#hscw

The pain. The hurt. The blood.

The blade is my most-trusted friend.

Thoughts racing. Sharp Blade, bloody arms.

Arms bleed. Scabs itch. Scars fade.

Lost battle. Determined to win war.

Rather not get suspended. Hit wall.

Boy are stupid. Brick walls hurt.

Stupid boy. Temper rises. Knuckles bruise.

Nails clacking, gone. Hair everywhere, gone.

Angus gave a grunt as he pushed up from his squat, lifting the caber from its holding post. The long timber wobbled slightly in his hands before he steadied it.  He took a few running steps before thrusting up and out with all of his strength. He watched as the long, thin timber flew through the air, the top end slowly turning to the earth, and the bottom end, the one that was just in his hands, slowly arcing upwards. The timber came crashing down to the earth in a line that was perfectly perpendicular to his front. Angus let loose a shout and threw his fists up in the air as the crowd gave out a volley of cheers.

He had received a perfect score, which was a damn hard thing to do. He was confident that, however close the others might come, they wouldn’t pull a perfect score. He watched lazily as his own brothers and sisters took their attempts, cheering loudly as the two youngest of his siblings managed to merely get a lighter caber up in the air.

Then it was time for the MacKenzie clan to have their turns. Angus watched with baited breath as Fergus repeated the steps Angus had earlier taken. As the caber fell to the earth, the judge ran over to the end of it to measure. It was so close to being perfect that even Angus wasn’t sure if it was, or if it was slightly off. After a very tense moment in which the entire crowd was silent, the judge declared a score that was a fraction under perfect. The event wasn’t over, but Angus knew he had won. Fergus’ siblings wouldn’t be able to throw nearly as well as Fergus or Angus. They did come close, though. Gie ti puckle years, thought Angus, an' they’ll be scorin' perfects reit up thaur wi' me an' Fergus. Weel, almost Fergus, he finished with a slight sneer from the voice in his head.

Angus walked over towards Fergus to congratulate him on a job well done, but when he offered his congratulations, he was met with a sneer from Fergus. “Sure, ye pretend tae congratulate, but Ah ken ye an' yer kin'. Internally, yoo’re gloatin', ye conceited crease.” Angus decided not to afford Fergus a response, and instead walked away, despite Fergus calling to his back, “Nae comeback? Runnin' awa' frae a fair barnie, ye yellow-bellied coward?”

At being called a coward, Angus froze. He could defend his name, and fight Fergus, but it would ruin the fun, light-hearted air of the games. But on the other hand, if he didn’t defend his name, he would have to live with the shame of being called a coward until he next met Fergus and had a chance to redeem himself.  He turned around and walked back toward Fergus menacingly. He stopped very close to Fergus, and muttered something in his ear that only Fergus could hear, but it must have been terrifying. The look on Fergus’s face changed from one of sneering contempt to absolute fear. As Angus walked away, he smiled satisfactorily. He had settled his score with Fergus, defended his name, and all without ruining the atmosphere of the games.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Out on the hunting grounds, Gavenia and Iver stared at each other through the silent underbrush. They were crouched low, hiding from unsuspecting prey. Gavenia took a quick analysis of her surroundings, and spotted a large deer about twenty meters off. She silently withdrew an arrow from her quiver, and quickly notched it onto her bow. She drew back on the bow string, aimed at the deer, and let loose the arrow. She watched, pleased with herself, as the deer staggered then fell to the ground, the arrow straight through its eye.

Iver looked at Gavenia, slack-jawed. He was the best archer in his clan, and even he couldn’t shoot like that. “How'd ye dae 'at?” he asked in astonishment.

“Practice. Lots an' lots ay practice,” Gavenia responded. Then slipped her bow over her shoulder and started towards the dead deer.

“That's a beest ay a deer,” commented Iver. “Woods ye loch me tae help ye brin' it back?”

“Nae! Yoo'll try tae claeem it as yer ain kill!”

“Ah woods ne'er dae sic' a hin'!” he protested angrily, but in vain. Gavenia was already at the deer, and preparing to hoist it onto her shoulders. She tied the front and back legs together, and dropped into a squat. She hoisted the deer over her head and let it rest on her shoulders. With a grunt, she pushed up from her squat, holding onto the front and back legs of the deer to stabilize it on top of her.

She began the five kilometer trek back to the main area of the games, where she could claim the prize for her deer, and drop it off to be cooked for dinner that night. It was certainly large enough to feed both clans.

