With All Life

 

Prologue

 

Phoebe

I fall asleep exhausted and sad. Then the dream comes back. I’m plummeting through the air, but I can’t move. It’s as if I’m frozen in a block of ice being carried down by the rush of water down a waterfall. As I strike the ground, I feel the earth hard and cold; the impact shattering my body into thousands of tiny pieces. My eyes burst open as I attempt to escape my nightmares. 

Unfortunately, I succeed merely in returning to the real world, which bears the greater fears I have of life. I can never feel, because I can only worry. Fear is the only emotion I've ever known; I live with the fear of everything bad that could or might happen. I can never be sure whether or not I have made the right decision. Therapy helps me stray fairly calm, but I don’t know if I will ever learn how to control my anxiety. I take comfort in the little things, such as my long, brown hair and the pleasure of staring at the stars.  I try not to dwell on the big things--those just make me worry more. 

 

 

 

Alex

You know the feeling you get when you love someone? Well, I loved Phoebe. I even asked her to marry me. And you know that feeling you get when your one-true-love turns down your marriage proposal? When maybe she only turns you down because of her anxiety disorder, and the resulting worries about making such a big commitment? Or when maybe she says, “No,” because she just isn’t interested in you? And you know that feeling you get when, a couple of weeks later, she falls in love with some other guy, some guy named Jeffery, and never talks to you again? Phoebe always told me she loved my blond hair.  Well, I guess brunette is more her preferred hair color. What isn't to love about ME? Jeffery and Phoebe will both pay for what they did to me! 

 

Annalie 

            I hate my sister! I went to college with Jeffery and I met him first!  When I finally mustered the courage to invite him over to my house for dinner, and then ask him out on a real date, Phoebe ruined everything! When I walked over to the couch after dinner to sit down, I found him flirting with her. What kind of sister betrays someone that way?! After just one year of dating, they decide to go and get married. I refused to go to the wedding and Phoebe and I haven't talked since then. Serves her right! I mean, who prefers long brown hair to my cute blond hair? One day, she will learn that I’m the boss and I get what I want!

 

With All Life

 

I can’t sleep, my mind is flooded with thoughts. Exhaustion fills my body, numbs my mind. Every night, I worry about everything that might go wrong, but tonight it’s much worse. As I slowly and cautiously leave my bed, I hesitantly tip-toe to my bathroom. I splash some cold water up onto my face feel it hit my skin and seep into my pores; I shiver, and then glance up into the mirror. Staring at myself in the mirror, I suddenly feel uneasy, and my stomach lurches… I must have eaten something bizarre. I rush to the toilet and kneel down on the floor. The vomit slides up my throat, sour and tart. Suddenly my head begins to pound, burning as if someone had lit it on fire. All of a sudden, I collapse; my head hits the ground shooting sharp pains throughout my body. Then, everything goes black…

Consciousness slowly returns and I hear something groaning quietly. As I begin to sit up, I realize that the groans are coming from me. Slowly I run my hand over the ground, beginning to realize that I’m not in my house. Instead, I’m on some remote island…I note that the ground feels rough and rocky. I rub my eyes and look around, seeing only a vast chunk of land covered in rocks, cracks, and canyons. I jump up, ready to find a way off of this island, but my legs, weak and tired, quickly give out. Hastily, I extend my hands back to catch my fall. I feel my right hand hit the ground with my weight crushing it, but I feel my other hand hit something sharp. I feel thousands of pricks covering my left arm and hand. The words “small yet deadly” pop into my mind. I roll over, inches away from the cactus. Slowly, I sit up. I grab the first cactus needle out of my arm and quickly yank it out.  Its slim body slides up through my arm, leaving the layers of my skin… My eyes glance down to see a few drops of blood sliding down my arm,  cascading against the remaining needles before coming to a rest next to the hundreds of needles on my hand.  I grasp the next needle yanking it out, and doing the same with the rest of the needles… One by one I plucked thousands of needles from my arm; some so thin they may as well be hair. Many hours slowly crawl by. A starless night surrounds me, eating away at my confidence. I can barely make out the shape of my body, and I can definitely not see the miniscule needles sticking out of my arm. My eyes drift to the ground as my foot’s hit creates a small splash in a tiny pool of blood that’s slowly soaking into the ground, alike to my skin the mucky reddish brown color covered the light natural shade of life. Slowly I begin to wander making my way around trying to find somewhere to shelter. I glance around one last time then decide to rest myself against a lone tree. Its leaves gone, none left in sight. I hit myself hard against the tree needing support, but instead something hits my back hard and sharp. I slump to the ground not wanting to know what the sharp gnarled objects could be, so I slowly close my eyes hoping to wake up and find this might all have been a dream. 

My eyes flutter open but suddenly I clasp them shut. My body still stuck here; still on this awful island alone and sad. I suddenly begin to remember the thing on the tree that hit me sharp in the back. Slowly I stand up and examine the tree. Suddenly I see it, a nail sticking out of the tree. I look more closely to see a small note limply hanging from the tree looking old and worn out, as if it had been planned for me to find it for quite some time. I rip the note off of the tree swiftly and my mind scrambled, begins to make out the words. 

