Ten minutes into graduation, my friends were already dead.
Ten elephants.
I was soaking wet, my dress glued to me.
Nine elephants.
Forcing myself into a run, I tripped over my heels.
Eight elephants.
Fuck.
Seven elephants.
There was no point in counting, but counting felt normal.
Six elephants.
Counting felt like I was going to escape.
Five elephants.
Survive.
Noah’s blood painted my face.
He still felt alive, warm, swimming in my vision. I could still see cruel silver being plunged into his chest, rivulets of red pooling down his lips and chin.
Four elephants.
Noah told me to run, so here I was…
Three elephants.
Running.
Forcing myself to breathe, I swiped blood from my eyes.
Two elephants.
Twisting around, I scanned the empty school hallway for movement.
One elephant.
Annalise’s brains dripped down my face.
I was picking pieces of her skull from my hair, tiny pearly splinters stuck to me.
Annalise was sucked down the pool drain, her body mincemeat on my dress.
Her grisly remains were floating on the surface, painting illuminated water in a striking, almost breathtaking red.
Noah was sliced apart right in front of me.
They were dead.
Slamming my fists into each classroom, my shriek caught between my teeth.
Help me.
The lights were off, which meant she was close.
Reaching the end of the hallway, I could hear laughter and familiar whoops coming from the auditorium.
The class of 2015 were graduating and I was going to fucking die.
The main entrance was locked, barricaded from the outside.
Taking two steps back, I slipped out of my heels, kicking them off.
The classroom at the end of the hall was open, spilling warm light that coaxed me forward, hypnotised by the illusion of safety. With no choice, I staggered toward it and pushed the door open.
Stepping directly into warm entrails squelching between my bare toes, I had to bite back a cry. Mari hung upside down above me, her body swaying back and forth, strung up like meat to the slaughter. The girl had been gutted straight through her designer Diana mini, her glistening remains sparkling under unearthly light. Mari’s eyes were still open, lips parted as if to warn me.
Her blood was still warm, still wet, pooling across the classroom floor.
For a dizzying moment, I was paralysed.
A door banged shut, running footsteps, heavy panting breaths.
“Fuck!” a familiar accent cried out.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
I could hear him slamming his hands into classroom doors.
“I need… I need help! Is anyone there?”
The voice should have been comforting, but I was already seeing an opportunity to hide myself.
Swallowing barf, I leapt over glistening red entrails and dropped onto my hands and knees, crawling under a desk, gagging my own panting breaths.
The door swung open, and I buried my head in my arms, risking a peek.
Isaac Redfield stumbled through the door, immediately falling to his knees, his head buried between his legs.
He was sobbing, choking on breaths suffocating him. Issac looked helpless, hopeless, before his gaze caught mine.
I thought Isaac was dead.
The last time I saw him, he was being violently dragged into the janitor's closet. I could see where he'd narrowly missed being butchered, a gaping hole ripped straight through his suit jacket.
He was covered in the remnants of Noah, grisly scarlet turning him into more of a canvas than human, thick brown hair hanging in wide, almost unseeing eyes barely penetrating mine.
Isaac pressed a finger to his lips, his voice bleeding into a shaky breath.
”Don't… say… a… fucking word”.
The door opened, two familiar boots stomping through.
Issac twisted around, forcing himself to unsteady feet.
I could only see her slick black shoes.
The woman pivoted on her heel and started towards Isaac.
“Ahh, fuck,” his hiss broke out into a sob.
I watched him do a little dance backward in an attempt to distance himself. But he was just backing into a corner, staggering over himself.
His hand shot out, blindly grasping for a weapon, a chair leg, but her boots continued, stomping towards him.
Isaac tried to throw himself past her, but she was so fast, reaching out and grabbing the boy by his neck, her fingers pulverising. His arms flew up to peel her hands from his throat, but she was choking him. When Issac’s arms went limp, she slammed him into the window, and my body coaxed me to move, to run. Isaac was half conscious, spluttering blood, his head hanging.
Run.
But I couldn't.
I watched, my hand suffocating my screams, as she lifted him into the air, his feet dangling, his breaths coming out in choking pants. I saw the silver glint of her knife, and then the streak of scarlet painting the wall behind him.
I heard the exact moment the blade went in.
Isaac’s panting breaths became wet gurgles, his dangling legs going limp.
The slow stemming puddle of red accumulating across marble snapped something in my mind. I forgot how to run, to move my legs, to even breathe.
