Red

Red was her favorite color. She would always wear this scarlet red sweatshirt because it belonged to her best friend, the closest person she had. She would always put her dark sepia brown hair in a braid because that's the way her best friend liked it. She would always wear a heart shaped locket on her neck because it held a picture of her and her best friend. She would always put a smiley face after her signature because her best friend told her that it looked cooler that way. She is built of pieces of her best friend almost as if she is a puzzle waiting to be fully built. Her life is made of humorous, nostalgic moments with her best friend. She was waiting for her best friend at her doorstep as she always does. It became more of a schedule for them: Wake up, Wait for her best friend, go to school, come back home, sleep, repeat. She waits scrolling through TikTok. She feels it's necessary to laugh out loud at all the right times because she wants to fit in. Her whole life has been built on how to blend in and how to not be an outlier in society because for her being a little bit different is possibly the worst thing you can be. Finally she hears the light pleasant voice of the one person that would make both the corners of her lips turn up. “Someone needs to take away your phone dude.” She looks up from her phone screen and sees her blonde haired blue eyed friend grinning at her. When she grins, her dimples show along with her light freckles illuminating her pale complection. “You and I both know that that will never happen.” Both of them start to walk to school laughing at foolish jokes that only they would find funny.

She looks away from her friend and sees strange glances of other people looking at her. This has been happening since last year. She feels the stares of other people beaming holes into her. She never wants to be the center of attention but whenever she walks to school she mysteriously always is. She never knows why these awful stares are being extended to her but she just wants it to stop. When she looks at the disgusted faces that everyone is giving her she remembers the fear and anxiety she has on being different. Act normal. Act like everyone else. Don't draw attention to yourself. Pretend you don't exist. Nobody should pay attention to you. Nobody should even see you. Be invisible. The thoughts she had were racing as her hand started to shake vigorously. It felt as if she was about to faint as her thoughts were drowning her and taking all the air out of her lungs. She gets snapped out of her state when she hears the precious voice of the only person in the world that she loves as she feels a warm body with arms wrapping around her. “Hey, you're okay.” These three words calmed her down to the point where her breathing leveled out. Her palms became less sweaty and she started to relax more. Her friend knew of her infamous panic attacks. They resumed their journey to their school, Cullington Hills High School. As they went on to get to their school they stumbled upon a broken down building. It had moss growing from all sides. There were grey colored bricks protruding from the right side of the building presenting itself as a balcony. You could see that this now abandoned place used to be a magical castle. This building was gigantic. It could easily fit 20 football fields. This mystical building unlocked curiosity in her mind. She rarely felt this feeling before. She never really experienced curiosity because she knew she just wanted to fit in and carry on with life with no questions whatsoever. However, she felt a pull to this building. “Could we take a quick detour from school? I really want to check this out,” she said with surprisingly a lot of confidence. She was never the confident type. “Sure I guess,” her friend shrugged.

