Deadly Silent | Book 2

O N E

O N E
Death's Plan B

MORNINGS ARE DECEIVING little things. When the sun shines bright, people might assume that the day will be good due to the fine start. When the rain pitter patters against the glass window of our homes, people might sleep in due to the wonderful cooling calm temperature. Children look forward to snowy mornings, and perhaps even some adults will too.

But I know. I know that mornings don't represent what might happen in the day. Mornings are liars, tricksters, illusionists. They show you a simple canvas and the art is yours to paint using imagination as ink. It is nothing but a fraud placed before you, to tempt you to believe.

I was once someone that believed. I believed in blissful mornings, pancake with friends and birds chirping melodiously. I believed in laughter, of joy and sunshine and happiness that would ring loud and clear down the street as the children wake. I believed in kindness, and innocence of the world being part of the rays of dawn.

Sadly, that belief was eradicated from me the night of my 21st birthday.

Death played me for a fool, toying with my emotions and my thinking for many hours. He kept me prisoner in my own town, threatening to have me killed if I lost in a game of cat and mouse. And because of that, I live in fear.

When there is fear, belief is lost.

Most of the days, my friends would stay over at my house, each of us too afraid to even look straight into the dark. I don't know about them, but Death created for me a fear of shadows. I was afraid that whenever I let my guard down, he would appear from the dark and put an end to my life. And though much of my days were peaceful, the constant vigilance that was instilled within me never left.

I could hear the ticks of the second hand loud and clear. The clock would always chime louder than any noise, ringing high and crisp in the air above everyone else. It soon became second nature for me to check the time every few seconds. I had eventually become too wary of my surroundings to properly trust each and every scene.

My mother sent multiple psychologists to me every single day. Some stay for hours talking to me about random things, while some others leave barely five minutes in after they assessed that I was too far beyond hope. Out of all the psychologists that were sent to help me with my 'decreasing mental health', no one understood me better than Lisa-Beth.

Miss Lisa-Beth had been hired just three months ago, and ever since then she dropped by every single day to help me with whatever problems I faced. Sometimes, we would talk about random things like coffee and the local news, while others we would dwell deeper into the darker topics of my memories made at the start of the year. Either way, Lisa never pushed me to talk about anything I was too uncomfortable with. She understood me better than any of the other doctors did, simply because she respected my privacy. Aside from that, maybe our small age difference made a shift too. Lisa was only about seven or so years older than me, and it was easier for me to talk to her than to talk to some old folk that didn't believe in 'magic'.

"Anniversaries to some are like counting the years spent doing something great, years spent together, or years spent alive." I started slowly, voice dropping to a drawl as I peeked cautiously out of my bedroom blinds, scanning the road to see if there was a cloaked figure watching my every movement. "I view anniversaries as counting down the days till Death finds me."

Lisa sipped calmly on her cup of tea, pushing her wide hipster glasses further up her nose before offering me a small smile. Gently, she placed the cup down on my bedside table before standing up to assess the road with me. "What was he like, if I might ask."