Her first funeral, the most traumatic funeral, a funeral that would only be the start to all the rest that she would attend, the funeral that would haunt her dreams to this day. Juniper could remember it as if it were just yesterday. The smell of death -despite the morticians attempts to hide it-, the smell of ten thousand perfumes, the feel of a stranger escorting her from the asylum to the funeral home. All for something /she/ did. Mrs. Karen Jenkins and Acacia Soleil’s funeral, held on the same day. Two different souls, one same disaster, a thousand different eyes.
Juniper could remember the feeling of everyone’s eyes on her, judging her. Some, anyways, mostly the rich. The poor, the Jenkins family, they didn’t judge her. They let her visit with peace, show remorse on her young face, give her sorry and sorrow and be accepted. Her family on the other hand, cast her out, refused to let her in the room to see her sister’s casket. Curious blue hues wanted to see, make sure they were both actually dead like everyone was mourning, but both viewings were closed caskets due to the damage from the fire.
Though she was the reason the two were dead, no one ever thought to see how /she/ felt. Upon leaving the funeral home, she was kicking and screaming. A cop had to pry her from Mrs. Jenkins casket and carry her out to take her back to the asylum. Why was she damned to such a place? It was all an accident, even her sister. She didn’t mean to, she refused to believe that she was that kind of monster. Was she a murderer? A killer? Her future would be the judge of that, and even then, who knew. But no matter what therapists, psychologists, nurses, or doctors stated, she claimed innocence. Juniper Soleil would scream it from the top of her lungs.
Now? She could tell you that Mrs. Karen’s death was indeed an accident, but as for her twin sister? That was a completely different story.
After leaving the asylum, Juniper got into some deep shit, shit that involved her dark side more and more. Though, she tried to keep it at bay. She tried stepping away, taking drugs, nothing worked, nothing helped her cope. The only thing that did was one being, that being soon met death as well. Juniper convinced herself that her death was her fault just like the rest, just like everyone that she loses. She sees them all as her fault, even if she had no hand in them.
Voices from her depressive psychosis and mild schizophrenia taunted her daily and nightly, she never caught a break and you could see it in her eyes every day that you spoke to her. Death causes a huge inner battle within Juniper that no one could understand or experience themselves. Something beyond grief, beyond normal emotions.
As each body added up, hers tried to do anything and everything to cope. Different drugs, stronger ones than what she found as a teen, alcohol, obsessing over work. Nothing ever helped. She could never cope and she was convinced that she never would find a way. At one point, she figured ‘why not just die? Why not end it all?’ To which, she committed suicide to try and cope, to try and end the constant torture of nightmares and grief. It was a failed attempt that has still left her a little confused to this day.
Therapy was the only option she had left, though from past experience, she regretted it. Will it work out? Has it worked? That’s for everyone to find out later.