As she walked back into the clearing, there were many cheers from her fellow clan-mates, and a polite smattering of applause from the opposing clan. She was the first one back into the clearing, and it was apparent to even the crowd that the deer she carried over her shoulders was quite huge.

Gavenia walked towards the giant scale over towards the edge of the clearing, close to the outdoor kitchen. Once she had received the all clear from the judge manning the scale, she placed the deer on the scale. She watched with baited breath as the number on the scale slowly climbed: 25, 50, 75, 100 kilos. At 125 kilos the numbers climbed even slower: 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131 kilos, and it finally stopped between 131 and 132 kilos at 131.542 kilos. Gavenia gave a low whistle as the MacLeod clan erupted with noise. 131.542 was quite a hefty weight for a deer, placed at the highest end of the spectrum.

Gavenia felt a heavy hand clamp lightly onto her shoulder as a voice whispered in her ear, “Guid job, sister.” She immediately recognized the voice of one her older brothers, Kai.

“Cheers, Kai,” she responded quietly.  She let her older brother scoop up the deer and carry it over to the outdoor kitchen, following slightly behind him.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That night at the feast, despite having a good afternoon and evening at the games, the atmosphere was tense. Angus and Fergus were at the heads of the table, glowering at each other. The rest of the MacLeod clan lined the side of the table to Angus’s right, Fergus’s left, and the MacKenzie clan sat opposite. There were grumblings and mumbles down both sides of the table, insults being fired across the table at members of the opposing clan.

Suddenly, Fergus shouted down the table, “Angus! Ur ye gonnae cut th' damn roest, ur am Ah gonnae hae tae come doon thaur an' dae it myself coz ye cannae gie yer fat crease it ay th' chair?!”

“If a' fowk woods whieest doon fur a moment, Ah woods loove tae bless an' 'en serve th' scran,” Angus called over the low din back towards Fergus with a slight glare. As a hush fell over the table, Angus said quietly with his head bowed, “We caa upon th' gods tae bless uir scran, an' tae protect an' provide honoor tae baith th' MacKenzie an' MacLeod clan.” He picked up the carving knives, and started slicing into the deer roast, juices and blood running down the sides of the roast. He put a few slices of meat on each plate and handed them over to Hamish, who passed them down until the first one reached Fergus. Once everyone in the MacKenzie clan had a plate, he started handing the plates over to Kai, who passed them down until they reached Malmuira.

After Angus had handed Kai his plate, and was getting ready to prepare his own, Fergus took a bite out of his meat, which was a complete and utter insult and dishonoring of both Angus and Gavenia. Being the procurer of the roast, Gavenia had the right to the first bite, and as the eldest of the winning clan, Angus had similar rights. Both sides of the table fell into an immediate and shocked silence. Fergus said nothing, but he didn’t have to. The look on his face was enough. Angus gave a low, deep growl as a warning to Fergus, accompanied by the question, “Whit th' heel dae ye hink yoo're daein?” but otherwise did nothing in his or Gavenia’s defense.

At seeing that his older brother was practically refusing to defend himself and his older sister, Oidache jumped up from his seat and lunged at Fergus with an ear-splitting screech. Fergus let him get a couple of hits in before merely throwing him aside with a mutter of “pipsqueak,” nearly knocking him unconscious.

At this point, bedlam broke loose all around the table. Food went flying as people lunged across the table to get at each other. Darach was the first of the MacLeods to get his hands on Fergus, and Fergus had a much harder time getting away from him then he did with Oidache. “Hoo daur ye,” Darach grunted as he grappled with Fergus. “Hoo daur ye disgrace th' nam ay uir clan, ye rude, fool-faced monster.”

Hamish jumped at Kai as Raoghnailt pushed away from the table, preferring not to fight. Kai thrust Hamish aside, and ran around the end of the table where Fergus had been sitting.  He sprinted down the MacKenzie side of the table until he came upon Iver. He threw himself on top of Iver, and brought him crashing to the ground. He pushed up and started towards Fergus, but Iver grabbed him around the ankles and brought him down to the earth. “Nae sae fast,” he grunted, belabored with the effort of wrestling with Kai, who remained fairly quiet.  

Also on the MacKenzie side of the table was Forbia, taking on both Tavia and Teva. There were many yelps and light screams from their brawl as hair was pulled and nails were scratched across faces, as well as fists thrown into each other.

