The Nothing Something

The air in my room turned stale, cold unlike the gentle summer’s breeze that blew my curtains from their resting drape across my open window. I opened my closet with a creak, stopping my movement when I could hear my parents stirring from their room. I tied on some shoes and hoisted my backpack onto my shoulders and stepped onto the windowsill. With a steadily rising heartbeat, I stretched out onto a branch and held fast to the overgrown oak try beside my house. Carefully, I climbed down the trunk until I reached the ground. I landed with a soft thud and wiped the loose bark from my hands, and continued along my path.

I got onto my bike, which had been lying in my parent’s empty driveway, and pedaled down the street, pausing occasionally at idle and empty four-way stops. The bike carried me to a small, rustic house on the side of the road, one which you’d rent if you were to throw a party for half a night and forget your own name through whiskey and wine. I hopped off my bike and threw it to the side, then ran up the crooked steps to the door, which I opened without knocking.

Although I had been here before, almost every night for a long time, the bells on the door scared me into closing the door loudly, to which I let out a heavy breath and leaned against it, feeling a familiar furry pressure against my legs. I kneeled down to pet the cat that always hung around the house, an orange and white cat with one blind eye, so skinny you could see its heart beating. I stood once more and surveyed the empty waiting room, filled only with a couch and a set of matching purple throw pillows.

“Come in! Oh, do come in dearest.” A voice called from another room down the hall. I sauntered over, examining the obscure paintings on the walls. The room the voice had come from was a bright one, filled to its trimmings with golden beads and jewels of every size and color. The walls were painted a burgundy red, with golden flowers spread here and there. A lanky blonde lady with brown eyes sat on a pillow before a quilted table, atop of which sat a crystal ball.

“Don’t just stand there, darling, come and sit.” She urged, to which I obliged, setting my backpack down next to me. She cleared her throat and smiled widely at me, the glow from the several candles burning around us warming her complexion.

“Same thing as always, then?”

I nodded.

“Let’s see here..” The woman waved a hand over the crystal ball and placed a sheet over it, before pulling a deck of tarot cards from the folds of her long dress. She held them out to me face down and I picked three, per usual. The lady  then spread them out; one on the left of the crystal ball, one on the right, and one sitting under it. She knowingly flipped the first over, the one on my left. The card was reversed; showing a moon and above it two animals I couldn’t distinguish. The woman nodded and I followed, knowing vaguely what the card meant. She moved her hands over to the card on the right. The World showed; reversed again. The woman’s eyes shrank to slits as she narrowed them thoughtfully, but she moved her hands to the last card and flipped it.

I breathed a sigh; another reversed card. This one was Death. The woman finished with the cards and, knowing I had been getting these for a long, long time, set them before me without a word.

“You must be very careful with everything you do.” She warned, looking into my eyes as if she was saying more than the words coming out of her mouth. I heard an owl hooting in the distance, and my gaze was temporarily switched to the window. I could see nothing outside but the darkness of night and a pale moon, shining through a starless sky.

“Someone- something, really- is out to get you.” The woman’s voice drew me back to her face, no longer pretty with levity but now darkened and beautiful with meaning. I nodded to show her I understood. She sighed and lifted the veil off the crystal ball. A dark cloud formed inside, and a clicking noise was heard. The noise got faster and faster, and continued pounding into my head like a hammer until it was cut off and the dark cloud vanished. I looked up at the woman. This time had been different from before.

Her face was pale, her jaw set, and her eyes glazed with thought. She held my hand gingerly and opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. She inhaled and steadied herself, then stood.

“I’ll walk you out. It’s getting early.” She joked, holding out a hand for me. I took it gladly and we walked out soberly onto the front porch. The cat slinked through our legs and ran off into the night, leaving nothing but a kicking of pebbles behind him. The woman held my hands and looked into my eyes. The reading had seemed to faze her, new grey hairs in her mind and wrinkles around her thoughts. Rather than speaking, she hugged me tight, and waved me goodbye as I stepped off the porch and climbed solemnly onto my bike. I nodded back, knowing a formal goodbye would be feeble at best, and not worth the tears.

I pedalled out of the little house’s driveway and down the street, where I paused at the four-way longer than before. A little clicking sound came from my bike gears and I grunted, trying to see what the problem was. Not being able to see in the dark, I concluded I would fix it when I got home and began pedalling down the road, the clicking sound drumming methodically into my head. A whisper sounded behind me and I stopped again, and turned. There behind me was nothing, but a nothingness that is so full of something, something heavy and untraceable. I shivered and began speeding up down the road, the clicking of my broken bike speeding up with me.

The nothingness was catching up, I could feel it. The something was behind me, that untraceable and heavy thing was right on my heels. I sped up, because it was all I could do. The whispering was louder now, and so was the clicking of my bike, pounding into my head like a hammer. Something was after me, she was right. Something determined and fast and unforgiving.

I felt myself being restrained, the clicking of my bike gears halting abruptly when I was thrown off my bike into a nearby yard. I struggled for the air that had been knocked out of me, and the pounding in my head hadn’t subsided, but only grown to a larger pulse. I sat up, staring at the nothing something in front of me. The air wasn’t coming to me, not like I needed it to. I was drowning in the nothing, drowning in the something.

“Wait!” I exclaimed soundlessly, “Wait, please!”

The nothingness seemed confused, and it granted me a fresh breath of air.

“You can’t do this to me! You don’t even know my name!”

The nothing, something settled enough for me to rage on. Tears I had been holding sense the heavy goodbye I had never said poured out, all at once, along with my words.

“You don’t know who I am! You don’t know why I was there! Why are you killing me?” I screamed.

Silence.

“The- The car crash, I-I should’ve died, is that why you’re here? You took them and now you’re taking me.”

The memories came back to me, I knew why the air was stale and cold, it was because it wasn’t empty, not at all. My parent’s room, however, had always been empty. Always and forever since the crash.

“Look, whatever I did, I’m sorry!”

The air stirred.

The nothingness was listening to me.

“You can’t do this to me, I haven’t lived, I could do great things, I could be important! I swear on it, I could! I could be the focus of any story just please let me live!”

The nothing something was coming closer to me, I could feel my breath slipping away.

“Let me breathe, let me breathe! I haven’t even been born, you can’t kill me yet! I did so good, the voice in my head is loud enough, please, please, I’m scared!”

The nothing something was in my head, in my chest, slowly creeping to my heart and lungs like it was an animal longing to feed.

“I can’t do this again!”

It paused.

“You don’t even know my name!”

It struck.

The air in my room turned stale, cold unlike the gentle summer’s breeze that blew my curtains from their resting drape across my open window.