The Girl in the Thin Dress

The standing clock struck twelve and the boy’s eyes were still wide open. He was playing with his watch, putting it on and off, on and off. His bedroom lay in a blanket of the dark, only one thin sliver of light peeking through the curtains. It was fighting a fierce battle against the darkness. The darkness was winning. Although his eyelids felt like lead, he couldn’t sleep. Every time he gave in, she appeared. He sat up and immediately fell back down on his cushion. There was a throbbing pain in his side. He was fighting a battle similar to the light. He turned his head and tried to look through the curtains. He loved waking up to the faint but warm light of the morning sun falling on his face through the thin curtains. But now there wasn’t any sun. He looked through the crack in the curtains and saw the dark street, a thin layer of mist over the neat lawns. The mist swirled around a girl in a thin dress standing next to the one working streetlight. His heart stopped. Lynn. Without skipping a beat he opened the window and jumped out of it.

The boy fell headfirst to the ground. His side throbbed, but he ignored it. As he looked up he saw no lantern, nor a street. There were only thick bushes and tall trees with dark leaves, only the thin layers of mist were similar. He was in a forest. This didn’t bother him however, he just wanted Lynn. He ran after the dark figure in the thin dress. She was surprisingly fast. Faster than he remembered. He followed her giggles and calls and became more desperate with every step he took. The pain in his side was unbeatable and the leaves on the ground were trying to swallow his feet. 'Lynn! Lynn, please, don't go!" But she didn’t listen, or couldn't hear him. She just kept running, her giggles now becoming fainter and her footsteps less clear. He followed her deeper into the forest, where the leaves were darker and the plants more poisonous. He couldn't give up. She wasn't gone. Although her voice became more of a whisper in the back of his mind, he could still hear her. But this wasn't her. This wasn't the girl that always wore a thin dress, even in winter or the girl that giggled like she always knew something you didn't. He reached an open ground and stumbled. He broke down on the ground. She was gone. 

The boy felt a burning inside his chest. And then a grumble came. Massive footsteps sounded at the treeline. Then, without warning, a massive scream came. He didn't know if it came from him or from the thing that made the footsteps, but what he did know is that it wasn't alright. He jumped up and saw a massive monster. Its biceps looked like they were about to pop, it had huge paws with razor-sharp claws. Its face had only one emotion: rage. Its black eyes took him in for a moment and then it opened its mouth to show the seven rows of teeth, like a thousand little soldiers in the beast's mouth. They were both screaming in rage and without any rhyme or reason, he charged at it. He didn’t stand any chance, but that didn't matter to him. He was just mad. When the boy reached the beast he tried to tackle it like a Linebacker. It didn't budge, but it also didn't react. It just kept roaring, not aware of its surroundings. The roars weren't incomprehensible, they were more moans: 'It isn't fair!" The boy looked at the beast and felt another emotion in his chest. Pity. He pitied the enraged beast, forever doomed the moan, blinded by its rage. He sat before it, laid a hand on its snout and said: "I know. It isn't. But that's just life." The beast didn't stop, for it would always be unfair. The boy did stop, however. He stood up and felt the rage go down. 

The boy now realised he didn’t know the way home. As he wandered through the forest, it was watching him. The trees were talking about him, judging him. Upon further inspection, the leaves seemed to have an aye pattern on all of them. As he wandered further, the mist became thicker. Then he heard a scream. A scream that acted like a knife that cut a wound of guilt into him. It was her scream. Next, he heard the voices. They were asking him questions he didn’t know the answer to, accusing him in a passive-aggressive tone. “Where were you? Why didn’t you go with her? Weren’t you her chaperone?” Thereupon their passive tone became aggressive and they started yelling at him. “ You were responsible! You should have protected her! It should have been you!” The feeling of guilt pressed on his shoulders. He agreed with them. He was responsible. He should have protected her. It should have been him. The mists started poking him. It went from poking to a stabbing. Then they were trying to kill him. And he just let it happen. He deserved this. He didn’t cry of pain, he didn’t twitch. He just wanted it all to end. His vision became fussy, but then he heard her. “Please. Stay alive for me.” He didn’t know why, but that was enough. The rage in his chest came back. He screamed at the mist: “I know! I know I should have protected her. But it doesn’t matter now. She’s gone. And I can’t do anything about it.”

She was gone. He would never hear her giggle again. He would never hear her cry again. He would never see her in her thin dress again. He wandered through the woods again, but this time with less of a purpose. He just wandered. The trees weren’t judging him anymore, or they were but he just didn’t notice. When he saw a light. It was warm and welcoming. He wanted to go toward it. He wanted to feel it. He strolled toward it. He felt the numbness before he saw it. Like the rage monster and the mists, it was another monster, but this one didn’t look like it could fight. Its spindly arms and legs and scrawny appearance weren’t exactly intimidating. But it was the strongest of them all. The numbness spread through his chest like a virus, a particularly deadly one. He felt the effect of the monster, but it didn’t do anything. It just stood there, with hunched shoulders. It didn't even have a face. He fell to the ground, unable to get up. He couldn’t fight it. He didn’t even consider fighting it. The numbness was destroying him from the inside. How long he laid there he did not know. It felt like years, but it could also have been minutes. She would never come back. But he would. He powered through, feeling rage, guilt and her ghost all in his chest. He stood up and ran toward the light. 

He stuck out his hand to the light. It felt nice. Warm. He took a step forward, into the light. He jumped back as it took the form of a window. It was his window, the weathered frame and all. He stepped through it, falling in his bed. The pain in his side didn’t feel as bad anymore. The morning sun felt welcoming on his face. He lay down and whispered: “Goodbye”