Look at you. Sitting there, listening, asking all the right questions.
What was the GA's role in the incident?
Where is my dad, if he isn't dead?
Am I still possessed?
For this one, the short answer is—
You actually thought I was going to tell you.
You're more delusional than I am.
I genuinely believed the GA was an actual guardian angel. Years. It took me years to figure that out. Adult intelligence should've kicked in on time, but apparently mine missed the memo. You know that thing where you're smart, but all you do is dumb? Whatever that's called. That's me. The embodiment of it.
I can explain space, time, trigonometry, neutrons, protons—any science rubbish you want. A bit of art too, if you insist. But ask me something simple, like whether I like boys or girls or both or neither, and suddenly my brain evaporates. Oblivious in life. Especially my own.
Enough of that. There were more pressing issues.
My mum, Kai, and I were hospitalised.
My dad wasn't.
He was already dead, so his was an autopsy.
Poisoning.
That was why Kai screamed my name at the party—why he knocked the glass out of my hand before I could sip the champagne. The waiter had come straight from Zach. It was meant for my stepdad. For me too, probably.
That cunt tried to kill me.
Why?
I asked myself that question for a long time and never got an answer. I have one now, but it doesn't sit right. Still, I feel bad. Poor lad. Whisked away like nothing.
I'm only now just realising it's not as if he can answer for himself. He isn't with us anymore—less of a presence, more of a rumour. And just like that, he drifted out of my narrative, like dust caught in a wayward gust.
Unfortunate, really. But destiny does love its theatrics.
Am I enjoying this?
Probably.
See, I didn't kill Zach. Not me me. Possessed me did. And if you do the maths, it was most likely possessed me who killed the M girl too, so—
I want to feel bad for both of them. Truly, I do. But I can't bring myself to blame myself. Hell, I don't wanna. I'm not obliged to give a damn about their demise.
Period.
People don't casually float. They don't stop bullets with air. They don't bleed black, viscous sludge from their eyes, thick and slow like something that forgot how gravity works. And they certainly aren't supposed to murder the ones closest to their hearts.
And that wasn't even the worst of it.
The aftermath came later.
The dreams.
Not dreams, actually. Nightmares.
No—more like visions.
In this vision, I'm being pulled by two guys in a mask, one taller than the other. Yeah, that's all I know about it. Although I doubt it was masks, pretty sure they were faceless. The dream would always start with me in an elevator, and they'd always wait outside for me, so that immediately I walked out, the taller one would immediately grip my right arm, which all his might and then kick my right knee, which would get me down on one knee as the other would eventually collapse for balance.
Then the shorter guy injects me with a syringe containing whatever had the ability to paralyze already destabilized me from the neck down. They'd then pull my lifeless but wake body across what I call the hallway of terror.
I screamed uncontrollably until eventually gagged and forced to look at the ruins which had become the frantically unfamiliar, but soon to be familiar hallway.
There were dead bodies, not really bodies, but skeletons, blood stained walls and floors too. Above me was a vent which was open, the cover rusted and blood sipping through like a leaking pipe, and a head dangling, meaning the kill was still fresh, although there were no more eyes. Neither were there teeth, nor tongue for that matter.
The scariest part was the way every light bulb I was dragged past burst, leaving a loop of darkness behind me.
Man, I know you nappers ain't afraid of the dark, but I'm terrified, and I'm not even allowed to scream. Damn that's cold even for a dream.
They eventually reach a door, bloodstained, as the body of someone wearing a white T-shirt and a heart ❤️ drawn on it, lay dead in front of the door. Symbolic, maybe. Spooky, very much so.
The door is open and I'm met with a terrible stench (very foul odor) and an even worse sight. It was like a freezer where dead bodies were cut and used for some sort of ritualistic practices, hence the knife, the runes or whatever markings were on the walls and floor. I quivered as the chills from the freezer ran down my skin on which goosebumps were already active.
The shot guy pushed me to the floor and as he was about to step me, I felt any reasonable person that is paralyzed from the neck down in a dream would do, I woke up. I woke up to a bed soaked with sweat.
There is, there was I dont know anymore, but something's up with the dream or me. But I just can't put my finger in it. I was always left so spooked, leading to a shout so loud that till now the nurses always came to check on me, and then when at home, my mom. I'd cover myself in my blankets and pray to a God I didn't even believe in, hoping that a miracle of some sort would happen.
Although I got better control over how I woke up. It repeated itself countlessly so I was forced to recognize patterns.
I know you might think that it's a bit of a lie for me to know this much details. Like my dream is being staged, but like I said, it's less of a dream, it's less of a nightmare, but more of a vision. Because the same dream happens every single day after the party till now. It... it still lingers and I can feel it in my bones. And even now, here in this supposedly safe hospital it still feels like i was being monitored. Like... like any wrong move and I'm done for.