When Isaac’s body hit the ground with a meaty smack, I shuffled back, but the scarlet pool followed me running wet and warm under my fingers. I could see where his throat had been slashed open.
Isaac’s head was turned at an angle, his dead eyes staring directly at me.
I was trying to feel for a pulse when the desk I was hiding under was kicked aside. There she was when I dared lift my head. The woman in the black suit.
She resembled a shadow with a human face, dark blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, brandishing a pinstripe suit.
I watched her brutally murder my friends, one by one, no mercy, no I'm sorry, or even an explanation.
She butchered Annalise in the swimming pool, gutting Noah and Mari, and now Isaac.
Her expression was vacant. There was no motivation behind her killing them.
If there was, she would have worn the face of a psychotic serial killer, thirsty to spill blood.
She would have laughed as they ran, revelled in their fear and the startling inevitably of their own demise.
But she didn't.
Instead, the woman in the black suit stalked after them. She never stopped, never faltered, until they were all dead.
Until their breaths were thinning, their blood staining her hands.
The woman did not smile when she wrapped her hands around the curve of my neck and slammed me against the wall.
I saw stars going supernova, trying to suck in oxygen, her relentless grip tightening.
Black spots speckled my vision, and I was half aware of the ice-cold prick of silver sinking into my flesh. She was slow. Slow enough for me to count each of my lingering breaths, watching my own blood soak the front of my dress.
When she dropped me, I landed on my stomach. But there was no pain.
It felt like dreaming, choking on words that wouldn't come out.
Weird, I thought, my eyes flickering.
I counted ceiling tiles, dizzily, a slow spreading darkness pricking at the corners of my vision.
Last time, Isaac died first in the swimming pool.
Noah managed to stab the bitch in the back, only for her to chase him to the main entrance, gutting him on the spot.
The woman in the black suit loomed over me, while I focused on breathing.
Only for her to deliver one last fuck you blow to my head.
My vision contorted, and I sunk into the ground.
Straight into oblivion.
That spat me back out.
“Bonnie!”
I was numb to my mother’s voice.
I used to wake up screaming, my hands around my throat clawing for wounds that were no longer there.
Now I was somewhere between acceptance and losing my fucking mind.
For a while, I didn't move, lying on my back and considering suicide.
I never had the guts to actually go through with it though.
Being murdered is one thing, but actually doing it yourself is another.
“Bonnie!” Mom’s voice was louder, and I mocked her words.
“Get up! Sweetie, I made your favorite! Chocolate chip pancakes!”
I paused, counting elephants.
I had mastered the ability to perfectly mimic her tone.
“And don't forget to thank Mrs Benson for that beautiful dress! You know she really wants you to attend graduation!”
Mom was right. I couldn't afford a decent dress, so my teacher offered.
But after being hacked apart, drowned, bisected, choked, and having my throat slit in different variations, I can't say I was thrilled to wear it. The dress was ruined every time, reduced to tatters clinging to me.
Rolling over in bed, I pulled my phone from my nightstand.
Always the exact same notification illuminating my home screen.
GRADUATION DAY!! :)”
I fucking hated that notification.
Unknown number flashed up on screen.
“Hello?” I mumbled.
“How'd you die this time?”
Isaac Redfield's voice was muffled slightly. I think he was brushing his teeth.
“My throat was slit,” I said. “You?”
“You should know,” I heard him spit. “I mean, you did watch me fucking die.”
“That wasn't my choice.”
He spat again. “Does the woman in the black suit seem….familiar to you?”
I wasn't sure if he was screwing with me.
“Yes.” I said, dryly.
“No, not like that,” Isaac groaned. “I mean, don't you, like, recognise her? I swear I've seen this woman before.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I revelled in the slow passage of time.
7am to 8am was my favourite part of the day. I used to freak out, trying to leave town and find the best hiding place. Now, I just lay down and vibed.
There was something both terrifying and yet weirdly peaceful about knowing whatever happened, I was going to die.
“Dude, I've definitely seen her.”
I rolled onto my face. “Is that before she started brutally killing you in a never ending groundhog day, or after?”
Isaac paused, and I buried my head into my pillow. “Um, both?”
“Both?”
He was either going crazy or onto something.
I wasn't counting on the latter.
Isssc’s deaths were the most brutal. I wouldn't be surprised if the trauma had knocked something loose in his brain.
“Yeah.” his laugh was nervous, more of a splutter. Throughout our situationship, I had come to know his laughs well.
