evascott

Chloe perspective
Waking up on the sandy beach I do not know where I am or what has happened to me, orange fills the sky, anxiety traps me my brain not able to think or process, what has happened to me. Trees fill behind the beach I can’t see any land on the horizon only this land it looks like a island. My mind claws for answers, but nothing. No memories. No explanations. I look around sand and tree surround me, my heartbeat quickens, my mouth dries up. Something crunches behind me like a branch snaps. I whirl around. My heart cannot stop racing I do not know if anyone else is out here or if it is some sort of animal. Whatever it is it clearly does not want to face me either. All of a sudden I see the most familiar face. Like I know this person, or I have seen them before. I cannot shake off the sense of resemblance. She approaches me cautiously unsurely. She looks as frighten as I do. Her wide eyes stare into my soul, her skin covered in dirt her brown hair tangled with leaves.

“Hey,” I say trying to keep my voice calm and steady. “Do you know where we are right now”?
“No, do you know why we are here?” she replies.
I look at her unknowingly shaking my head. We both stare at each other intently for what feels like forever. She looks like someone I used to know. A flicker of something… recognition? Her face is pale, eyes wide with the same fear mirrored in my own. Her clothes are torn, her hair a nest of tangled curls and leaves.
“My name is Anna,” she states.
“My name is Chloe,” I reply.
“How long have you been here?” I ask.

She does not reply or say anything she stares me down, I feel my whole body shiver she has this look on her face and I am frightened. I do not know what she is thinking. I have no idea where I am. I cannot remember what I was doing before I woke up here, I am super confused I do not know why I am here or what here is. The sun is starting to set I do not know if I can trust this person, I want to though. My head and my heart are telling me two different things. I have not even looked around the island yet, there has to be a reason I am here and why she is here. I just want to go back home but I do not want to get my hopes up because I do not go home, I do not know how I will survive.

Suddenly Anna pounces away and I start to follow her deep into the bush. The sun sinks behind the trees, and the shadows grow long and heavy. I make my way back to the beach instead of getting lost. The isolation feels heavier now, I lay on the sand just praying that she comes back. I just want to go home. But the terrifying truth is… I do not know where home is.
Anna perspective Her pale skin glows from the sun glistening; the sun enhances her golden light brown hair.

Trees loom above me, their branches swaying like they are whispering secrets. My head is excruciating pounding; My mouth tastes like ash. I cannot seem to gather my thoughts I look around thinking I must have been high on drugs last night and blacked out. I slowly get up my head spinning, I begin looking for my belongings and my phone, but I am just surrounded by forest that is all my eyes can see. The sun is blinding me through the gaps of the trees. I have no clue where I am or any sense of direction. I am just going to have to find someone to help as I am walking the drowsy feeling starts to go away and I feel, myself start to sober up, I try to think back to last night blank utter nothing. Just as I cannot move no more because feet are aching I hear the sound of waves crashing on the shore I start to quicken my pace running until I can see the beach. I run over and I see someone lying on the beach. Do I know them? I have this feeling this sense like why Is the first person I see also asleep; I try to look closer and then she wakes up.

I quickly crouch behind a bush, just watching. Her white dress flutters in the breeze, covered in sand but somehow still pristine. Her hair is a mess of sun-bleached brown. Something about her is so familiar it makes my chest ache. Whereas I am wearing jeans and my red top covered with dirt and my hair tangled with leaves and sticks I can tell I look like I have been on a 3 day bender, but this does not feel like one of the times I have gone off the rails

Lila perspective
As I am lying on the sand anna comes back.
“What the hell,” I screamed.
“I just needed the toilet relax,” she says.
“Don’t run off on me like that again without saying anything,” I say
“Okay I’m sorry I promise I won’t do it again,” she says.

