I kept my distance all along. After all, I was so in love, so madly in love, that I’d offer not only my hollow heart but also my face to her.