ITS AFTER ME

Diary Entry: July 4th, 2006

By the way I was running, you would have thought something was chasing me. I had tears running down my face, and I was barging through any obstacle barely slowing down my path. Not that you would’ve seen anything chasing me.

You couldn’t have. I’m the only one.

It haunts me, and it stares me down. I open my eyes, it’s there. I close them, it’s there. It follows me everywhere, and I could only think it’s here for malicious intent. Nothing has a face so distorted. I’ve had my fair share of horror movies. Nothing. I would explain it’s look to you but its got a face that is inexplainable, incomprehensible. Something you can’t put into words and you don’t understand but you know, and only you know, what it’s like. Imagine that. Being alone with this one concept and it drags you farther and farther from society. It’s not you losing your grasp, it’s the being ripping it out of your hands. I don’t know myself anymore. It’s taken me, from me. I have no ownership of my body. I’m not even running. My body is probably idle somewhere in the middle of a lecture, or starting a cult. Heaven knows. My body is elsewhere, and I’m up here in my brain hustling for my life as this thing, that, let me tell you, is very idle but just happens to be right behind me at all times, is chasing the living hell out of me. I’m here, it’s here.

By now, that’s just the way the penny drops.

That’s the only entry I have that explains my situation to you best. It’s the only diary entry I have. I lost all my other entries in a fire that burned down my house. I don’t remember writing the entries. I just saw this one fly out the flaming window, slightly charred, and quite visibly torn out of a book. I don’t know if I ever finished the book. I don’t know if it even was a book. It just looked like it was a part of something.

“That’s just the way the penny drops.”

I think about that line. It makes me shiver like the creature itself is tickling the back of my neck. But there’s always a silver lining. I can feel myself again. I’m no longer trapped inside my head. I’m outside enjoying the summer air. Should be enjoying the summer air. I don’t know how I got out of my own head, running away from it. I just remember finally giving up and surrendering to the creature, it’s haunting face ready to release me from the pain, and then I just appear on my bed. A copy of Twilight next to me, my Walkman on, blasting The Black Parade a loudly as possible. The whole ordeal led me to be paranoid. What if it followed me? What if this is still in my head? Is this heaven? Heaven sucks. I just can’t be too safe. But no one understands. ’Go to a mental hospital, blah blah blah.’ What kind of a moron would I be if I didn’t try that? It’s not exactly a normal occurrence to everyone to be chased down by whatever the hell that thing could possibly be. Life and death situations are rare themselves. Of course I’ve gotten myself checked. I’ve been to a shrink. I’m still going to a shrink and all that dork says to me is ’just go to a mental hospital.’ If someone says that to me one more time, they should count their days. I just don’t even know anymore. The only thing I can do in my favour these days is go to the park with the accompaniment and protection of my friends. And even that still leaves me in paranoia.

“Case. What’s wrong? You know you can tell me anything.”

Jane always attempts to pry open my chamber of secrets. I was always your average extroverted Emo girl, and then one day I had just… changed. Case is Jane’s nickname for me. It’s everyone’s nickname for me. I never got it. My name’s Cassidy. I don’t know why no one called me ’Cassy’ or ’Cass’. Or even Johnathan. Anything’s better than ’Case’.

“Trust me, I’m fine,” I tell her.

“Case, I know for a fact that you haven’t been ’fine’ since Grade 10. If you don’t open up to me now, or ever, I’ll never be able to help,” she replies. I don’t know why she cares so much.

“Whatever. Let’s just go to Ryder,” I say, bored and tired of the usual converse. It’s so monotonous.

Ryder’s the name of the park we go to. We usually meet up with Holly and Nina there. We’ve all been friends since the beginning of high school, but me and Jane have been friends since we were 6. We were neighbours and just ’happened to go to the same high school and it’s such a coincidence that their house is literally next door!’ My ass. I didn’t mind, though. I love Jane. I just always hated my parents’ pettiness.

“Heya, Suitcase. Got you a coffee. Three sugars, right? What a sweet tooth,” Holly says. The nickname ’Suitcase’ speaks for itself.

“It’s not like Cassy needs to cut down on anything. She’s pretty much perfect. Just sucks how pessimistic she is, innit,” Nina says. She is slightly more intellectual than everyone else (not that that says anything) and she gets that ’Case’ is a stupid nickname. I hate nicknames.

“I’m right here, douchebags. I can hear everything. I’m not a moron or anything,” I reply, laughing for the first time in a month. We only do hang out monthly. Holly, Nina, and Jane all have jobs, while I spend my lengthy days rotting in bed and wishing it was hell instead. Oh, and playing Mario Kart. Mario Kart is life. Quote me on that.

“Look, let’s just have a good time. We all know this is literally the only thing keeping Suitcase here alive,” Holly says, purposefully annoyingly, but knowing that I could take a joke and need to take a joke here and there.

And thus, I escaped my fluffy mattress tomb for the first time since February.