LOCAL TEEN FINDS BODY OF LOVING MOTHER SLAIN IN QUAINT SUBURBAN HOME; VICTIM SUFFERED IMMENSE TRAUMA BEFORE INEVITABLE DEATH.
But what of the survivors? You’re sixteen when it happens; just a kid, just a teenager, just a girl---you come home late because your mother never showed up to pick you up from play rehearsal, and, like anyone would be, you’re irate as you storm up the driveway. The door slams behind you, and you don’t care. ‘ MOM. ’ You shout, knowing full well she’s in the house, the car’s in the driveway, currently mulling over in your head how she could’ve possibly forgotten her only child. ‘ MOM. ’ You check the kitchen, you check the back porch, you saunter up the stairs with heavy footfalls. This is getting ridiculous. ‘ MOM. ’ You don’t bother knocking on the bedroom door, your hand gripping the knob. ‘ Thanks for letting me wait for you for an hour, you know, you could’ve told me you’d be---’
It hits you like a freight train; the world shifts under your feet and you’re knocked on your back, bones shattering, wind leaving you gasping desperately for air. You want to scream but you can’t; you want to cry but you can’t; you’re frozen on the spot, fingers curling tighter on the doorknob, grip white-knuckled as the piercing stench of liquid iron fills you, dizzies you, blinds you---and before you can faint, you’re floating to your room, fingers frantically pressing the buttons to dial for help ( save her! save her! you have to save her! ) begging for help, help, please help, she’s hurt, she’s bleeding, she’s lost so much blood, please help her. please help her.
please help me. i’m just a kid. i’m so scared.
The hard plastic of the receiver slips between your fingers as your eyes catch a figure out of your peripherals, shrouded in a coat, sinking into the shadows, crawling into the car across the way, the sound of the engine disappearing into the falling night as the swell of sirens grow and grow and grow.
It’ll haunt you for months. The horror is far from over. No, it’s only just beginning.
i’m just a kid. i’m so scared. please help me.
COTTON WEARY SENTENCED TO DEATH IN CONVICTION FOR MURDER OF MAUREEN PRESCOTT; SIDNEY PRESCOTT DENIES INTERVIEW WITH PRESS FOLLOWING SENTENCING OF DEATH PENALTY.
You’re barely seventeen and already a household name; tragedy struck and molded you into a nation’s victim. How horrific, the loss of innocence, your youth forever tainted by the bloodlust of the worst kind of man! Strangers passing by either turn their faces away or stare with utmost pity. What a shame, what you’ve gone through.
The people you know aren’t as forgiving. Amid a seemingly unending parade of support from your inner circle and the deputy sheriff are whispers tainting the pristine portrait of your perfect family. That woman was a whore and everyone knows it. The rumors of other men start popping up; no one says it to your face, but it still comes back to you. It doesn’t help that it’s sensationalized in the news, thrown back in your face; so-called journalists with their highlighter-green suits and chemically-enhanced hair, smiles like a wolf’s, shoving their cameras and microphones in your face at every turn, begging for a quote, an interview, a story, can only take the word ‘no’ so many times before they turn their attention to rumored fantasy. Maureen Prescott and Cotton Weary were lovers, GALE WEATHERS of TOP STORY TONIGHT reports. Sidney Prescott misidentified Weary as the killer; an innocent man will die without a mistrial! Save the innocent! Save the innocent!
( but are we ever truly innocent? )
A year passes by, and you’re holding yourself together with carefully crafted smiles that don’t reach your eyes and breakdowns in private that leave you feeling more hollow than ever before. You have to be strong, you tell yourself. It’s the only way to move on. To get past it all. You have to be strong. You still have your father, your friends, your first love. Suffering is a look you wear well; your gaze is always on the ground, your voice is softer, you wilt into the background most days and throw yourself into school and theater to distract yourself. Distractions keep you going. Distractions keep you from remembering. Remembering only brings pain.
DEWEY SAYS IT’S THE WORST CRIME HE’S SEEN IN YEARS. EVEN WORSE THAN.... WELL, IT’S BAD.