Phoebe and Jeffery sitting in a tree

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Jeffery falls out breaks his back

Now he’s dead and Phoebe’s sad

I could feel my feet begin to move thrusting me forward trying to run. Slowly I make my way into a sprint, looking everywhere for his body. Then I see it… A body dead, maybe, or dying, his body lay mutilated, his flesh rotting and turning an almost purple color. I grab his bloody hand and begin to pull him. I hear something, a noise that could kill me alone. A crack or maybe a tear, I glance over, scared to see what had happened. I see his arm in my hand, separate from his body, tears build up in my eyes not able to believe the fact that he must be dead if I find myself able to rip his arm off without any reaction. I begin to sob and slowly dig a shallow hole. I scream as I push his body into a shallow hole. Throwing dirt at his face, I can’t help but be angry that he died. I ran away hating Jeffery for letting himself end this way, although I secretly know it couldn’t be his fault. Yet, I still can’t help but blame him. After a few hours of punching the ground, my hands felt sore and I knew I had to face my fears. Making my way towards the grave, I collapse. I scream as I see a shallow empty hole on the ground. Jeffery’s gone. I slowly make my way into the hole looking for some knowledge of who took Jeffery…. Nothing, just a note, it read:

Jeffery’s gone forever now

He’s mine and all is up to me

But be careful because I have a feeling

It will be you next, not me

I quickly scramble to get off of his grave and my eyes dart around looking for clues. Then something made a branch move, I looked over in the direction of the noise and see a quick wisp of brownish blond hair.  My eyes filled with tears when I suddenly came to realization that this happened to be Annalie’s hair color… I walked over in her direction, but she had already gone.

After a couple more minutes of walking I broke into a jog. I needed to find Jeffery, to know that he would be going to be buried properly. The pressure has shifted, I needed to know that his death would be known and his murderer found. I spotted something off in the distance… Jeffery’s mangled body lay on the ground… A canyon a couple inches away. I begin to run towards him not thinking about my own safety. As I begin to take the last few steps towards his body, something digs into my ankles, sharp and painful, I feel myself being thrown forward but not onto the ground… My body falls into a deep canyon and quickly hits the ground. I hear a cracking sound and I wince… I try to sit up, but I can’t because my body is immobilized. Frantically trying to figure out what happened, my mind slowly rested on the thought that my life would be over soon and the only reason I can’t feel the pain is because the adrenaline, like a shield, protected me from the hurt that will soon be thrust upon me.   

After a couple hours the pain begins to set in, piercing through me. I slowly begin to close my eyes ready to die. Suddenly I hear footsteps and  my eyes begin to dart around looking for help, and then I see it. Alex stood above me, his hair dyed the brownish blond hair color that Annalie has always had. His laughs echo through the canyon as I slowly die, wishing, hoping, that someone would find out what he did to Jeffery and me.

 

 

Epilogue 

Annalie

 

Slowly I walk up to Phoebe’s house. We had planned to go meet over a nice lunch today to maybe help settle this argument that has been going on for years. As I begin to knock on her door, it opens, so I walk in. Locking the door behind me, I begin to walk up her stairs noting that Phoebe had replaced the fluffy white carpet with red hard wood floor. I make my way into her room and my eyes open wide staring at her bed, I had never seen her bed unmade, she always liked everything neat and clean. Confused, I made my way to her bathroom hoping for a sign that she might be home. I step onto the large white tiles and look around. Something sharp cuts into my foot, glass. I look up and see that her mirror has been shattered into hundreds of little pieces covering the granite counter underneath. I walk over to the separate counter with the sink to clean out my cut, suddenly noticing the water had been left running, Phoebe would never leave the water running. My eyes quickly scan the ground and I nearly scream when I see a map with a small circle around a section of water. Our cousin had been a cop for awhile now so I called him right away. He managed to get me a ride on a helicopter, but I insisted I would be dropped off alone and the helicopter return to me after 30 minutes. 

As my feet hit the rocky ground and the helicopter flew away, I wandered around looking for Phoebe. After walking a couple feet, I begin to smell blood. The smell was faint, as if it had been around for a couple of days, fading. I begin to worry but then decide that my I might just be imagining it. I continue walking, then I see it Jeffery’s, body, dead, mutilated, with only one arm on the ground. I rush over him and begin to cry. Although I had been dating Alex for a little while now, my feelings for Jeffery had never completely disappeared. I stumble around and almost trip into a canyon: Slowly I look over its edge and see a shape. I begin to make it out as a woman’s body. I squint and come to realization that below me lay Phoebe’s weak corpse, dead from impact most likely. My mouth slowly forms an O shape and tears rush from my eyes.  Suddenly the horror of this situation thrusted upon me, so I hop up and begin to run. Just before I reached a decent speed, something stabs me sharp in the back piercing my heart. Alex slowly walks over to the dead body, a small tear in his eye. He bent over slowly, brushing his hand against her cheek, then throws himself into the canyon trying to escape the guilt.