I knew his fake laugh, his trying not to cry laugh, his trying not to laugh laugh. I even knew his I’m losing my fucking mind, I'm going to die laugh.
But I didn't know his real laugh.
“Does that sound crazy, or…?”
Instead of answering him, I ended the call.
At breakfast, I could still taste my own blood.
Mom hovered over me, blonde streaks of hair hanging in her face.
Dressed in her fluffy pink bathrobe, my mother should have been a comfort.
However, I was yet to forget the seventh loop when I broke apart and told her about what was happening.
Mom immediately called the doctor, convinced I was having a psychotic break.
He said there was nothing wrong with me and let me go to school.
Where I was murdered.
Again.
That time, she didn't kill us individually, instead forcing us on to our knees and bleeding us out, one by one. I think I became desensitised to death, to everything, when I was forced to watch Mari choke on her own screams, her head forced forwards, a blade brutally protruding through her.
*Don't forget to thank Mrs Benson for the dress, honey,” Mom said, refilling my juice.
I nodded, struggling to swallow pancake mush.
A sudden knock on the door woke me up.
That wasn't supposed to happen.
For a moment, I was frozen, my hands squeezing around my glass, before a familiar head of brown curls appeared.
Isaac Redfield, barely awake, still in his pyjamas.
Following suit, Mari Cliffe and Annalise Chatham.
Isaac went directly into the refrigerator hunting for food. Annalise took an uncertain seat at the table, and Mari stood with her arms folded, her wide, frenzied eyes drinking in my kitchen.
Isaac Redfield was the British exchange student who nobody could understand at first, his accent rocketing him up the high school hierarchy. The guy was also known for dealing candy, and getting into unnecessary arguments with teachers. Alongside Isaac, Mari Cliffe, captain of the girl’s soccer team, and Annalise Chatham, our school’s version of horse girl, were unlikely friends.
They used to be strangers, kids I’d pass in the hallway.
After being brutally killed together in a never ending graduation day cycle, we had become surprisingly close.
When we were hiding in the janitor's closet, Isaac spilled to us that he hated the idea of college.
He wanted to travel the world.
Mari was crushing on one of her teammates.
Annalise actually hated horses.
Isaac was secretly scared of Bill Nye.
I had a thing for clowns I wasn't going to go into.
It started as a confessions thing, four strangers pouring our hearts out to each other.
We shared theories.
Isssc was convinced we were actually dead, and this was hell.
Mari suggested we were in some kind of prank show.
I voiced my theory, which was, yeah, we were dead. I was sure we had died on graduation day, and this was fate’s way of giving us companions in the great beyond. Still though, I wasn't sure why fate wanted us to be brutally killed.
Then, there was the mystery of our killer.
The woman in the black suit, our own personal angel of death.
“Morning,” Isaac greeted me with a sleepy smile, running his hands through his hair. He ignored my Mom’s wide eyes. “Thanks for leaving me to die.”
I thought back to him crouched in front of me, his face splattered in Noah, index pressed to his lips. Don't move.
“You told me not to move.” I said through a mouthful of pancakes.
Issac’s lips curled. “Yeah, because I was expecting you to move your ass.”
The boy helped himself to my pancakes, shovelling them down with maple syrup.
I wasn't used to the others actually coming to my house. That never happened. We either met up at school, or were killed before we even saw each other. I knew Isaac was secretly pissed.
It wasn't the first time I had thrown him under the bus. Still, I was yet to forget him ‘accidentally’ drowning me nine graduation days ago.
He said it was an accident, but I definitely felt him shove my head under the water so he could make a run for it.
“There wasn't enough room under the desk,” I told him pointedly, gesturing to my mother, who I think was still trying to register three strangers walking into her kitchen unannounced. Mom had been vocal about me finding friends since freshman year, but I don't think she was expecting these friends.
Mari was well known around town, our girl’s soccer team dominating the local gazette.
Annalise’s father was the principal of our school. She was also the 2014 pageant winner.
Isaac was more infamous, especially for his ‘candy’.
“What?” Isaac shrugged, shooting my Mom a grin. “It's not like she's going to remember me, anyway.” he offered her a two fingered salute, “Sup, Mrs Haverford.”
To prove his point, Isaac straightened up, grabbed my phone, and threw it in the microwave.
Mari chucked a banana at his head.
“We get it.” she said with an eye roll.
“You don't need to resort to blowing things up every single time.”
Isaac responded with stubborn British noises, but she was right.
