Once you start, don't stop.
I told you that was what my therapist told me. Were you paying attention?
"Write it all out," he said. "Write everything out to cope. If you have to, fill in the blanks. Make it a flowing narrative. Inhabit the bodies of those who've taken from you. See what they saw. Feel what they felt. Then you'll have an idea of how everything fits together. A few pieces will always be missing, but you'll finally be able to rest."
I wrote everything out from their point of view. Some of you were confused and didn't understand.
That's okay, because now it's my turn. It's time to line the dots up. Time to tip that first domino. What happened to my friends and me over the span of six years in elementary school is the final piece to this puzzle.
At the end of this series there won't be a kickstarter. There won't be any begging. This isn't a money grab, and there's no gold at the end of this rainbow.
My story will shine in this one place for a brief period of time, and then it will sink below all the new incoming life as it begins to rot. Just as it should.
Another body added to the pile.
My name is Christopher Bloodworth, and this is my story.
My twin sister's name was Abi. Fraternal, not identical.
Abi and I met Jonah the first day of kindergarten. In a class full of squirming six year olds, he stuck out in the only way a kid that young could.
Jonah was quiet. He was still.
Our teacher Mrs. Williams sat us in alphabetical order. Abi sat to my left and Jonah sat to my right.
I liked Jonah. I liked that he was calm when so many of the others in our class ran around screaming. The three of us became friends over the following weeks. Jonah spent a lot of time at our house. We played Banjo-Kazooie and Mario Kart 64. Abi fit right in with Jonah and me, because she was a tomboy.
One Friday night when Jonah wasn't over, Abi and I realized that we'd never seen where Jonah lived. We had no idea what his house looked like, but we roughly knew where it was. Jonah had mentioned the street he lived on before and had drawn his house in class so Abi and I thought we could find it easily enough.
We got permission from our parents and headed out. He only lived four blocks away and we lived in a gated community, so we never really worried about danger.
We set out the next morning. At that age, everything is an adventure and we thought of ourselves as treasure hunters. When we got to his street, Abi and I pretended to be the detective versions of Pip and Pop from Bear in the Big Blue House.
"It can't be that house," Abi said. "Jonah would've mentioned the columns in front."
I nodded. "It can't be that one either, because it has a gravel sidewalk and Jonah always talked about jumping his bike off the paved walkway that went from his front door to the mail box."
Abi pointed to a front yard. "Doesn't that look like his bike?"
"Yeah."
"Let's see if that's his place."
Abi and I walked up to his front door. We were excited. We'd both solved a mystery and found hidden treasure. It was a pretty big moment in our young lives.
Abi rang the doorbell.
"Who is it?" A shrill woman's voice screamed from inside.
Abi and I looked at each other. I saw the fear on her face, and was sure that she saw the same on mine.
