Darkest Hour

• Britney Penpraze, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2012

I sit in the room, at the top of the stairs to the right. My feet freeze beneath me and my hands shake as I wait, wait for the end because I know it’s nigh. In one hand I held a rope tightly, so tightly I can feel it cutting into my skin; in the other I had a note. A note that said everything my loved ones needed to hear. I wasn’t ready to leave this world, this life, but I didn’t have a purpose here. Everyone taunted me, they stared at me and called me the school's freak show. I couldn’t take it anymore. We have always had an abusive life. My father left my mother and me aching and bleeding at home, while he went out and got drunk. Sometimes he wouldn’t come home for days, weeks even. So I sat on the floor of my room, the longer I waited, the harder my heart pounded against my rib cage. I didn’t want to leave my mother alone in this cruel world, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I was a coward, and I knew that. I was running away, I always tried to find the easy way out. Maybe mother could get a new life, a better life. Start all over again; everything would be better that way, better with me out of the picture. I got up from the side of my rusty old bed and wondered around the little, dark room. A cracked mirror stood above my dresser. I sucked in a deep breath and stared at... at an overweight, useless sixteen year old girl, who wasn’t even remarkably pretty. What was I waiting for? I would never get my Prince Charming, I would never become a beauty queen, and I would never be happy. I was sweating under my arms, my eyes watering, my heart throbbing, my pulse racing. I placed my precious note on my bed and carefully walked towards my closet. As I paused my head made its way around the tiny room one last time. Breathing in, I stepped onto the stairs that would lead me to a life of no pain. One, two, three. The old steps swayed side to side. A tear ran down the side of my somber face and hit the collar of my dress. This was the end. I kicked the steps down from underneath and stopped struggling...

Beautiful Olivia, bright and intelligent, skinny and tall, if only she could see what the rest of the world saw, she might not have had such a tragic ending after all.