On our third graduation day, Isaac thought we could kill the woman in the black suit by blowing her up with science equipment.
Instead, he blew himself up, leaving the rest of us to her mercy.
Mom seemed to snap out of it, her smile broadening.
“Oh! You didn't tell me you were bringing friends over!” Mom immediately entered mother mode.
“Do you kids want breakfast?” she asked them, her voice high, almost shrill.
Narrowly avoiding my mother pulling out baby pictures, I coaxed her out of the kitchen. The last thing she said, before I shut the door on her face, was, “Don't forget to thank Mrs Benson for the–”
When we were alone, Mari took centre stage, hoisting herself onto the counter.
The girl was a natural leader, so of course she was our spokesperson.
Mari absently ran her hands through strawberry blonde hair.
“We tried your idea,” she nodded to a sick looking Annalise. “We tried running, and that crazy bitch still got us.”
Annalise wrapped her arms around herself, avoiding Mari’s gaze. “It was a suggestion. I didn't think she was that fast.”
“I still think she's a sleeper agent,” Isaac muttered into his glass of juice.
Mari raised a brow. “Okay, but why would a sleeper agent go after five random high school students?”
He shrugged, his lips curving into a smile.
“Maybe it was an order.”
He dragged out the latter word, so it sounded more like, “Ordahhhhhhhh.”
“But who made the order?” Annalise spoke up.
I nodded. “The government, or the shadow government don't go after high school kids.”
Isaac leaned forward, comfortably resting his chin on his fist. “Soo, what do we do now? If we can't beat whatever this thing is, what do we do?”
Die.
That is what we did.
For ten consecutive graduation days.
I woke up. I ate breakfast (pancakes and orange juice), I went to school, and I was murdered.
I was hacked apart, burned alive, drowned, impaled, and beheaded.
And nothing worked.
Our plans to run failed.
We tried to get to the roof, but she was always there waiting for us.
The latest loop, I was actually hopeful.
Isssc’s plan to lure her to the downstairs gym was going well, and it was the first time I'd survived past 3pm.
It was an adrenaline rush. 3pm had never looked so fucking beautiful.
The plan was simple.
Annalise, Mari and me standing in plain sight the whole time, and Isaac luring our killer to the downstairs gym.
When I got the confirmation text that Issac had trapped the woman in the closet, the three of us continued our plan, which was to set off the fire alarm, and alert the police of the intruder.
Informing the police was impossible initially, because she was always one thousand steps ahead of the five of us.
But Isaac had captured her.
We were in the clear.
That's what I thought.
When we pushed through the doors into the gym, however, Isaac’s cry froze me in place.
“It's a–”
His voice collapsed into panicked muffle screaming.
I took two steps, before I saw his figure running towards me.
Behind him, the woman in the black suit.
Another stumbled step, and he was being dragged back, a hand over his mouth. I didn't think our killer had enough intelligence to turn our own plan back on us, transforming Isaac into a lure for us.
I could see the apology in his frenzied eyes before she sliced her knife through his skull. I didn't even get a chance to mourn him. Isssc flopped onto the ground, rivulets of red pooling down his face. For a second, I was transfixed, hypnotised, by what she had done to him. The back of his head spewed blood like a geyser, a gaping hole splitting the back of his skull open.
I couldn't move, already wanting to surrender.
I shuffled back on my hands, already screaming, wailing like an animal.
10.
I counted elephants, just like my mother told me.
9.
My gaze was glued to Isaac, whose body was still twitching.
8.
His glassy eyes, scarlet trails running down his face.
7.
The woman was fast, waiting for me to try and run.
6.
5
4.
3.
I was on my knees, and the door was so far away.
2.
“Just breathe, honey.” Mom used to tell me.
“Keep counting elephants.”
Mari’s scream rattled in my ears.
I remember ice cold arms wrapping around my waist, the sensation of something sharp. I didn't feel the pain, only wet warmth running down my face. It felt like rain. Annalise’s crying was enough of an anchor, but my vision was already going foggy. I wasn't sure where the fatal wound was, though I guessed it was my head, just like Isaac.
The woman in the black suit floated in front of me like a spectre.
Once again, her fingers wrapped around my neck, swinging me like a toy.
“Bonnie!”
I was aware of Mari’s thundering footsteps coming toward me.
Suddenly, pain.
Pain like I had never felt, pain that puppeteered my body, wrenching my head back, my lips forming an O.
Part of me could still feel it, the blade digging deep into my skull.
