Five And A Half Feet Under
The One and Only
That sickening grin, sunken so effortlessly into bulging cheeks of greed, penetrates the air with a horrible stench that follows from behind the rotting teeth that make it. It's enough to haunt any child's nightmares; although luckily for me, I'm no kid.
Adults see us as kids, my partner and I, maybe that's why they trust us as such. We're too young. Too young to understand how the big players undermine each other. But they soon figure out how alike we really are. I mean how can they not, when the last glimpse of their excuse for a life is spent looking at one of us towering above them, a loaded pistol resting on their temple? It's always too little too late with them.
Well. Usually.
But someone figured us out too early. It was never planned this way. Everything always went to plan. That's what I always told her. That's how it always went. Not a single maneuver out of place. Not a breath more than we predict. But someone took it away from us. He took it away from us.
So now I'm forced to stand here in a black dress, waiting outside some stone cold building, waiting for the ceremony to begin. She always tried to get me to wear a dress, even managed to trick me into wearing one out to a party. But I'd always refuse after that, and blame the one situation on alcohol. So how else to repay my misjudgment than to do this one thing for her? I wish she could tell me. I wish she were here. But all I can see right now is that grin. That grin on the face of the one man who saw through us, leaning so casually against the brick wall a mere 8 feet away.
Maybe we were too young. Too young to deal with all this. I think he knows it. He knows I'm too distraught by losing the one person that actually meant anything to me, to go anywhere near him. I can't even see a gun 'hidden' behind his jacket. Cocky sod.
I lean my head against the wall and sigh. This is too much. I wish the ground could just open up and swallow me whole, for the darkness to creep up on me and release me from this horrible world spinning without her.
Some guy in robes wanders out from the big oak doors, and saunters up to me with a pitiful look in his eye. He mumbles something about being sorry for my loss and informs me that it's okay for me to go inside now. I thank him quickly and turn to stare at the doors while he waddles off to tell anyone else who had bothered to turn up.
I can't bring myself to do it. Can't bring myself to even consider she's lying in a coffin behind these doors. To consider the possibility she's...dead.
A foul smell reaches my nose, followed swiftly after by rattling breaths hitting the back of my neck.
"What the hell do you want?" I ask monotonously.
"You feel any pain yet? To know that your partner is dead. To know that nobody even cared that you were alive apart from her. Does it hurt little girl? Does it hurt?" He laughs, wheezing momentarily after.
"Why are you here?" I bark back.
"To finish the job, obviously." The words fall so venomously from his lips, they take a few seconds to sink in, and by that point it's too late. A quick pain in my neck and the world does a quick twirl before my now closing eyes. Out cold.
---
I open my eyes and take in my surroundings. My arms are tied behind my back and I'm laying face down on something solid, but still squishy. Wriggling around, and listening to the sound of my body hitting something above me, I realise I'm in some sort of wooden container. It's so dark it has to be sealed, though there is enough gaps in the box for the smallest amount of light to seep through, and my eyes start piling on the pressure to see through it.
I stare at one spot below me for a few seconds, and wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness surrounding me. I scream. I scream and scream and scream. My voice penetrating the thick, musty air over and over as I stare at the face of the corpse below me. The open, faded eyes staring blankly through my head are so familiar to me. And my voice reaches new heights as I make out the other features of my dead partner lying underneath me.
The cries sound muffled by the atmosphere even inside the coffin, let alone outside it, and suddenly a roar of crackles hits my ears from outside. A jolt on the vessel and I realise it's moving, moving towards the sound.
Shit. She was gonna be cremated.
I writhe around, trying desperately to untie my hands, trying to turn over to look away from the dead eyes of my once partner. I kick my feet against the boards above me, screaming as loud as my lungs will allow in an attempt to make enough noise. Any noise. Just something to get someone to realise I'm in here.
But I know in the back of my head no one knows. No one even cares if I die. Only him. I remember his face and picture the grin that will slowly be sliding up it as he watches the wooden box edge its way into the oversized oven.
The air is thick and stuffy from the lack of oxygen, growing hotter and hotter with every breath I take. Writhing about only makes the situation feel worse, as if there's no hope. This can't be the end. It can't. I'm so young. I'm a teenager! I have my whole life ahead of me.
The thoughts run through my head as the heat comes closer and closer, reaching the area my head is in, soon shifting so it consumes my entire body. The flames catch onto the box and it's only a matter of time...
The lid snaps with a loud bang and collapses inwards, the burning wood searing my back. My breath becomes muffled as my sweaty head is pushed onto the corpse of my best friend's face. I can't breathe, but I can still feel. I can feel the raging heat penetrate my lungs, my eye sockets, my ears, singeing the ends of my hair. My skin burns up and shrivels, millions of needles piercing it, digging into my flesh, sending me into a frenzy of pure agony. I try to breathe in once more but it's no use, the black dress is now alight, coiling in on itself, the colour deepening into a darker shade of black, crumbling in the intense heat, with my skin is still taking a beating. I want it to end, for the pain to stop, but it won't. It's a slow death. My body designed to keep fighting for its right to live. So I must wait it out, the flames consuming my entire body, taking hold of my flesh and disintegrating it into nothing, for my bones to be exposed to the heated air around them.
The skin and muscles are ripped from me bit by bit. First the fingers, toes, then the hands, feet, hair, legs, wrists, arms, thighs, my eyes. Every part tearing a fresh scream from my lungs. The roaring heat takes a grip on the organs and pulls them apart, setting tiny fires on the inside of my body. I can't breathe. The air is too hot. There's no way for me to move, no way for me to make a sound, no way for me to open my eyes, I'm powerless against the pain closing in on every part of me. Why won't it just end?!