Do I still have the dream? No, not really. Not after the... Not after another incident. Pretty much like the previous one. More intense, but that's a story for another day. As of now, I need to focus more. I need to actually tell you guys what happened to my mother and my best friend in and after the hospital.
CURSE ADHD! cos bruv😭
Ok OK back on track (makes weird vocal sounds for stimulation i guess)
You'd think surviving a birthday party that ended with dead bodies, a poisoned man, and an impromptu demonstration of supernatural abilities would be enough excitement for one lifetime.
Apparently not.
There was the hospital, for starters.
Mum, Kai and I were admitted. I recovered relatively quickly, which was nice. Nothing particularly dramatic, unless you count waking up and discovering that your birthday had somehow turned into a murder investigation.
Kai, unfortunately, wasn't as lucky.
He'd already taken quite a beating from those men before I decided to use him as an unwilling demonstration of my telekinetic abilities. Apparently, smashing two people into each other at considerable speed isn't particularly beneficial to their health.
Who knew?
He remained unconscious for longer than I did.
And then there was Mum.
Now, I don't know how to explain this without sounding like an ungrateful little brat, but my mother was being... affectionate.
Yes. Affectionate.
I know. Shocking.
This was the same woman who could find something wrong with practically anything I did. The same woman who didn't particularly concern herself with my whereabouts unless there was something to complain about.
Suddenly, she was checking on me.
Frequently.
Sometimes she'd come into my room just to wake me up, then remain there for a while, watching me as though I might spontaneously combust if she left.
She asked how I was feeling. Whether I'd eaten. Whether I needed anything.
Bloody hell.
At first, I thought it was because of the incident. Perhaps seeing your daughter almost die—or whatever the hell happened to me—could awaken some maternal instincts. I mean, I had just been discharged from hospital. Surely, a little concern wasn't entirely unreasonable.
Except...
She'd been hospitalised too.
And she'd been injured too.
So why was I suddenly receiving the royal treatment?
I didn't understand it.
But I made excuses for her. I always did.
Maybe the incident had frightened her. Maybe she was grieving and didn't know how to express it. Perhaps she was simply trying to make up for lost time.
Or maybe she'd finally remembered she had a daughter.
I know. Terrible thought.
Still, I wasn't complaining.
Well, not entirely.
The strangest part, however, wasn't the affection.
It was the silence.
Nobody talked about what happened at the party.
Not properly, anyway.
My mother certainly didn't.
Her husband was dead. Her actual husband. The man she'd lived with, loved, argued with, and shared a home with.
And she behaved as though someone had simply gone away on holiday.
No conversations about his death. No visible grief. No attempts to explain what had happened to him.
Nothing.
And I couldn't understand it.
I mean, I wasn't particularly fond of the man when I first met him. We had our differences. Quite a few, actually. But that didn't mean I wanted him dead.
I missed him.
And the person who should have understood that better than anyone was acting as though there was absolutely nothing to miss.
Sometimes I wondered whether the grief had simply become too much for her. Perhaps she was trying to protect herself by pretending none of it had happened.
Perhaps she was protecting me.
Or perhaps there was something she knew that I didn't.
I had theories. Several, actually. None particularly convincing, but when has that ever stopped me?
I even wondered whether she knew those men. Whether she recognised one of them. Whether the whole thing had something to do with her.
But that was ridiculousere, wasn't it?
I mean, surely my mother wouldn't—
Never mind.
Anyway, breakfast became particularly interesting.
Imagine sitting across from your mother, whose husband has just died, while she asks whether you've had enough sleep and reminds you not to be late for school.
Normal family activities.
At least, that's what she seemed to think.
One morning, she asked whether I was sure I wanted to return to school.
Apparently, threredffçcçe news had spread, and people would probably have questions about what happened at my birthday party. She suggested I might prefer to stay home until things settled down.
I thought about it.
Then I wondered whether staying home would somehow make the situation less ridiculous.
It wouldn't.
So I went.
The first week was practically a revolving door of police officers, questions and people trying to establish what had happened that night.
And, naturally, I was questioned.
The first time, I told them the truth.
Well, my truth.
I explained that something had happened to me. That I'd suddenly found myself floating, that I couldn't control my body, that things were flying around the room, and that I had somehow managed to stop bullets.
I explained the black substance coming from my eyes.
I explained everything.
And do you know what those lovely people asked me?
They looked me straight in the eyes and said:
'Are you on drugs?'
I beg your pardon?
Apparently, my explanation wasn't particularly convincing.