She twisted it, and I screeched, my mouth full of pancake mush.
Again, this time clockwise, and I felt my body go numb, my head hanging.
I could hear the sound of my skull splintering apart.
The woman in the black suit didn't just want to kill us.
She wanted to make us fucking suffer.
Reality contorted, and I was back in bed at home, screeching into my pillows before my body could hit the gym floor.
I think that was when I started to lose my mind.
I began to distance myself from the others, like we were strangers again.
The woman in the black suit hunted me down to the girls bathroom where I was hiding, drowning me in the toilet bowl.
Then, she came straight into my house when I refused to go to school, suffocating me with my stuffed rabbit.
Luckily, Isaac and Mari forced their way in.
Isaac was stabbed in the stomach, and Mari, impaled by a fucking hairbrush.
I had no idea you could be impaled by a hairbrush.
Isaac’s lifeless body dropped onto mine.
His expression almost made me laugh, like he was mid eyeroll.
Hysteria crept up my throat, days, months, years, centuries, of the same fucking day finally catching up to me.
I was shrieking with laughter when I was bludgeoned straight through the mouth.
“Bonnie!”
7am.
This time, I rolled onto my side, spewing up the taste of blood.
"Get up! I made your favorite! Chocolate chip pancakes… “
Mom’s voice felt and sounded like nails on a chalkboard.
Swiping stale barf from my chin, I took one look at my graduation dress and burst out laughing. Then I tore the thing to shreds, stuffing the tattered remains in my bedroom drawer.
Mom appeared when she wasn't supposed to, hovering in my doorway.
In her hands was a laundry basket, but looking inside, it was filled with flour and eggs.
Mom’s smile was wide. I wondered if she was having a mental breakdown.
“Bonnie, did you remember to say thank you to Mrs Benson–”
I cut her off, swallowing a shriek. “For the dress,” I said. “Yep. I’m going to.”
That day, I stepped into school wearing a curtain and crocks.
“That's not a good idea,” Isaac stood behind me, wearing his usual tux.
His smile was weak. I think he'd stopped with the fake optimism.
Now, I was seeing the real him.
Real Isaac was kind of an asshole, but real subtle about it.
“Do you really want to die wearing a curtain? How are you going to run?”
I glimpsed a knife stuck in his belt. “Are you planning on being the hero?”
“Nope.” he shot me a sickly smile. “It's to defend myself.”
Four hours later, the two of us were sprinting down the hallway.
I wielded Isaac’s knife, Isaac stumbling with a head injury I didn't dare look at.
Issac narrowly missed drowning, managing to claw his way out of the pool. I didn't see him hit his head on the side when our killer threw herself on top of him, but I did hear the sickening crack of his face hitting stone tiles, all of the breath being violently knocked from his lungs in a strangled, “Oomph!”
She tried to drag him into the water, only for him to kick her in the face.
Mari was dead, half of her torso in the swimming pool.
Annalise was hiding, but I didn't have hope for her.
“You said we might be able to drown her!” Isaac, soaking wet and pissed, tried each classroom door, with all of them being locked as usual. He twisted around to me, his lips set in a silent cry.
His head was bleeding, bad, a scary looking gash in his forehead.
I was watching a single thick rivulet running down his face when he shoved me.
“Why did you push me into the pool?”
It was payback.
For him drowning me 176 Graduation days earlier.
“You falling into the pool was a distraction.” was all I could choke out.
He didn't believe me. I could tell by his eyes, twitching lips trying not to smile.
“You have a really bad head injury,” I whispered, tugging him into a power walk.
I realized the guy had some serious confusion when Issac laughed.
“I know,” he slurred, “I feel kinda…dizzy.”
I thought he was going to burst out laughing again, when familiar stomping boots brought us both to a sobering halt.
Issac slammed his hand over his mouth, his eyes widening. He slowly moved the two of us back, his clammy fingers entangling with mine. “Fuck,” he muffle whispered. “Did she hear us?”
When the booted footsteps got louder, we had our answer.
Pushing Isaac into the next open classroom, I catapulted myself into a sprint, cold hands suddenly gripping my shoulders and tugging me backwards.
“Shhh. It's me.”
Noah Locke.
He distanced himself after being sliced apart right in front of us. Noah was the quiet kid, a short and stocky boy with reddish hair and glasses. I wanted to ask where the hell he'd been, when I glimpsed the kitchen knife in his fist.
Noah’s smile was sickly. “Do you trust me?”
