Names

A girl lived in a simple neighborhood. It was a typical, suburban neighborhood. Children would play every day after school and adults would watch their children from their porches warmly, coffee and beers in their hands. It was an average neighborhood. Like the girl. She was completely average. Average grades, average clothes, average looks. In fact, she was so average that no one ever talked to her. She wanted a name. She wanted to have people call her by her name. And every day the girl would walk home from school, or well, trudge home from school, a scowl on her face. The wind would whisper names at her, taunting her until she couldn’t stand it. Oh, how she hated it. 

The wind was so cruel. Always making fun of her and mocking her! Taunting her with the one thing she desired. The one thing! It would whisper into her ear, its voice like shards of ice, tearing at her skin. 

On a cold winter afternoon, the girl had made it home. She set her bags down on the turquoise rug of her room. Sunlight filtered through the windows and gave her room a warm fuzz. Funny, considering that in the next few minutes everything would be anything but warm and fuzzy.

Her mother called a name from upstairs and the girl ran up. She wanted the name. No, she needed the name. Now. Her mother seemed to talk to another girl in the mirror. The girl with the name! 

The girl with the name frowned back at her. She repeated everything that the girl without the name said. They went back and forth, the girl with no name feeling harassed. Bullied. Mocked. It was unfair.

How come she got the name and she didn’t?

Suddenly, the wind came back and taunted the poor girl, whispering the other girl’s name relentlessly, this time it’s voice like a million tiny rods, inserting themselves into her skin and pulling. Hard. Fast. 

But, the next nine and a half seconds would change her life forever.

0.57 Seconds.

The girl lunged forwards to smash the mirror, hate, and anguish filling her every muscle. Shards flew out of the mirror, many of them landing in her hand.

1.75 Seconds.

The girl looks down to see blood over her hands and shards in her knuckles. Her mother is now calling the name, and this time it’s directed towards her. Now she knows; if she kills the person with a name, it becomes hers. Hers! Now the wind can’t taunt her anymore. 

3.45 Seconds.

The girl now realizes she likes her mother’s name a lot. It’s beautiful. She wants it. No, she needs it. She won’t be ordinary anymore. People might talk to her. 

4.12 Seconds.

The next few seconds whip by in a flash. The girl remembers barely anything. Except for the face of her mother. Pure terror and anguish, as the shard flew directly between the ribs. The wide-eyed stare as she fell backward into the bathtub. The shrieks of agony and betrayal, the kind of shrieks that would make even the most insane person feel guilty. And she remembered the glee she felt, realizing she had her mother’s name! She had it! It was hers! The wind couldn’t taunt her. Her name was too beautiful. And it had been fun! Perhaps if she killed, she could get a name, have fun, and be talked to again. 

5. 02 Seconds.

The wind taunts her again and she shrieks with anger and agony. This cannot be happening! She needs another name. She needs to stop the wind. She will kill it. One day. After she has a good name. 

7.32 Seconds.

The girl realizes she can own the name of the popular girl at school. She could become popular, because surely it was the name that made the popular girls popular, right? Maybe then she’d be talked to, maybe then she wouldn’t be so painfully average. Maybe people would love her more. 

8.41 Seconds.

The girl is overjoyed and looks down at her feet. They itch. And they’re covered in blood. Deep red blood. The kind that you only find deep in the body, like in the heart per se. The girl grins lopsidedly and starts to plan out how she’d kill the popular girl with the nice name. 

10 Seconds.

The girl takes off to go get the Popular Name. That'll be fun, she thinks gladly 

In the end, the girl took over twenty names. She had been to court multiple times, laughing hysterically at the judges and deciding she wanted their names too. Eventually, the girl was sentenced to death. After the slaughter, a body was never found. Some claimed the girl had escaped to go to some other town, or perhaps the desert. Others say her bones were burnt in deep, hot fires and her deathly black ashes were thrown into the sea. And yet, some believe the girl still haunts the courtroom in which she was sentenced to death. They say she whispers to the guilty folk, warning them not to die, and that she waits for the perfect moment to come back and steal a name again. No one actually knows what happened, but everyone can agree that maybe if the girl had been cared for, she may have been sane. She may have not been a madman. She may have not murdered. 

The townspeople never knew her motives. Never knew that she just wanted a name. She just wanted to be talked to. They all thought she was a madman; maybe she was. Who knows? Maybe she just desired to be independent, or had suffered years of abuse, no one could find that out, the girl’s parents were dead. 

Years later, the townspeople laugh about the weird occurrences of the girl, and whenever something odd or bad happens, they’ll blame it on her. They’ll curse with her. The town never liked the odd, and never would. Especially when the girl comes back...