I wrote this for Amy's contest, with the prompt to write something centered on a dream I once had. It's safe to say I have strange dreams. I know it's not amazing, but it's a while since I've posted a work of my own other than the poetry puke I'm blaming on Snoink. So, here we go. Enjoy.
(EDIT: I should have made it clearer that the dream was very much expanded on. It wasn't anywhere near this detailed, so I had to expand quite a bit.)
(EDIT #2: Thanks everyone for your reviews. I hope this is better, and if there's anything else I haven't picked up on, I'd appreciate if you could let me know, if it's not too much trouble. Thanks!)
In Which a Little Girl Dies (Edited)
Carla laughed as she watched the game, just another game on the big school playground, but it was a fun game, and Carla liked it, even if Caroline was playing. Caroline saw her, and stuck her tongue out at her, and she turned away quickly. She felt Caroline's glare burning into her, and she shivered. She wasn’t allowed to watch Caroline, not if she wanted to be able to go home without any of the nasty blood on her clothes.
Caroline was playing with Rebecca. They weren't proper friends, not really, but that was Caroline. She had a scary daddy and a scary mummy, and they had taught Caroline to be scary. She'd been suspended four times for hurting Carla.
Carla didn't understand why Caroline hated her. She wasn't nasty to the other little girls, although they stayed away from her because of the warm red stain on Carla's white shirt last year in nursery class, but she wasn't nice to them, either, except to get them to play with her. Like Rebecca, right now, who thought Caroline was lonely. Rebecca was new, and she didn't know Caroline.
Caroline had a reason, she had a reason for everything. Carla's mind wandered back to the first time, when they'd played together in pre-school. Caroline hadn't played with her since then. Carla didn't understand, but Caroline had a reason. There was always a reason.
“Come and play, Carla,” Rebecca said, bouncing across the hop-scotch to fetch her stone. Carla shook her head shyly, and Caroline pushed Rebecca over onto the concrete.
"She's not allowed to play," she said, and when Rebecca didn't say anything, a frightening silence fell.
Nasty red blood stained Rebecca's pretty dress and the concrete ground around her, until Carla couldn't see the hop-scotch any more. She couldn't remember a time when she couldn't see the hop-scotch before now.
A piercing scream that sounded like Caroline carried itself across the playground, and three teachers and the whole school came running. Caroline ran away, crying, and an assistant teacher followed her indoors.
Carla wondered what was happening. How much trouble Caroline would be in, what was going to happen in the toilets with the assistant. She watched Rebecca, though, and sat on the floor, waiting from a distance for her... friend? She wasn’t used to the word, but she liked the taste of it on her lips when she whispered it aloud. Nobody noticed.
The stench of sickly-sweet, almost rusty blood filled the air. Carla didn’t cry, although everyone else did. She almost faded from view as one teacher sat with Rebecca and helped her, and the others kept everyone away. When the headteacher came out and told everyone to go in, Carla stayed.
Nobody saw Carla as she shivered in the sudden cold of July. She pulled her lightweight cardigan around her tightly, anad wondered why her mummy had said she wouldn't need her coat. It was really cold, and Carla tried not to let her teeth chatter together. It was about Rebecca now, and if she was noticed Rebecca might get hurt more. But she didn't cry. No, Carla didn't cry.
"I didn't! It wasn't me! I'm sorry!"
She could hear Caroline crying and shouting at the teacher, but she had been the same after she hurt Carla, although Carla had sat back up and Rebecca was silent. Caroline was clever like that, she was good at pretending, even though she had been suspended. Carla sat still now, but nobody noticed. She wondered if she was invisible, but she didn't move in case she wasn't.
The ambulance arrived, and it didn’t see her. It drove straight past her, parking so that Carla was right behind it. The big, scary men ran over to Rebecca and the teacher straight away, and they left the ambulance open. Carla stared at it with wide eyes, but didn’t move. She watched the scary men sit down next to Rebecca, and they were touching her, and sounded worried, like Carla’s daddy when her little sister had been born.
They picked her up and put her on a white sheet, and Carla remembered the white sheet they had put on her nana last year. She hadn’t seen her nana since, and she watched with wide eyes. Her mummy had cried when they put the white sheet on her nana. Carla didn’t cry.
The scary men put Rebecca into the back of the big ambulance. They still didn’t see Carla, even when she stood up to watch. They got into the front of the ambulance, and the teacher in the back with Rebecca started to pull the doors closed.
Rebecca sat up. “Come and play, Carla,” she said. The ambulance rolled backwards and bumped into Carla. She fell, and the heavy ambulance drove right over her. There was a long pause. Carla didn't get up.
The teacher in the ambulance screamed, and the scary men ran out to Carla. Everything went fuzzy, and the last thing she noticed before she closed her eyes was that Rebecca didn’t cry.
Much better. You explained a reason for most of the stuff and I'm glad you did that with out going into too much detail. I'm beginning to think this story is supposed to be a little vague and you aren't supposed to know everything. But that's just me. There is one sentence that really bugs me, I should have said something in the other review. You don't have to change it but it's just repetitive and I've noticed it every time I've read this piece.