He pulled us into a classroom, quietly shutting the door behind him.
Isaac’s cries followed us, and I resisted covering my ears.
“I'm sorry,” Noah said, before slitting my throat.
This time, it was fast.
I fell.
Down.
Down.
Down.
I waited for Mom’s voice to wake me up, but when consciousness did come over me, I wasn't in bed. I had zero idea where I was, only the sensation that I was floating. Opening my eyes, I was inside a glass tank, suffocating in a thick goo-like substance, my hair spread out around me in a halo.
When I panicked, my body jerking awake, warm hands wrapped around me, pulling me out.
I hit open air, my lungs expanding, and I hacked up blood streaked water.
Noah helped me sit, the two of us leaning against my tank.
He was soaking wet, his skin glistening with that foul smelling solution.
I took a second to drink in my surroundings.
A large room filled with human-sized tanks.
Reaching to the back of my neck, I gingerly prodded at what felt like an incision. I stood up slowly, my gaze already finding the tank next to mine.
Mari.
The girl was suspended in water, her eyes closed, lips parted peacefully.
“They tried to escape a while ago,” Noah murmured, his gaze glued to another tank.
Isaac.
His cheeks were a sickly pallid colour, eyes closed. There was something attached to the back of his head.
“But they're in the school,” I managed to get out. “I was just with Isaac!”
“You were with a null version of Isaac,” Noah didn't look at me. “The one who kept leading you to your death, even if it seemed accidental. He was playing you.” he buried his head in his knees.
“The real Isaac figured this wasn't real a long time ago.”
“Real Isaac?”
“Yeah. The one you've been with is more of a copy of him,” Noah sighed, leaning his head against Mari’s tank.
He spat out slime, adjusting his glasses.
“Think of him more as a shell, empty of his mind. This Isaac follows orders like an NPC. He had the guy’s memories and traits, but he was just a program.”
Too much information at once.
“I don't understand.”
Noah tipped his back, groaning. “You don't need to.”
He got to his feet. His eyes were dark, hollowed out caverns I couldn't recognise. “I'm sorry,” Noah said again, wrapping his hands around my neck and pinning me into one of the tanks.
Just like the woman in the black suit, Noah pressed enough pressure for me to suffer.
When he slammed my head against the tank, I felt my body shut down.
I could still feel him, his fingers squeezing the life out of me.
Darkness came soon after.
Swirling oblivion that swallowed me up, and then spat me out.
This time, I spluttered awake, cuffed to a bed inside a white room.
Surrounding me were fifteen gurney like beds.
“I don't know how deep we are,” Noah’s voice startled me.
The boy stood over me, this time dressed in shorts and t-shirt.
“What?” I tried to jump up, but I was strapped down.
“Miss Benson.” his voice broke. “She didn't want us to graduate, so she put us under.” he swiped at his eyes, gulping down sobs. Noah slumped down onto my bed. “I thought I could wake us up by killing ourselves instead, but we’re stuck.” I noticed the scalpel in his hand.
“The last thing Isaac told me was that we had to get back to the surface.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “But I don't know how deep this thing goes.”
Tugging against the velcro straps pinning me down, I held my breath.
“Deep?”
“Yeah.” he spluttered. “We’re pretty far under.”
With a heavy breath, he drew the blade across his own throat with just enough precision to keep himself breathing.
Deep red spotted the blanket, and the boy broke down.
“I can't wake us up,” Isaac whispered, grabbing a pillow and pinning me to the bed. I tried to shove him off of me, but he put all of weight onto me, laughing.
“Do you hear me, Isaac?” His hysterical cry followed me into the dark.
“I can't fucking wake us up!”
Death didn't feel like death at this point.
Like drowning, and then finding the surface.
Only to be pulled back into suffocating depths.
Plunging through nothing, empty space with no bottom, no surface.
Endless nothing that expanded, continuing.
Noah’s sobs collapsed into white noise and I felt my writhing limbs go still.
Once again, I waited for my Mom’s voice.
For Graduation Day.
Instead, I awoke with a shriek, strapped to a chair, my hands bound to Noah’s.
“I'm sorry for suffocating you with a pillow.”
He didn't sound apologetic.
This time, we were inside a glass building.
Above us, the sky was pitch dark.
“Where are we?”
“I have no idea,” Noah muttered. “I've never been this far.”
My gaze followed an odd looking bird through the skylight. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, she always takes me back to the start,” he said. “Graduation Day.”
Noah got free easily, tearing himself from his restraints.