Anna perspective
It has officially been a full whole week here, The days blur together. We scavenge for food. We build a pathetic little shelter out of sticks and leaves. It leaks when it rains. Lila tries to stay hopeful, tries to keep us talking. I pretend, for her sake. But inside, I am sinking. I sit by the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. The wind creating goosebumps on my skin. I think about the time before this place brief, flickering images: cold rooms, white walls, restraints. Screams that might have been mine. A memory slips through the cracks pills. So many pills. And then, nothing. Maybe I was already broken before this island. Maybe I was put here because no one knew how to fix me. Maybe I will be broken forever and cannot be fixed.

Lila perspective

Anna does not sleep anymore. Or maybe she does, but not when I do. I wake in the middle of the night and see her sitting upright, staring out at the sea like she is trying to talk to it. She is changing. Unravelling. Her words are getting weirder. She keeps asking me strange things if I have ever had dreams that feel more real than memories, if I have ever felt like a ghost in my own skin. Sometimes, she speaks so softly I cannot hear. She disappears into the forest, and I do not see her for hours. One night, during a storm, she screams in her sleep. Screams my name. I ran after her and it was almost like she was possessed.

Anna’s perspective
The feeling of you not being loved by your parents them loving your sister more than you but you are so use to it there is a numbness you can’t feel anything. If I ended it right there it would solve all their problems and mine because when there is not numbness there is aching pressure and feeling of I’m not good enough, I’ll never make you proud I’ll just be a forever nuisance to you. Remembering when my parents loved me and how I watched the love slip away and slowly turn into hatred. The annoyance on her face and in her voice and tone when I try to talk to her, her raising her voice her telling me she hates me as there is a look in her eye that is pure evil. Every single thing I can remember I can’t forget the words she may of or may not have meant replaying constantly in my head on repeat. The words she uses with utter hatred in her eyes and her heart. My father’s enabling behaviour, his silence, his compliance. My sister doesn’t know or understand she doesn’t get how I’m feeling neither do my parents. They don’t know, they don’t care, loving someone shouldn’t be slowing killing you, making you suffer every day. Making you change as a person into a person you can’t recognised a version of yourself you can’t stand; you try to fix yourself to no longer be this version of yourself that you hate and everyone around you hates. But it’s not good enough. Nothing you do is good enough. To be loved is to be known, I’m not known not loved not seen. I simply exist and that’s not living, so might as well just stop the pain. Drugs were just a temporarily solution the high I got from them only lasted so long. Maybe jumping off this cliff will make me feel something. There is no saving me, I’ve already been dead long before this.
I see her she see me. I take a leap of the edge the wind in my face the waves below crashing into the rocks. I feel free, more free then I ever have.

The silence is screaming now. My head is a warzone images flash like gunfire. Needles. A white room. My mother’s voice cold as steel: “we can’t deal with you anymore, either of you.”
“No!” I had cried.
“Anna you’re not like your sister, but she cares to much about you, so we can’t help either of you.”
And then, utter darkness.

I wander to the cliff again. It is the only place I feel anything now. The drop is so far down, it feels like freedom. My toes curl over the edge. The sea calls to me a lullaby. I turn around and see Lila there.
“Don’t,” she pleads, eyes wide.
I turn to her. “I’m already gone.”
Her face crumples. “Anna… please…”
That name. Her voice. Something cracks inside me.
But it is not enough. I smile, hollow and broken and I Jump.

Lila perspective
“ANNA!” NOOOOOOOOOO
An excruciating scream comes out of my tears flooding as time freezes still. She vanishes over the edge. I run to the cliff, nearly throwing myself off, my eyes scanning for her. Gone .Gone. Gone. Memories hit me like waves slamming a shoreline. Anna. My sister. I remember the day before we got here.
“She’s a danger,” they said. “To herself. To you.”
I remember screaming. Begging. Till they put something in my arm. They put us here to die. Their own daughters, MONSTERS I scream at the top of my lungs, they were never my parents they drove my sister to this dark place and stuck her here. Now I am stuck, without her. Everything closes in until I collapse.