They asked whether I was currently taking anything, whether I'd used drugs before, and whether they could examine my medical records to establish whether there was any possibility of intoxication.
I wasn't on drugs, obviously.
But I suppose if someone told me they'd spent their birthday floating around a room, throwing people through windows and stopping bullets with invisible air, I'd have a few questions too.
Still.
I wasn't making it up.
The second time they came around, things were different.
Mum had spoken to me.
She told me what to say. Or, more accurately, what not to say.
And I listened.
I explained that I had no idea what had happened during the attack. I suggested that the GA might have been involved, that he'd arrived with those men and that perhaps they'd been responsible for everything.
I said I had trusted him.
That I'd genuinely believed he was there to help us.
Which, at the time, I did.
I didn't know what he wanted. I didn't know why he'd disappeared. And I certainly didn't know why my mother seemed so determined to have him blamed.
But I followed her instructions.
I had enough problems without adding a disagreement with my mother to the list.
Besides, the police needed something to investigate, and the GA was conveniently missing.
Speaking of missing people, Kai eventually woke up.
Thank God.
I don't think I'd realised just how much I'd missed him until I saw him awake again. Two weeks without my favourite nuisance was considerably more unpleasant than I'd care to admit.
I visited him whenever I could.
Sometimes I'd sit beside his bed and talk about absolutely nothing. School, random people, things I'd seen, things that annoyed me.
He couldn't answer, obviously.
But that never really stopped me.
On the day he woke up, Mum was already there when I arrived.
Which was strange.
Not because she wasn't allowed to visit him. Of course she was. Kai was my best friend, and she'd known him for years.
But Mum and Kai barely spoke.
So when I asked why she'd come, she simply said she'd wanted to check on him.
'He's your best friend,' she explained. 'Of course I care about him.'
I stared at her.
What?
I mean, yes. He was my best friend. But since when did that translate into you making hospital visits before I even got there?
And did she genuinely expect me to believe that?
Apparently, she did.
'Do I have to speak to your best friend every day to care about him?' she asked.
'Mum, please. Stop this rubbish.'
She looked at me.
'Stop what?'
'This whole... I care about you, I care about your friends, I'm suddenly interested in everything you do. I get it. We've been through a lot, but please stop.'
'I should stop caring about my daughter?'
Oh, for God's sake.
'That's not what I said.'
'Then what exactly are you saying?'
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Because how was I supposed to explain that her affection was beginning to feel more uncomfortable than her usual indifference?
'I don't know, Mum. Forget it.'
And that was that.
Except it wasn't.
There was still the matter of the police.
They eventually came to question Kai after learning he'd regained consciousness. I wasn't particularly interested in what they'd ask him. I was more interested in what he'd tell them.
So, naturally, once we had a moment to ourselves, I asked.
'What did you tell the police?'
He looked at me.
'The GA.'
I frowned.
'What?'
'I told them the GA was responsible.'
I stared at him for a moment.
'How did you know to say that?'
He didn't answer immediately.
'Kai.'
'What?'
'Please don't lie to me.'
He looked away.
'I'm serious. I've had enough ambiguity in my life over the past two weeks. Especially without you. Please, just... don't.'
He hesitated.
Then he told me.
'Mum said I should.'
I blinked.
'Your mum?'
'No. Your mum.'
Oh.
Oh, brilliant.
So my mother had apparently been running a small investigation of her own while I was busy trying to understand why my life had become a supernatural disaster.
I didn't know what to make of it.
Why was she so determined to have the GA blamed?
Why him, specifically?
Did she know him? Had something happened between them? Was there a reason she was so certain he was responsible?
And why was she so reluctant to discuss anything that happened that night?
I had questions.
An unreasonable number of them, actually.
But the one thing I couldn't ignore was that my mother seemed to know considerably more than she was willing to tell me.
And I was getting tired of pretending otherwise.
Those two weeks had been hell.
Not just because of the police, the hospital, the nightmares or the fact that I'd apparently developed a talent for making people fly without aeroplanes.
It was because I couldn't grieve.
I couldn't even properly talk about the man who had died because the only other person who had loved him as much as I had—or perhaps even more—was acting as though he'd never existed.
And Kai had been unconscious.
I didn't have anyone.
Well, I had people around me. That wasn't quite the same thing.
I was beginning to realise that something had happened that night, something considerably bigger than a failed birthday party and a group of armed men.
And my mother?
She wasn't talking.
The GA?
Gone.
Kai?
Finally awake, thank fucking goodness.
And me?
I was running out of excuses.
Which, as it turned out, was probably the beginning of a very bad idea.
I wanted answers.
And I was going to find them.