Cursed

I could faintly hear the sound of birds chirping in the background, like they were echoing in my brain. It was nice. I didn’t want to wake up just yet, so my eyes stayed closed. I was never a morning person; I always liked to stay in bed just that little bit longer until my brain was able to wake up along with the rest of my body.
Suddenly, it felt like someone was watching me. I could feel a pair of eyes, or maybe it seemed like one eye, watching me while I was half asleep. Ugh, I am not in the mood to deal with demons this early in the morning! They usually don’t start popping up until around twilight-
What the mother fuck is that?
I opened my eyes to find a girl around my age sitting cross-legged at the very end of my bed. She was wearing a light blue tank with ripped jeans and had dirty blond hair, which was soaked in blood. She had one eye, which would explain why I felt one eye watching me earlier, the other wasn’t there and there was blood flowing from it, her nose looked broken with blood also flowing from it, and she had scratches all over her body with more blood here and there. Her clothes were also stained with blood.
What a lovely morning wake-up call. Don’t you want to wake up to a dead soul with one eye?
I slowly sat up in bed, trying to avoid blood rushing to my head too fast, and glared at the girl. “I hope you realize that it is entirely way too early to be dealing with any souls right now, and I won’t deal with you until I’ve taken a shower and eaten my breakfast. Got it?”
The girl’s one eye widened, as if she didn’t know I knew she was there, and slowly nodded her head in understanding.
“B-R-B.” I spelled out to her, then got out of my bed and headed into my bathroom.

Once I was done taking a shower, I came back into the bedroom to find the girl still sitting in the same spot she was before, looking at the pillow. When I walked in, she turned to face me. Her eye widened again when she saw me starting to undress.
What? It’s not like she hasn’t seen anything. She has the exact same things I do. And plus, she’s dead. Who’s she going to tell? Why would she even care?
Well, I guess she could go and tell all her little ghostly friends how I don’t mind being naked in front of her. Then one day I might find boy souls peeping into my room to watch me get dressed.
But I can still see them and kick their ass. So it’s all good.
I guess out of respect or something, she turned her head away from me quickly to let me change in peace. I quickly pulled on some black sweatpants that had a gold track logo on them (I used to run track back when I was in school) and a gray spaghetti-string tank top that had three buttons down the front of it at the top. Without another word, I padded out of the room and into the hallway that overlooked the living room. Our living room had a cathedral ceiling that came up into the upstairs hallway and created a loft area. I could smell chocolate and bacon from the kitchen area. My brother always makes breakfast on the weekends, and today was Saturday.
“Hey Mark!” I yelled down from the hallway.
“Yeah?!” He yelled back.
“Watcha makin’?!”
“Chocolate-chip pancakes with bacon and toast!”
I barely waited for him to finish his sentence before I scrambled down the stairs and jogged into the kitchen. It all smelled so good!
I always expected my brother to become a chef with how much he cooks and how well he does it. Even when our mom was still with us, he would cook most of the meals and do it better than she would! He just has a knack with getting the spices and fixings just right. If he feels what the directions call for isn’t good enough, he’ll make the food his way, and it still comes out amazing. I honestly don’t know how he does it. And to think he became a dentist. How the hell do you go from cooking amazing food to fixing teeth? I don’t get it. It makes no sense to me. But, oh well. He loves his teeth, so I don’t really have a right to put my two sense in there.
I went up behind my brother and laid my chin on his shoulder. I had to stand up on my tippy-toes to get there.
“That smells incredible. Did I ever tell you you’re an amazing cook?” I said.
He chuckled. “Only every day. You know, you’re giving me a big head, here.” He flopped a pancake onto a plate and then turned around to face me, causing me to back up from him a bit.
I scrunched my eyebrows together and glared at him. “Oh no, don’t go getting a big head now. You’re cooking sucks. You call that food? It smells like a fat man’s diarrhea.” I motioned towards the food on the counter and in the pans.
He threw his head back and laughed at me. “You know, you’re too much, Ronnie.” He swatted a hand at me and turned back to the pan and poured some more pancake mix into it.
“Yeah, I know. But that’s why you love me.”
I heard him laugh again and shake his head at me.
“Oh, by the way,” I said, “There’s this dead girl in my bedroom. I think I scared her this morning when I woke up.” I grabbed a plate from the cabinet and started plopping food onto it.
