Hey. My name’s Dex Reemer. Not really. The reason I don’t dare give my real name is simple: I’m dead. Or I will be once someone finds out who I am. I’m kind of hoping nobody does.
I’m here to tell you a little story. A history lesson, if you will. It happened, it really did.
There are people out there. People who don’t want you to know. They would go to extreme lengths to keep you ignorant. They would hurt not just me, but my family, my friends. Which is why my identity must remain a secret. Think of me as Superman. It’s to protect those around me, those I love.
But I won’t leave you completely blind. I’m a girl and I’m thirteen. Whether you choose to believe that or not is up to you.
Feel free to show your friends. In fact, please do; they need to know too. Because one less ignorant is one less victim… if you’re careful, that is. There’s only one condition to reading: Don’t ask me my source.
Anyway, I’ll be narrating this for you. Throughout this there will be many point of views, but I'm going to start with an ordinary girl. Minus the ordinary part.
...
Dear diary, August 7th
You hear about it everyday. On TV, in the local gossip, from the girl sitting next to you on the bus. People just don’t realize how lucky they are. They take it all for granted. I would trade lives with them in a heartbeat.
I would love to have a little brother to annoy me. An older sister to boss me around. Restricting parents doing so because they love me. Somebody who actually cares about what happens to me.
They say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Or you don’t know what your missing until you have it. Neither of those apply to me. I know what I’m missing. I know what I don’t have, have never had. What I doubt I will ever get.
What I want most is a family, a home. Someone I can love unreserved. Someone to return that love. Someone to pick me up when I’m down, with a shoulder to cry on. Someone who will take me at my worst and that deserves me at my best.
I move from house to house, home to home. Never quite fitting in, always the outcast, always the freak. Nobody knows what I am going through, what I have gone through. Has anything like this happened to anyone before? I’m not even sure what happened. But I can try to tell you to the best of my abilities. If I may.
The day before my sixth birthday my parents took me and my best friend--Jessica--to the park. We decided to play in the sandbox. I was digging around when I saw something sparkle. As a five year old, the curiosity was overwhelming. I reached down, felt something solid, clasped my hand around it, and pulled up.
I found in my hand a ring. It had a gold band and a crimson stone. On the band were the words etched, Never give up hope; sometimes it’s all you have left. Little did I know then and there how true that was.
Later that day, back at home, I was in the kitchen with my mom--Shawna Cromrey.
Anyways, Mom was making chili, which I hated with a passion. Let me say now that I was a rather dramatic child. My father--Bryan--came at the sound of my protests, though they were routine. He couldn’t calm me though.
Soon tears were in my eyes, blurring my vision beyond comprehension of anything around me. I was screaming and banging my fists and sobbing until my eyes went dry.
It took me a while to realize that no one was paying any attention to me anymore. I wanted to know why so I stopped crying. I wiped my tears and was shocked at the sight that befell me.
Both of my parents were lying on the ground, apparently unconscious. At first I thought it was some sort of cruel joke, so I went by them and started pushing and pulling their arms. They didn’t stir or wince or give any indication that they were alive.
Finally I had it. Like they taught me in Kindergarten, I got the phone and dialed 911. At first the operator didn’t believe me. Remember when I said I was a bit dramatic? I had experienced several “emergencies” prior that, all of which were not true emergencies; once mom had burned something and I saw the smoke and panicked. Another time I simply wanted a princess doll house so badly that I considered it an emergency. And other stuff like that.
Eventually, though, I did manage to convince her that I wasn’t joking or exaggerating and she sent an ambulance to my house. The paramedics declared my parents dead. No one, not even the medical examiner, could find a cause of death. It was though they dropped dead of their own accord.
But I knew otherwise. I didn’t know how, but I had done it. I killed them.
That was the day my drama ceased and I became far more introverted.
Since then, whenever I get sad, angry, overly happy, excited, or too much of any one emotion, weird things happen. Without cause thing break, disappear, change in some odd way, and so much more.
I swear it's my ring's fault; nothing happened before I got it. Yet despite the grief it's caused me, I can't seem to get rid of it. I mean, I can take it off, yet for some reason I can't seem to take it off. Just the thought of losing it makes me sad. It's like I'm connected to it somehow and to break that connection would be unthinkable.
So, because of that, I always wear it on my ring finger on my right hand, flipped upside down so I can see the saying I love so much.
All of that weird stuff use to happen on a regular basis, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve been able to control myself more. I'm fourteen now, but if I hold everything in for too long, however, it all comes rushing out at once.
It’s for these reasons that I’ve entered multiple families through foster care, though most have enough sense to get rid of me when the weird stuff happens. It’s as though I’m cursed; in a way I am.
It's amazing how having your parents mysteriously die can turn off potential parents. Though I was an adorable, fairly well-behaved, little girl, the only homes they could find me were foster homes.
Strangely, though, right now I’m not in a foster home. Or an orphanage. I’m adopted. Honest to goodness adopted. I have my new family’s name and everything. Which is Creevey. That makes me Emily Creevey. There’s something about the way that rolls off the tongue that makes me absolutely hate it.
And believe me when I say my new parents are evil. Plain and simple. Their names are Joey and Didi. Everyday they have me doing chore after never ending chore. I’m not sure it’s even legal to work a minor so hard.
So why am I not turning them in, you might ask. Easy. A horrid family is better than no family at all. You don’t know what it’s like to be constantly uprooted, to be constantly changing schools. It’s not fun, let me tell you.
Besides, once the school year starts in a few weeks it won’t be so bad. I’ll be in a glorified prison eight hours a day.
Speaking of prisons, my current warden’s about to close down for the night. The Creeveys have a strict curfew of ten thirty, and I haven’t found a flashlight here yet to keep writing under my blankets.
Good night with love, Emily
Just as Emily snapped the diary shut and slid it onto the nightstand, Mrs. Creevey reached a hand into the room, flicked off the light, and shut the door behind herself. This was the first night that she had not reminded Emily that there would be severe consequences if it was found out she broke lights-out.
Emily rolled over in bed and was about to fall asleep when the door opened.
“I almost forgot,” said Mrs. Creevey, sticking her head into the room. “If I find out you’ve broken curfew there are going to be severe consequences.” And she slammed the door closed.
, Nepo!
I don't know.