It’s a cool April night when the phone rings and you answer it; the stranger on the other line is mysterious, and comical, and despite the déjá vu plaguing your day, you play along with his games, laughing at the irony, teasing back---it’s all a joke to you, for a few brief moments, it’s funny, until it’s not, and you’re running for your life as death chases you down with his blade. You run into the arms of your lover when he appears; you retreat when the quaintest of clues falls to the ground, shattering that wall of safety, dread and despair pooling in your belly as you retreat. SIDNEY! he screams after you.
It cuts deep, the thought of someone you love being someone else entirely. The pill is nearly impossible to swallow as you give your statement to police and wipe away tears before the world can see your inner torment written on your face. And yet it’s not enough to bring a sense of safety; that animalistic, brutal stranger finds you again, taunting you for your errors. LOOKS LIKE YOU FINGERED THE WRONG GUY---AGAIN! Before you have the chance to fall asleep, that seedling of doubt plants its roots.
You know it can’t be Billy, yet the who is more broad than the attack last night; who killed your mother? For so long you’ve been screaming that it’s Cotton Weary that your throat has grown hoarse, and now that doubt is growing. Someone was there---someone called you, someone taunted you, someone is ripping you apart from the inside, and you don’t know if the truth you’ve accepted for so long is the whole truth.
MAYBE SHE’S A SLUT JUST LIKE HER MOTHER.
Be a good girl, the world tells you. Keep your head down, your skin covered, your legs crossed. Don’t talk back. Don’t challenge the status quo. Be a good girl. Good girls don’t get hurt if you follow those simple rules; don’t be your mother. Your mother was a bad seed. Your mother’s six feet under. Your mother got what was coming to her. Be a good girl.
You retreat to comfortable territory; the boy you love is forgiving, when perhaps he shouldn’t be. Patient, he is, letting you speak, letting you break the façade, letting you cry, comforting you; you’re worried you’ll end up just like your mother---you’re worried her lies and deceit have decided your future when you’re still just a girl. But your mother didn’t have a love like this; your mother didn’t have support like this; so you open yourself to the boy that you love, because he’s safe, and soft, and familiar, and you don’t want to lose him when you’ve lost so much already. You don’t know how much more loss you can take.
WHAT’S THE MATTER, SIDNEY? YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’VE SEEN A GHOST.
You can’t breathe. You inhale blood and you exhale tears; you can’t breathe, you can’t speak, you can’t think. The boy you love isn’t a boy; he isn’t loving; he’s blade and teeth and vengeance; he’s a monster leaping out of the shadows to pull you into an all-consuming darkness. The truth hits you like a freight train; but this time debris flies at you in all directions, slicing you open, jagged pieces shattering like glass as they collide with the ground. He pulls you into a lover’s embrace; it’s marred by the knife to your throat as your world crashes around you. He killed your mother. He killed your friends. He’ll kill your father---and you’re next.
I’M GONNA RIP YOU UP, YOU BITCH! JUST LIKE YOUR FUCKING MOTHER!
He’s angry, and you don’t care; in his moment of grandeur arrogance you find your escape; and as he searches for you, ripping apart cloth and stitches and tearing open doorways, you crouch low, waiting to pounce; your body aches, and stings, and begs for rest, but adrenaline pushes you toward something foreign and new and enticing; revenge. And you attack, with your wit, with your resourcefulness, with your instincts---you stab, you claw, you wrestle, you bend, you break, and you shoot, until the monsters unmasked lay dead at your feet, bleeding and broken. Pathetic.
Out of the blood and the ash and the darkness you rise; you step out into the daylight with war etched into your skin, caked to your bones, filling your lungs. You’re triumphant; you’re a hero. There’s another news story to be written, another case closed, another day in the life of a trauma survivor. You’re a hero.
But you don’t feel heroic. You feel tired. And above it all---above everything else---you feel hollow. Empty.
Freedom comes at a cost; you’re still paying the toll.
turnnoffyourmind
stormborns
gummygunk
tangentwithtanner
blakekathryn
ellievsbear
izzy806
