Conspiracy Theorist

Scarlett clutched the random throbbing in her head just as a sharp pain sliced through her abdomen. She clutched at the desk in front of her, trying desperately not to fall on to the hard linoleum floor. The terrible, merciless pain coursed through Scarlett's body and black spots clouded her vision.

Just one more hour, she thought. And she could go home and lay down. Lying down seemed like a very pleasant thing right now. Scarlett dug her dark blue fingernails into her hair trying to massage the ache out of her brain.

She was so busy trying to submerge the pain ripping through her body that she didn't even feel her phone vibrate in her pocket...

***

Jocelyn managed to type something along the lined of "Help, the pain" into her phone and send it to her best friend Scarlett. The pain jarring her insides was too much to bear.

Just one hour, she thought. Then she could get out of this Hell hole. Her teacher was babbling on and on about Neils Bohr and it was just making Jocelyn's headache intensify.

No response from Scar. Great, just great. Jocelyn thought as the pain tearing her apart steadily gravitated. It was a struggle all in its own to keep from crying, she wasn't a cryer and she wasn't about to start, especially not in front of all of her classmates.

***

Scarlett barley managed to trek all the way to her bus before she collapsed. Sitting down brought her the wonderful refuge she so badly needed.

Scarlett believed the pain that found a home in her body couldn't possibly get worse- until she stood up. She simultaneously groped at her head and her stomach, her vision still getting cloudier, threatening to take away her vision all together.

She was so absorbed in herself that she didn't notice Jocelyn plop down next to her. Scarlett just barely registered in the back of her mind that Jocelyn had spoken.

"What did you say?" She managed to choke out.

"I-I Don't-Don't feel-eel g-good." Jocelyn stammered out.

Scar noticed Jocelyn clutching at her head and stomach. "What pain are you feeling, Joz?" Scarlett asked quietly.

"My head..." She paused because of the pressure mounting in her skull. "...it hurts and my stomach too."

A wave of worry washed through Scarlett. "Where-re?"

Jocelyn pointed and slumped back onto the seat and closed her eyes making Scar anxious. Joz was so pale and frail looking; whatever was racing through the two of them was bad, really bad.

"Joz, Honey, I feel the same way you do." The pain in the right side of their skulls, the pain seizing their upper abdomens. They must have contracted something from each other.

Jocelyn opened one eyes a slit, it was as if it would be to excruciating to open both. It was enough to see that her blue eyes had turned gray, something that only happens when something is seriously wrong.

Scarlett's mouth was dry; she ran a shaky hand through her short blonde hair. It's just the flu... or something, she thought. That's it, nothing to be worried about. In a few days everything would be fine, that's what Scar told herself. But something in her mind was telling her that that was not the case...

***

Scarlett groaned as her mother made an awful racket down stairs. Fumbling around drunk, no doubt. It was pretty pathetic, who got drunk at noon?

Scarlett was holding a bag of frozen peas to her forehead and sweat was pouring down her cheeks, or was it tears? She couldn’t tell anymore, they seemed to blend together and she didn’t care anymore.

“You lazy, sorry excuse for a daughter!” Her mother screamed from down stairs, her voice slurring and making the words horribly disfigured. “Where are the damn painkillers?”

Scarlett looked over at the Tylenol scattered across her nightstand and groaned, a loud, guttural thing. She had forgotten to replace them in her mother’s have-to-stop-this-hangover-so-I-can-go-be-a-cougar-around-young-guys stash.

“Oof,” Scarlett fell out of bed and stumbled down the stairs. She managed to plop the little bottle on the counter before she collapsed again. “Here you go.”

Her mother gave her a disappointed look before giving her a, “I feed you and I provide for you and you still steal my Tylenol?” Scarlett’s mother Lisa bit out, she got a wild look in her eyes and she stomped one Stiletto clad foot down on Scarlett’s hand, hard.

Lisa turned on her heal, a heel that surely had skin cells on it now. She traipsed out of their house in a slutty dress that barely covered her butt and breasts.

Scarlett reluctantly looked down at her hand that she was sure must have a sizable welt. She opened and eye a crack to see the damage. There was nothing. Then it suddenly hit her, she didn’t feel a thing, not her hand that should be throbbing. And she didn’t feel… She couldn’t believe it. She didn’t feel the excruciating pain that was just moments before eating away at her insides. She felt a pleasurable warm feeling pass through her body and she succumbed to it.

