Haunted

• Caitlin Crawford, Grade 8, Ursula Frayne Catholic College - Duncan Street Campus
• Short Story
• 2020

Excellence Award in the 'The Inside Story 2020' competition

They call this house haunted. I call it home. I am cursed and can never leave this hellish place. It is messing with my mind. The walls that I know so well seem to move in my sleep, ever shifting, like a labyrinth built to contain me. The walls seem to be just illusions, as I can walk through them, the sensation like jelly. My family seem to come in and out as they please, then they leave and never return, stranding me in my jail. People come in and look around as they please, but when I say hello, they just ignore me. It is torture, not knowing what is wrong with me.
Then my best friend arrives at the house. Desperately, I follow her, shouting her name. She stops. I freeze; maybe someone can hear me. Then I hear sobbing. She is crying on the floor, sobs wracking her entire, fragile body. Crying over a picture of me. Her tears are acid in my soul, burning my heart. Then she pulls out a piece of paper, a booklet, a funeral booklet. On the front are the words ‘In loving memory of Saskia Jones’ - my name!
It all comes rushing back. The rolling waves crashing onto the beach like raging horses. The cool water against my skin and the beautiful night sky, black as coal with the scattering of bright stars. I remember feeling the waves wash against my legs as I walked into the water, the feeling I had been dreaming of that whole tedious day at school. I remember leaping in and feeling the waves push and pull me, like a rag doll, the glorious feeling of freedom. Then getting tangled. I can recall the terror of being trapped, the seaweed wrapped around my leg, my neck, strangling me. The precious air slowly slipping like an eel from my throat. The surface gloating to me, knowing I would never see it again. The dark depths below me beckoning, calling me to a watery grave. I remember the feeling of dread as my last breath escaped from my throat. My last struggle to break free of the ensnaring seaweed. Then the realisation I would never breath the fresh air again or feel the warmth of the sun upon my back. Then darkness. A different darkness to the sky, the darkness of despair. The knowing of the sorrow that my family would feel. My last living thoughts, then nothing, till I woke up in my prison.
I was dead, but still on earth. Bound to my house until I accepted the truth; I had died, I didn’t belong here anymore. As I accepted my fate, my bodyless soul began to shimmer and shine. Finally, I had earned my oblivion.