Both of them entered the building as they pushed the huge doors open they saw an empty fortress with a long narrow hallway leading to the unknown. As they wandered through the hallway they came across two unknown doors. Both of them look at each other with inquisitive glares and then look back at the two doors. The right door was a dark mahogany oak door that had long extravagant lines going from the vertical ends of the doors. There was a fancy sign on the top of the door. She barely could read what it said due to the lack of light in the poorly lit hallway. The sign said, “Happiness”. This sparked even more curiosity in her as she looked at the sign wondering what would happen if she went inside that door. What would be waiting for her on the other side? She longed for the feeling of full happiness as the last time she felt it was a year ago. She never felt pure happiness in a while due to this portion of sadness she felt in her body. The left door was a broken down white colored oak door that had small hollowed out holes on the front of it. It altogether did not look that appealing. The sign looked as dreadful as the door. It had nails sticking out of it, seeming as if it was praying that those nails wouldn’t give out and fall because then the sign would break. The sign said, “The Truth”. What? Wasn’t she living the truth, the reality of her life? What could possibly be behind that door? “Are we supposed to pick a door?” her friend asks questiongly. “I guess. Which one should we choose?” She asks. Her friend just responds with a shrug. She turns her head away from her friend and looks back towards the doors. She looks at her friend once more with begging eyes for her to tell her what decision to make for she felt overwhelmed by the amount of freedom and independence she had with her decisions at that moment. Her friend noticed this. “Let's just go through “The Truth” door.” Her friend says flatly. “Sure”. As they both open the door they peek in to see a movie theater screen and two chairs. Both of them hesitantly sit down and look at the screen. Automatically almost as if it was planned the screen turns on. The next thing that she sees shocks her. She sees her friend on the screen looking back at her with pitiful eyes. Confused by this, she looks at her friend next to her and her friend gives her a knowing expression, seeming as if this was all set up. She looks back at the screen and watches what her friend has to say. “Look, it's been a year. You need to forget about me. The accident wasn’t your fault. Please, for your sake move on.” That was all her friend said until the screen went black again and she was left in the dark with her friend next to her. She looks next to her wanting answers from her friend. “Please. Move on. It’s been a year. It wasn’t your fault.” With that, her friend disappeared out of thin air leaving her with numerous questions. What just happened? Where did she go? This can’t be real, can it? This doesn’t seem like reality? Her thoughts are drowning her once again. However, this time she is alone. All of a sudden, the memories flashback in her mind.

(One year earlier) It was a crisp morning in June. The breeze was cool. She was walking outside with the breeze giving her a refreshed feeling. Nature is so beautiful when you look at it with welcoming eyes. Her favorite artist came out with a new song she was waiting 1 month for. She immediately put on the headphones and started to play the song. She sang quietly to the words as she started to walk to the grocery store to pick up some food. She was amazed by this song. It was by far the best one yet. She pulled out her phone to check the comments on the video. She was scrolling and scrolling, snickering at a comment from time to time. She started to become unaware of her surroundings and started to ignore the world around her, getting more intrigued at the small iphone screen in front of her. She wasn’t paying attention to anything except her phone screen at that moment. Big mistake. She started to cross the road still unaware of what she was doing, she started to walk across the street when the light for the cross walk was red meaning that the vehicles were given the right of way. At that moment when the song stopped she looked up awoken from her dazed presence she once was in. The first thing she heard when she took those infamous headphones off was a truck honking and driving full speed directly towards her. Caught like a deer in the headlights she just stopped. All of her senses heightened except her movement. She could feel the soft breeze hitting her face once again as it would push her long brown hair revealing her emerald green eyes. She smelled fresh fruit from the grocery store she had planned to go to. She was stuck in place somehow unable to move. Was this it? She was only 16. She had a whole life waiting ahead of her. She was yet to do so many things. She was yet to hold the keys to her own place she could call home. She was yet to say the words “I do” with tears of joy in her eyes in front of friends and families. She was yet to hold her own kids in her arms smiling and singing to them. There was so much waiting for her. She closed her eyes accepting her fate. She gave up with the amount of thinking she was doing. The last wish she hoped would come true was that she wanted her best friend to experience all the things she wouldn't. With that she gave in to death. She felt arms touch her. No. More like push her. She was pushed to fall back and out of the way of the truck. Confused, she opened her eyes to see that the truck did no damage to her but she looked up to see the worst sight she could imagine. Her friend in the place where she should have been. Her friend was lying limp on the cold hard concrete. Her friend's blonde hair sprawled around her face. Her friend had a dampened smile. She had tears in her eyes as she ran towards her friend kneeling down next to her. She holds her friend in her arms hugging her trying to fix what she caused. “Can’t have you dying just yet” Her friend jokingly whimpered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She whispered as she was choking on her own tears. She felt her friend's heart slowly but surely slow down to the point where she couldn’t feel it anymore. Panicked at her situation she yelled. She yelled and yelled. “HELP...HELP PLEASE SOMEONE!” But the wish she would soon have in the future came true. She was invisible to society. Nobody cared. No one. She sobbed over her dead friend's body. She noticed the amount of blood around her and even on her clothes. She saw the pure vermillion it portrayed. She was horrified. She never wanted to see this much red before. But didn’t she say red was her favorite color?