She popped up and felt a strange rejuvenating feeling, the type of feeling you get after the day at a spa. Well, she imagined that would be the feeling, she’d never actually been to a spa. With an absent father and an alcoholic and drug addicted mother it just wasn’t in the cards.

Scarlett checked her phone and noticed many awaiting messages from Jocelyn. They were all disturbing and Scarlett was terrified for her friend.

“The pain, help!”

“Do you still hurt all over?”

“He hit me again.” He was Jocelyn’s father and Scarlett winced. She knew how her best friend felt; they were both beaten infinite timed by their parents. They both showed up to school with bruises and scrapes all the time and the teachers didn’t care. One time Scarlett and Jocelyn had told the police about their home situations and had been laughed at. Everybody thought they were attention seekers.

“After he hit me the pain subsided.” Strange, the same thing had happened to her, she thought.

“I feel great now.”

“There’s someone here-” Scarlett gulped at the last message, what did she mean there was someone there?

Scarlett looked up from the phone and saw a man clad in black.

“Hello, Scarlett,” he said in a cool, smooth voice. She screamed a shrill violent scream.

The man before her smiled a slow wicked smile and Scarlett couldn’t stop the possibilities swarming through her head. Rape, torture, murder. The worst part was her mother wouldn’t even care; she wouldn’t even notice Scarlett’s absence.

The man pulled out a tranquilizer; she recognized it from crime shows. He pulled the trigger and she felt it make contact with her flesh.

Her eyes rolled back in her head and her body hit the cheap linoleum floor.

***

Jocelyn sent another text to Scarlett; her pain must be just as unbearable if she wasn’t responding. “Do you still hurt all over?” She muttered as she typed the text.

She banged her head on the kitchen table and her phone slipped onto the ground and made a clattering sound. The noise wasn’t very loud, but it seemed to echo through her head causing her already hurt brain to rattle inside her head.

Jocelyn managed to raise her head to the sound of an irritated throat clear. She looked into the blazing blue-gray eyes of her sperm-donor; she didn’t consider him a father so he was a sperm-donor. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Jocelyn just now registered the pissed off bleach blonde clinging to his arm and groping at his… stay PG, she thought… man parts. An involuntary shudder ran through her body. Only noon and he already had some skank ready to show him… a few things.

“It’s my house.” Shit, the words slipped out before she could stop them. The first rule in their house was to never question him.

Her sperm-donor, Landon, took a furious step forward. He raised a hand and slapped her so hard across the face that Jocelyn was surprised her neck didn’t snap. He dragged the big boobed bimbo to his car, probably to find a cheap scummy hotel.

Jocelyn waited for the adrenaline to fade and the pain to come but felt nothing. “What the hell?” She suddenly realized that all the pain was gone. And she means all of it. Jocelyn quickly sent some more messages to Scarlett. This whole thing was unfathomable, getting hit and feeling less pain, she couldn’t comprehend what was going on.

Just as she was basking in the bliss of no pain she heard a noise from above her. She opened her eyes, ready to snap at whomever it was that decided to take away the silence.

Jocelyn’s voice caught in her throat as she saw her reflection in the sleek black sunglasses the man looming over her was wearing. He was wearing all black and he reminded her of a guy from an FBI movie.

A slow smile crept onto his face and Jocelyn jumped to her feet. She had her kitchen counter in mind. The glint of a steak knife caught in her peripheral vision. She lunged and an amused smirk played with the gray lips on the man’s gray face.

He stepped in Jocelyn’s way and pure terror swept through her, her heart was beating out of her chest. She had never been this terrified before, not even when she was eight and her sperm-donor had beaten her with a stick she had missed when he had told her to pick up the yard.

When Jocelyn looked up at the man, standing a good foot taller than her, she knew she couldn’t save herself. She knew Scarlett was her only hope. She managed to get “There’s someone here” into her phone by the time he pulled out some sort of gun. She hit send and prayed Scarlett would be here soon.

He leered at her and she couldn’t stop the icy tendrils of fear gripping at her insides. The horrid man slowly cocked the gun and teased her with how slow he was doing the process.

Then, he finally pulled the trigger.

Jocelyn started to feel sleepy and she dropped to the ground before darkness engulfed her.