Mark put the last pancake onto a plate and turned off the stove. He turned to look at me. “I don’t blame her. You’re so scary in the morning that demons run away from you.” He had a point. “What’s she dead for, anyway?” He grabbed a plate and started putting food onto it next to me.
“I told her I didn’t want to deal with her right then until I took a shower and had some breakfast. She just nodded her head and stared at me with this big eye.” I grabbed a fork and sat down at the dining room table.
“She has one eye? Cool.” Mark sat down next to me.
“Yeah. The other one was cut out and all this blood was left there, running down her face. Her nose looked broken, too.”
“Ewe, okay, can you not tell me this while I’m eating? I don’t want to puke all over my perfectly made food.” He grimaced at me. I just laughed at him.

***

I slowly walked into my bedroom, holding my stomach. I was stuffed from all the pancakes I ate. You see, here’s the downside of my brother being such a good cook: you get fat. I don’t normally eat so much, but when he cooks it’s just like you have to have thirds of everything. And it sucks! He’s lucky I get so much exercise from hunting, otherwise I’d chop off his arms so he wouldn’t be able to cook anymore.
My eyes settled on the young girl still sitting at the end of my bed, staring at the pillow again. What the fuck? Doesn’t this girl know how to make herself at home?
“Um, you know you can sit somewhere else, right?” I asked her, raising one of my eyebrows.
She jumped slightly and turned in my direction, like as if I startled her. Her eye was wide as she sat there, staring at me.
“Oh, sorry I scared you. I didn’t mean to.” I walked a little closer and sat on the edge of my bed, a few feet away from her. She still sat there with her eye wide, unmoving.
I sighed. “Alright, look. What do you want? I’m here to help you if you need me but I’m not going to talk to you if you’re just going to sit there and stare at me like that. Just because I’m used to seeing dead people doesn’t mean I still don’t get creped out by you guys.” I stated.
She looked down at the bedspread. “Sorry.” She said so quietly, I had to check twice to make sure I even really heard her right.
I laughed. “Why are you apologizing?”
She looked back up at me and shrugged her shoulders.
“Do you think I’m going to hurt you?” I asked.
She waited a few seconds before answering. “I don’t really even know who you are. I just wandered in here after I died, looking for some company because I was scared, and then you woke up and you saw me. Then I got really scared. How should I know if you’re going to hurt me or not?” She paused, still looking at me. “What’s going on? How come you can see me and nobody else can?”
Ugh, I hate when they ask this. All lost souls ask me this because, of course, they don’t know about us special creatures God created to help them out.It just gets annoying after having to explain the same story millions of times.
“I was specially made to help lost souls like you, who wander the earth confused and scared. I have special energy built inside me to help bring you through a portal to take you to God’s judgment room. There, He will determine whether you will be going to heaven or hell. But since you haven’t turned into a demon yet, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance you will be going to heaven.
“I’m also a werewolf. Not the kind that kills off vampires; in fact, vampires don’t even exist. I become a werewolf to track down demons and to, not exactly kill them, but to send them back to hell where they have to stay. So from all of this, I can see dead people and demons.
“Now, I am here to hear your story of how you died, and they do a ritual with you to help you get through the portal to move on to the afterlife.”
She scrunched her eyebrows, which looked kinda weird since she only had one eye, but at least it looked like she was paying attention and trying to comprehend all the information. At points, she nodded her head to let me know she was listening, and when I was done she looked back down at the bedspread, slightly nodding her head.
I didn’t press her to tell me her story. I wanted her to talk when she felt comfortable. I mean, it can’t be easy being dead. And now you have to tell a complete stranger how you died? It’s kind of an uncomfortable situation… I feel bad for her. I feel bad for all the lost souls who missed the portal to the afterlife.
After a few minutes of thinking, she started talking. I moved a bit closer to her to let her know I was listening. “I was walking home from my usual night shift at the gas station down the street from where I live. It’s not a long way, so I usually walk to save money on gas for my car. Well, there’s this dark alley I pass by every day to get to and from the gas station. While I was walking by, a few men emerged from the alley and pulled me back into it.
“I tried kicking and screaming, but they were too strong for me to move and they slapped a hand over my mouth to cover my cries. I was so scared…” She let out a dry sob and shut her one eye tightly. The dead can’t cry, since they’re no longer living. They don’t have water running through them like living people do. They don’t even breathe. But they still have feeling, so of course they’re going to want to cry and feel the pain that comes with crying; they just can’t shed tears.