The knots around my wrists were impossible. “So, you've been here before?”
“No.” he stumbled. “Isaac has.”
The boy dropped onto his hands and knees, picking up a single shard of glass.
“Isaac said he found a room with a skylight,” Noah murmured, sliding the point between his fingers. His gaze found the ceiling. “Then he went deeper, and his consciousness never came back to us. Mrs Benson sent a mindless fucking copy in his place.”
He got to his feet, the shard clenched in his fist.
“So, if I'm right… Isaac woke up, and Mrs Benson must have restrained the real him.” Noah stepped in front of me.
“And… like Isaac, we will wake up…” His frenzied eyes found mine. “Right?”
I wasn't thrilled with the idea of dying again, but anything to wake myself up.
“Do it.”
He nodded, and I felt the prick of the blade spike my skin.
“Wait.”
Noah stepped back, cocking his head. “What?”
“Why would Mrs Benson do this?” I demanded. “She didn't want us to graduate school, so she did all of this?”
Noah shrugged, playing with the shard between his fingers. “Why else would she do this?”
He pressed the shard into my neck.
“Wait.” I hissed out.
Noah’s frown was patient. “What now?”
“What if this is the real world?” I whispered. “We’ll be killing ourselves. For real.”
Noah’s lips pricked slightly. “Does this world look real to you?”
Before I could reply, he slashed my throat open.
I waited for the reset.
For the sensation of blankets wrapped around my head, and my mother’s voice.
Instead, my body was stiff, my eyes glued shut.
“Bonnie Haverford?” the voice was a low murmur. “Honey, can you hear me?”
There was something stuck in my arm, a sharp, cruel thing pinning me down.
“I did say she was awake, but nobody believed me.”
The British accent was almost a fucking melody.
Prying my eyes open, a figure was looming over me. It was a woman with a kind face, her expression soothing.
A paramedic.
I couldn't make out what the tag on her uniform said, though.
Around me, I could see my classmates wrapped in blankets being escorted to the door. There were fifteen or so futuristic looking pods, and I was lying in one, a plastic mask suffocating my mouth. Isaac stood next to the paramedic, a wary smile on his mouth.
The guy had a scary bandage wrapped around his head.
“Bonnie, right?”
This version of him didn't remember getting to know me.
Isaac pulled me to a sitting position, ignoring the paramedic’s sharp hiss of, “Please leave her where she is!”
A man dressed in white tried to throw a blanket around him, and he shrugged it off.
“I'm fine,” Issac muttered, gingerly prodding his head wound. “I won't be if you keep asking if I'm okay. Jeez.”
Ignoring the adults, he wandered over to the pod in front of me and pulled a half conscious Noah to unsteady feet.
Noah staggered, half lidded eyes finding mine. His smile was sickly.
It worked.
The two of them hugged, Isaac burying his head in the crook of the boy’s shoulder.
I wanted to talk to Noah, but the paramedic seemed pretty insistent that I stayed still so she could check me over.
I was barely aware of my surroundings when I was crawling into the back of an ambulance.
Reality felt wrong, like I was still stuck, still reliving the same day over and over.
But my town was real.
I dazedly watched traffic flying by, the sky darkening.
Time was moving forward again.
The world resumed, and graduation day had been and gone.
14 days to be exact.
Mrs Benson had us trapped for 14 days, and yet to me, it felt like a century.
Mom was at the station, immediately pulling me into a hug.
She put me under house arrest for a week, sentencing me to my room.
According to Mom, our teacher turned herself in.
Apparently, forcing her students into a slasher movie simulator was ‘tugging at her heart’.
I spent most of the summer lying in bed watching Disney movies.
Mom made me breakfast. Eggs and soldiers, just like when I was a little kid.
I was absently dipping my toast soldiers in egg, when she dropped an envelope in front of me. “If you want to testify, sweetie,” Mom had resorted to using her baby voice again, “But remember, you don't have to. It's your choice…”
Mom’s voice faded when I picked up the envelope, opening it up.
My name was printed on the front.
EINOOB DROFREVAH.
I blinked. “They printed my name upside down.”
Mom was behind me, frying more eggs.
“Hmm?”
In the time it took for the envelope to slip from my hand, I was only aware of one thing.
The woman in the black suit was standing in the doorway, her fingers wrapped around an axe. Noah was in front of me one minute, his eyes wide, lips parted in a scream. “It's not–”
The woman was quick to grab him, one hand going over his mouth, the other pressing the blade to his adam’s apple.
