The Mist That Falls at Night

The loud crackling of fireworks hid the sound of a gunshot echoing through the row of houses with neatly trimmed lawns and rose bushes. The timeline of that night has never been established, it differed with each person you asked. One ten-year-old, Eddie Montgomery, who had been in bed sick with a mild cold, heard the piercing sound of death a little after ten. When told of the gunshot by her frantic child, Mrs. Montgomery assured her son that it was nothing but his imagination - another one of his fever dreams. Another report, an unreliable one at that, claimed that the screaming began exactly at six thirty-five that morning. However, neighbors insisted that nothing seemed amiss until the police arrived at the Wellington estate at noon.

By the time the Sheriff arrived with his entourage of deputies, some with faces weathered down with time and others who wandered around like lost puppies, the whole town already knew whose body was being carted away by the paramedics. At first, some insisted that she took a leap of faith of her second-story balcony with the intention of impaling herself on the iron fence surrounding her house. Others claimed that she hanged herself from the chandelier in the foyer of her grand home, the very same place where her mother loved to host Christmas parties, filled to the brim with champagne and plastic smiles.

The fact that she craved death more than anything else, did not concern anyone in particular. Everyone, including her own mother, saw what they needed to see. It was a tragic accident that could've happened to anyone. The truth was that she didn't want to end her life. She hardly knew anything about life, much less of death. She wanted to live to see tomorrow, but life had taken her in a cruel twist of fate. The suicide that they found hidden in one of her many journals was disregarded by both her mother and the public. That silly note was her daughter's failed attempt at poetry. Death was never her only escape.

When they released the note to the public a week after her suicide, no had taken it seriously. What did that little rich girl know about pain or suffering? Perhaps, she knew nothing of it. Maybe she did know a thing or two. Nevertheless, in a case so convoluted, one thing was certain, she hadn't thrown herself off her balcony, or even looped a rope around her neck. Of course not, she would've never wanted her existence to be commemorated by sparkling chandelier or a rusty iron fence. In fact, when they found the body, it'd been there for almost twelve hours. How it had gotten past her mother? No one is quite sure.

Her glassy eyes, void of any life, vacantly stared into the emptiness that is life. Those pale hands were grasping for something just beyond her reach. She could feel its warmness across the tips of her fingers, but alas it was too far for her to even feel it once. It was as if she was swimming against a rushing current that threatened to consume her very being. Her lungs burned as she struggled to gasp for air. She needed someone... anyone. She could hear her friends giggling at their lunch table about the new rumor. She could see the adults who encouraged her to pursue her dream. She could feel the boyfriends who had flooded her with meaningless words of how she was beautiful and utterly special. The harsh reality that many people don't ever realize is that no one cares. No one was ever coming to save her. They knew it and so did she.

Was it bad luck? Or was it what life had intended for her all along? Was it some an unspeakable force that could not be reckoned with, or even changed if anyone had bothered to try? It didn't really matter because fate had dealt its hand by that second week of summer when the police found her sprawled out in a bloody mess next to her friend's cold body. The truck they were in had flipped over into a ditch and the rest was thoroughly detailed in the news that night. They found her that night, stroking her friend's matted hair, singing a soft lullaby into her ear as if she were putting a baby to sleep. When they finally decided that a young woman had no place next to a corpse, she howled as if she had relived it all over again. Apparently sobbing that everything was fine, for you see, they had an adventure planned for tomorrow. Something far, far away from this town.

She fought against them, bringing long nails down their arms, pulling at their shirts in a desperate attempt to flee, but the gruff paramedics roughly sedated her. As they loaded her unconscious body onto a stretcher, one of them mumbled under his breath about how unlucky he was to have to deal with her. Her mother, Mrs. Wellington arrived at the ER two hours late, dressed in head to toe in black. According to one of the nurses, Kendra Edmonds, Mrs. Wellington stunk of booze and had an unnervingly calm smile. A twenty-something deputy that had been assigned to watch over the girl had also been tasked with debriefing Mrs. Wellington.

There was a body and her daughter was lucky to be alive.

Mrs. Wellington graciously thanked him and slipped silently into her daughter's room. She was there for about ten minutes before leaving with a swish of her dress. She didn't come back until her daughter was released.

Quinn Wellington cried all night and no knew what to say. Kendra Edmonds assured everyone that she consoled the girl, reminding her that it wasn't her fault. No one could have prevented what had transpired that night. But it's rather clear that no one forgave her either. At least that's what they believe she meant in her final letter - the legacy left behind, the one scrawled onto a torn piece of loose leaf and jammed into a journal. It happened so quickly that it took everyone months to even process what had happened. Only mere hours after the summer festival, her drunk mother stumbled from room to room in a search of her favorite target, but she never found her. Not alive at least. What she found was her daughter's lifeless body lying on the bathroom tile floor. Her body was truly horrific; her thin legs spread out, and her pale arms covered in what could only be described as grisly burns.

Carter Baldwin claimed that she shot herself in the head without the slightest hint of hesitation. No one was quite sure if that was true either. Maybe she did regret it, in her final moments, when body and soul cling onto life. The police later reported that she managed to survive for a few more minutes before falling into the arms of utter and complete darkness. Others claimed that she regretted it just as the bullet eagerly escaped the chamber of the gun. But by then it was too late. The glossy trigger of death had been pulled. 

But it didn't end there. It never does.