Panic

• Rianna Mackay, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2018

Panic. Horror. That’s all my life is. Run. Hide. They’re coming. It was all a joke. Just a joke – A joke that… killed someone. I stood in her room. Her clothes… all had that symbol. That damn symbol written in some unknown substance. But I didn’t understand. It was supposed to be a joke – But that joke had ruined her. I closed my eyes, but only for a few seconds before they flew open again when I heard it. No. I thought – that’s not even possible. It was just a story that I made up. I must have heard it because I was thinking about it so much. Yes, that was the logical explanation. I took a deep breath. Then I heard it again. Footsteps. Screams. My dull blue eyes widened and I looked at her bedroom wall, my heart dropped. Symbol. Headache. There was no time left. It was a story. But I hadn’t realised just how real my story really was… I hadn’t realised that there really was a stalker, hiding in the shadows that seemed to follow her around. A stalker that wasn’t just a stalker at all… I realised, at that point, that I was not welcome in this house any longer. I was no longer alone, either. I had to leave. Now. I turned and walked down the stairs, onto the ground floor. I had to be silent. It was NOT allowed to hear me. Under no circumstances was I to attract attention to myself from now on. I knew the rules, I had created the rules. But… I had already broken one rule, the most important one. I had washed the symbol off of my wrist. The symbol I had drawn… To scare her. As a joke. The one rule… That she always followed. Claiming that it whispered to her and that she needed to leave it on her wrist more than she needed to never answer her front door. I had found it hilarious then. But in no way was I laughing right now. Not at all… Not even slightly was I amused anymore. The horrible way that I had been watching her scramble to bolt her door for seemingly nothing back then... And it was when I felt the ice-cold harsh grip of a hand on my shoulder that caused a shuddering pain and heart-crushing horror in my heart, I knew that my mistake was way more damaging than I had anticipated originally. “DO YOU FEEL THE DEATH YET!?” That voice… I knew it but I didn’t. It was everywhere and nowhere. All and nothing. And it was tearing me apart from my insides out. What you must understand is this: every mistake has a price. Always. And it just so happened that the price for my mistake… was more horrific than death, blood, or murder. The price for my mistake; I had misjudged how big it was. The price I needed to pay… Was her soul…