Real.
In one singular jerking movement, the boy’s blood was splattering my face, clouding my vision.
The woman in the black suit did not kill me.
She picked Noah up, threw him over her shoulder, and walked away.
“Did you remember to thank me for buying your graduation dress?” Mom asked, handing me a plate of fried eggs.
Her voice, though, felt too close.
Warm breath tickling my cheeks.
“Bonnie, are you listening to me? Did you remember to thank me, sweetheart?”
Reality was far more cruel than dream.
Reality was being unable to move, unable to breathe. It was like coming up for air, but at the same time, I was drowning. The real world was so cold, and yet warm wetness dripped down my chin. I was strapped to a metal table, something plastic lodged down my throat.
Through blurry vision, I could see my body.
I could see that my hair was so much longer, almost down to my stomach.
But there was something wrong.
Prickles of ice slithered down my spine, curls of panic setting my body into fight or flight.
At first, I thought I was in the emergency room.
Except this place didn't have doors.
The walls were sickly green, a bunker transformed into a sicko’s dungeon.
My body resembled a pin cushion, or a little girl’s idea of a doll.
When my eyes found my stomach that was barely being held together by fresh stitches, my mind started to come apart.
My arms were skeletal, wires protruding into my veins.
I could see where I had been cut open, my paper thin hospital gown stained scarlet.
I couldn't count elephants.
Across the room, gurney’s lined the walls.
On them was what was left of my classmates, mangled flesh still strapped down. Some of them had been cut into, severed apart, while others were attached to tubes, wires sticking into their spine and the back of their heads.
The floor was stained, writhing body parts and slithering entrails dried into yellowing tiles.
In the corner of my eye, Mari’s head was hanging open, the pinkish grey of her brain visible through the pearly white of her skull. She was still alive, still twitching in her restraints, plastic tubes full of fluid being fed directly into her head. When a thin river of red slid down her temple, I averted my gaze.
Barf was already in my mouth, splashing into my mask.
Annalise had tubes stuck to her, one eye scooped out, her pretty face mutilated.
Issac.
He was covered with a white sheet, a startling smear of scarlet where his head was supposed to be.
I could see his wrists still strapped down.
Mrs Benson stood in my line of vision, though I did see Isaac’s fingers curl slightly.
My teacher didn't speak when I shrieked through my mask, straining against velcro straps.
Mrs Benson’s smile was the one I used to like.
She lit up our classroom, like sunshine.
“Why don't we count elephants together, hmm?”
I found myself nodding, trusting the sunshine smile.
“One.”
Mrs Benson straightened up.
“Two.”
She strode over to Noah’s bed, replacing his blood soaked pillow with a fresh one, adjusting the tube in his mouth and planting a kiss on his forehead. I could see red dots marked across his skin, circled around his eyes.
“Three.” I found myself saying with her, my thoughts dancing.
Mrs Benson turned to me, her lips breaking out into a grin.
“That's right! Count with me, Bonnie.”
I closed my eyes, swimming in the drugs filling my body.
I was being pulled back down.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine…
Sinking through the ground, colours flashed in my eyes.
“Bonnie!”
Mom’s voice startled me awake, a raw cry choking through my lips.
Graduation Day was the same.
Mom made me breakfast.
Pancakes and orange juice.
I went to school wearing my graduation dress.
Isaac walked straight past me, running to catch up with his friends.
Mari ignored my attempt to call out for her.
Annalise ducked her head, hurrying to empty out her locker.
“Hello.”
Noah was standing behind me.
I could have cried.
But when I turned to talk to him, to tell him we were still trapped, his smile was wide, eyes glassy. In his arms was our yearbook. He handed me a pen.
“Do you mind signing it?” Noah chuckled. “I've got everyone but you.”
He opened it up onto the first page.
“It's Noah, by the way!”
Behind him, I glimpsed a familiar shadow, a woman striding towards me.
The lights above flickered, and I could already taste blood in my mouth. Noah didn't even flinch when I dropped the yearbook and stumbled into a run.
His smile was vacant, empty.
Just like he said.
An NPC.
I was already running for my life, and he kept talking to thin air.
When the woman in the black suit sprinted past him, his smile broadened.
“And you are?”
…
Yeah, I'm not going to get everything down.
I do want to say, nine years later, this still haunts me.
My therapist told me to write what happened to strangers, so I decided to share it. I will try writing more, how I escaped, if I can get the green light from my therapist.