My girlfriend and I were sitting on her bed, playing some game about colonizing on some planet. I had just gotten home from school, and she was there with a warm hug. Before we started playing, she was watching some video online. She closed her laptop when I entered the room, but I heard the music before entering. It was some kind of music, except…it didn’t sound like music. It was high-pitched like a scream, like that punk scream, which she was into, so I didn’t think anything of it. She was always embarrassed of her music so I wouldn’t be surprised if she shut the laptop so I wouldn’t listen. Anyways, playing video games. We were playing for only 10 minutes, before Bella paused the game, then said she had to go to the washroom. She went and I continued playing…until I heard a scream. Bella’s house was built in the 1800’s. Every year, near the summer, ants, spiders, and even cockroaches would crawl in. I ignored her scream, expecting her to come in crying about a bug. Until I heard a man’s cough. I paused my game and listened. But no noise was made after the coughing. Bella’s father would come to visit every so often, just to babysit her younger brother when their mom was out. But her mother was picking her brother up from school, almost an hour drive away, and they left ten minutes ago. I quickly sprung up from the bed and ran to the bathroom. The door was locked. I tried opening it with my body weight but it didn’t budge, so I kicked it. It finally opened. But Bella wasn’t there. I stepped in to look behind the wall where the washing machine and dryer stayed, but something soaking wet seeped into my sock. When I looked down, there was a pool of blood, that leaked from the counter and sink. I fell backward and stared at the lake. There was so much, it reached to the other side of the room. How did I not see it before?
I called the police, and an investigation began. The strangest thing about the situation, besides Bella going missing, was that the blood that was found, was all Bella’s, but, the police said, that unless her body was drained completely of her blood, it couldn’t all be hers. Bella’s mom allowed me to keep living in the house, because I had nowhere else to sleep. If I even could sleep. Three weeks in and the police found nothing, except Bella’s brown glasses, sitting beside a tree close to the only bridge in our town. But we went swimming the day before she went missing, and she lost her glasses, so it led nowhere. I felt so alone, and fell into a depression without her. The story spread around our high school, people spread rumors about her running away, being kidnapped, and personally the worst. She committed suicide. So I stopped going. I couldn’t stand people asking me what happened. I could have saved her. If I only ran to her after her scream.
I couldn’t help but cry every night, when I went to bed. She wasn’t there for me to cuddle. I tried cuddling one of our body pillows, but I couldn’t play with it’s back, or breathe in her coconut shampoo and vanilla conditioner. So I made one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made. But I couldn’t live without her. After taking some drugs I’ve bought from a friend, and finishing a bottle of Jack Daniels, I stood on the bridge, close to where the last idea of where Bella could be was found. I stared down at the rushing water. If Bella had committed suicide, she would have been here last, and I wanted to be here last too. I swayed back and forth, until I finally leaned too far, and fell to the rushing waters.
I felt a warm breath on my face as I came to. I slowly opened my eyes, but most things were blurry. I slowly sat up, my head was pounding. I looked around, seeing a body beside me. That sweater…those shoes…I quickly pulled on the shoulder, so the body would lay on its back. Unlike me she was completely dry. I couldn’t hold back my tears as I wrapped my arms around Bella. After a few minutes of weeping, I felt Bella’s arms wrap around me. When I pulled away Bella smiled, crying as well. “I can’t see,” she chuckled. We were finally together. I looked around us, and we were beside the rushing river, beside the large tree, where Bella’s glasses were found.
The police were surprised to see Bella untouched, and not a cut or scab on her body. When they asked her where she was, Bella only replied with an ‘I don’t know’. She claimed she would never run away, and only had thoughts of suicide when she was 13, but never acted upon said thoughts. They left it be, and still kept looking around the town for an answer. After a week or two, when Bella was back on her routine, finally sleeping okay at night, wanting to hang out with friends, I asked her where she went. She gave me the same answer she told the police. “I don’t know.” “What was it like?” I asked, fearful of the reply. “I don’t know. I didn’t feel pain, but didn’t feel comfortable either. I kept my eyes closed the whole time, because when I opened them, everything, was red.” I remember the shivers that sprinkled down my spine and arms. I decided not to ask anymore questions. “But I do remember something…” she trailed off, almost in a whisper. I told her in a calm voice that she can tell me anything, and I won’t tell anyone. The look she gave me was nothing like I’ve seen her give before. Her eyes were filled with fear, and her lip quivered and shook like she was afraid to speak. “A voice…a deep voice, told me I had been saved, and that I would be safe, again. Right before I woke up.” I gave her the tightest hug I think I ever gave her. Mostly because I didn’t know how else to reply. I didn’t know how to process what she had told me. I asked her if she wanted to play our favourite game, the same we played the day she went. We started playing, restarting a new game and playing together happily. But, instead of the normal adventurous music, it sounded high-pitched, almost like a scream. I felt a pulling in my stomach, that went down to the bottom, above where my bladder would be. I felt the sudden need to urinate. I paused the game and told Bella I needed to use the washroom. As she turned to me, I couldn’t help but smile, giving her a kiss on the nose, like I always did. “I love you,” I said. “I love you too,” she replied. After I got up, going to the bathroom, I relieved myself then went to wash my hands. As I pumped soap onto my hand I checked myself out in the mirror. When I looked down, the water was turning a copper-red, almost like blood. I turned my hands around to see if I had accidentally cut myself. My fingertips were slowly turning to blood. I gasped. I tried rubbing it away in the water, but it only became worse, my fingers disappearing. My hands turned to a red liquid, that fell onto the sink. I backed up as my arms disappeared. All the blood fell to the floor, until everything but my head was blood. I couldn’t feel anything but a pulling all over my body, like someone was pulling on my skin in every direction. I looked up to the mirror, and there a man stood, holding my head in his hands. He was almost too tall to see in the mirror, and his arms were long, twisting in circles. He showed me a large grin, his teeth. “You saved her from my wrath…and now you’re mine.” And then I screamed, as the colour red filled my vision.