The flames just keep coming and coming at me, my body reduced to a steaming pile of rubble, embers of my skin floating into the vents above, and yet I still lie on top of the skull of my partner and suffer the overbearing heat. Knowing full well I did this to us.
Adults see us as kids, my partner and I, maybe that's why they trust us as such. We're too young. Too young to understand how the big players undermine each other. But they soon figure out how alike we really are. I mean how can they not, when the last glimpse of their excuse for a life is spent looking at one of us towering above them, a loaded pistol resting on their temple? It's always too little too late with them.
Well. Usually.
But someone figured us out too early. It was never planned this way. Everything always went to plan. That's what I always told her. That's how it always went. Not a single maneuver out of place. Not a breath more than we predict. But someone took it away from us. He took it away from us.
So now I'm forced to stand here in a black dress, waiting outside some stone cold building, waiting for the ceremony to begin. She always tried to get me to wear a dress, even managed to trick me into wearing one out to a party. But I'd always refuse after that, and blame the one situation on alcohol. So how else to repay my misjudgment than to do this one thing for her? I wish she could tell me. I wish she were here. But all I can see right now is that grin. That grin on the face of the one man who saw through us, leaning so casually against the brick wall a mere 8 feet away.
Maybe we were too young. Too young to deal with all this. I think he knows it. He knows I'm too distraught by losing the one person that actually meant anything to me, to go anywhere near him. I can't even see a gun 'hidden' behind his jacket. Cocky sod.
I lean my head against the wall and sigh. This is too much. I wish the ground could just open up and swallow me whole, for the darkness to creep up on me and release me from this horrible world spinning without her.
Some guy in robes wanders out from the big oak doors, and saunters up to me with a pitiful look in his eye. He mumbles something about being sorry for my loss and informs me that it's okay for me to go inside now. I thank him quickly and turn to stare at the doors while he waddles off to tell anyone else who had bothered to turn up.
I can't bring myself to do it. Can't bring myself to even consider she's lying in a coffin behind these doors. To consider the possibility she's...dead.
A foul smell reaches my nose, followed swiftly after by rattling breaths hitting the back of my neck.
"What the hell do you want?" I ask monotonously.
"You feel any pain yet? To know that your partner is dead. To know that nobody even cared that you were alive apart from her. Does it hurt little girl? Does it hurt?" He laughs, wheezing momentarily after.
"Why are you here?" I bark back.
"To finish the job, obviously." The words fall so venomously from his lips, they take a few seconds to sink in, and by that point it's too late. A quick pain in my neck and the world does a quick twirl before my now closing eyes. Out cold.
---
I open my eyes and take in my surroundings. My arms are tied behind my back and I'm laying face down on something solid, but still squishy. Wriggling around, and listening to the sound of my body hitting something above me, I realise I'm in some sort of wooden container. It's so dark it has to be sealed, though there is enough gaps in the box for the smallest amount of light to seep through, and my eyes start piling on the pressure to see through it.
I stare at one spot below me for a few seconds, and wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness surrounding me. I scream. I scream and scream and scream. My voice penetrating the thick, musty air over and over as I stare at the face of the corpse below me. The open, faded eyes staring blankly through my head are so familiar to me. And my voice reaches new heights as I make out the other features of my dead partner lying underneath me.
The cries sound muffled by the atmosphere even inside the coffin, let alone outside it, and suddenly a roar of crackles hits my ears from outside. A jolt on the vessel and I realise it's moving, moving towards the sound.
Shit. She was gonna be cremated.
I writhe around, trying desperately to untie my hands, trying to turn over to look away from the dead eyes of my once partner. I kick my feet against the boards above me, screaming as loud as my lungs will allow in an attempt to make enough noise. Any noise. Just something to get someone to realise I'm in here.
But I know in the back of my head no one knows. No one even cares if I die. Only him. I remember his face and picture the grin that will slowly be sliding up it as he watches the wooden box edge its way into the oversized oven.
The air is thick and stuffy from the lack of oxygen, growing hotter and hotter with every breath I take. Writhing about only makes the situation feel worse, as if there's no hope. This can't be the end. It can't. I'm so young. I'm a teenager! I have my whole life ahead of me.
The thoughts run through my head as the heat comes closer and closer, reaching the area my head is in, soon shifting so it consumes my entire body. The flames catch onto the box and it's only a matter of time...
The lid snaps with a loud bang and collapses inwards, the burning wood searing my back. My breath becomes muffled as my sweaty head is pushed onto the corpse of my best friend's face. I can't breathe, but I can still feel. I can feel the raging heat penetrate my lungs, my eye sockets, my ears, singeing the ends of my hair. My skin burns up and shrivels, millions of needles piercing it, digging into my flesh, sending me into a frenzy of pure agony. I try to breathe in once more but it's no use, the black dress is now alight, coiling in on itself, the colour deepening into a darker shade of black, crumbling in the intense heat, with my skin is still taking a beating. I want it to end, for the pain to stop, but it won't. It's a slow death. My body designed to keep fighting for its right to live. So I must wait it out, the flames consuming my entire body, taking hold of my flesh and disintegrating it into nothing, for my bones to be exposed to the heated air around them.
The skin and muscles are ripped from me bit by bit. First the fingers, toes, then the hands, feet, hair, legs, wrists, arms, thighs, my eyes. Every part tearing a fresh scream from my lungs. The roaring heat takes a grip on the organs and pulls them apart, setting tiny fires on the inside of my body. I can't breathe. The air is too hot. There's no way for me to move, no way for me to make a sound, no way for me to open my eyes, I'm powerless against the pain closing in on every part of me. Why won't it just end?!
The flames just keep coming and coming at me, my body reduced to a steaming pile of rubble, embers of my skin floating into the vents above, and yet I still lie on top of the skull of my partner and suffer the overbearing heat. Knowing full well I did this to us.