I placed a hand on her back and gently rubbed my thumb in a circle. She cleared her throat to try and cover up for the weird dry sob she let out. “Before I knew it, they were taking off my clothes…” She paused to try and calm herself. “… and then they started to gang rape me.” She let another dry sob escape from her throat and went into a coughing fit. This was one of the best things about the dead. You can hold them when they cry to make them feel better and you won’t have to worry about getting your shirt all wet! I love it.
I pulled her to me and held her as she dry-sobbed for a little bit. I hate it when I hear souls were raped right before they died. That’s a horrible way to spend your last few hours on earth. How could anyone even have the heart to do that to someone? Oh, I just want to hurt them so badly…
The girls’ sobs started to calm down, until she just sat there and stared at the comforter. “I’ve been trying to get that image out of my mind. I don’t want to remember any of it… But then after that, they just left me there; naked and alone. There have been times in my life where I’ve spent the whole day by myself, but I’ve never felt more alone than that exact moment in time. It was just… The feeling is unbearable. All you want to do is crawl up into a ball and cry for the rest of your life. You don’t even want to look at anyone.
“As I lay there crying, one of the guys that raped me came back and grabbed my neck. I remember his words very clearly, ‘I know you’re just gonna go to the police after this and rat us out. I’m gonna make sure that doesn’t happen.’
“I was pretty sure right then that I knew what he was going to do to me, so I tried to stop him. I tried to make him believe me when I told him that I wouldn’t tell anyone about this. I would just leave it alone… but he knew better. He punched my nose to make me stop squirming, and ended up breaking it. Then once he saw I was still alive, he took out a gun from his back pocket and tried to shoot my head, but ended up getting my eye.
“I was paralyzed at first and I couldn’t move, but I could still feel, see, and hear what was going on around me. A soon as he shot me, he put the gun away and ran as fast as he could through the alley and down the street. I could hear some people yelling that they heard a gunshot, and pretty soon I was surrounded by people and cops. But I didn’t make it to see when they brought the ambulance. Before I knew it, I was watching on the sidelines as they towed my body into the back of the ambulance. There was so much blood… everywhere. It was too much for me to take in.
“I saw a bright light coming towards me, and it just kept getting brighter and brighter… But I was scared. I had just seen my bloody body being handled by other people I didn’t know, so I started running. I ran away from the bright light; away from all the people crowding around the ambulance; away from my life.
“And that’s how I ended up here. I just kept running and running until I came to here, and it looked like a nice little home. I just needed somewhere where I could relax and think about what happened back there.” She finally looked back at me. “I’m really sorry for intruding and I didn’t mean to make you angry when you woke up. I wasn’t expecting you to see me and I just wanted to-“
“Don’t worry about it, hun. It’s fine. Yes, it’s true, I’m not a morning person, but I’m glad you came because now I can help you to the afterlife where you will be much happier than you are here. And, you’re body won’t be all bloody and bruised. You’ll be back to normal.” I gave her a reassuring smile.
She smiled weakly back at me. “Thank you. And… I hate to ask this of you, but can I not go back yet? I want to spend some time here for a while; to see the last of it before I leave. Is that possible?” She looked innocently at me waiting for an answer.
I absolutely loved how nice this girl was. I usually don’t come across nice dead people. I mean, maybe they were nice when they were alive, but you have no idea how death can make someone so cranky. I appreciated the fact that she cared about the way I felt here, too.
“Yes. Of course you can! In fact, I can show you around the house if you like, just to make you feel more welcome. You’re allowed to stay here for as long as you like, so long as you don’t start haunting me and my brother or anything.” I playfully glared at her.
I guess she took me seriously, because the next thing out of her mouth was, “Oh, no! I would never do that! I’m definitely not that kind of person! I really appreciate you letting me stay here, and I won’t abuse that privilege!” Her eye widened and she shook her head back and forth, as if to prove her point.
I just laughed and gave her a side hug. “I was just kidding. I know you wouldn’t do that.”
She smiled at me and gave a small chuckle.
“Oh! By the way, what’s your name?” I asked her as I started to get off the bed.
“Marissa.” She said shyly.
I smiled at her. “Well then Marissa, c’mon, let me show you around.”