Malmuira, who noticed Raoghnailt trying to sneak away from the fray, ran after her and tackled her to the ground. “Ye wimpy coward,” she muttered in her ear as she rolled on top of her, easily subduing Raoghnailt.

Ailis then jumped over the table towards Kenzie, screaming incomprehensible words, and they rolled off to the side, each holding their own. Immediately after Ailis cleared the table, Eirica lunged for Balfour. He was caught slightly off guard, but he quickly recovered and managed to evade her until he was a little ways away from the table, with Eirica calling after him, “Ye afraid tae barnie a lassie?” Balfour turned around to face her, and shouted to her fast approaching figure,

“Hoo daur ye accuse me ay fear! Aam nae afraid ay fightin' a lassie!”

Gavenia jumped at Calder, grabbing him around the shoulders. The force from her impact threw him backwards, and he fell on his back with a gasp of surprise, feet up in the air as he was still somewhat in his chair. “Ye huir!” he shouted at her as he struggled between her and his chair.

Acrostic

Blood

Bodily harm

Leaving scars

Open wounds

Obstructed life

Dead to the world

 Cut

Cutaneous lacerations

Underlying reasons

The secret remains

 Blades

Bloody wrists

Loving caress of metal

Always hiding secrets

Depression overruling life

Emotions are non-existent

Self-medicating

 ABC

Her Life

Abusive past

Bleeding wrists

Cuts everywhere

Depression

Emotionless

Fear of being found out

Gone from this world

Hope is gone

Isolation: both physical and emotional

Just longs to be loved

Knows nothing but hurt

Longs for it all to end

Monster

Nothing left but pain

Ostracized from her family

Pulling the blades across her skin

Quitting the habit seems impossible

Running out of excuses

Suicide attempts

Thinks she’s insane

Urges that never stop

Verges passed

Wanting for blood and pain

Xiphoid process, battered and bruised

You can try to understand, help, but to her it’s pointless

Zero worth, hope, emotions, life force

 Haiku 

Scarlet

Blood is dripping down

Stinging pain after the cut

Permanent release

 Pain

Broken and crying

Looking for pain-filled escape

The blade is perfect

 Silver

Cool, silver metal

Drawn across to draw scarlet

Aftermath: release

 Emotions

Pain, Rage, Hurt, Anger

The only known emotions

Cause nothing but blood

 Free Verse

The Cyclic Addiction

A stinging pain, then a temporary release.

The drops of blood start to come slowly.

Wipe them away, and they come faster.

Then the tears start to flow, emotions leaking.

All the anger, the pain, it starts to dissipate.

But not for long.

 Too soon they come flooding back.

The need for release builds, pressure breaks.

Friends and adults try to get her out of it.

The blade is the only one who understands.

The cycle starts again, then ends.

Permanently.

  Terza Rima

Who’s laughing now?

Crude comments, rude remarks, and joking jibes

They say they are kidding, no malintent

But in their eyes she can see the harm the mean.

 She puts up with their comments, remarks, and jibes

Laughing along with them, like she’s one of them.

But inside she’s crying, hurt and wounded.

 “How could they be so mean?” she asks herself.

She asks herself as she bleeds out her pain.

“If only they know the truth behind their words…”

 At home she cries, she cries as she cuts and bleeds.

She cuts away her life, bleeding to her death.

With her last breath, she asks, “Who’s laughing now?”

 Elegy

Lamenting Her Life

One day you were here, the next day you were gone.

Only later on did I learn that it was forever, permanent.

I feel like I’ve always been somewhat waiting for this day,

But I was still so taken aback when I heard the news.

 I was also hurt by your pain-filled actions.

You were always there for me, and I for you.

I struggle now to understand why you left me here.

I thought if we were to go, it would be together.

 Now I’m left all alone, dealing with this world,

While you watch me from the next one over.

But soon enough I will be reunited with you.

“STOP SCREAMING AT ME!” I shouted into the empty room. I could feel the wild look on my face without having to look in the mirror. When I did peek in the mirror though, I looked worse than I thought. My pupils were miniscule, my eyes bloodshot, and it appeared that my left eye was twitching.

A guy in black scrubs entered my room. “Who are you yelling at?” he inquired.

“No one of your concern,” I sneered back.

“Is it the voices?” I just glare at him. He takes the clipboard off the door and checks the chart on it. “I see you haven’t had your meds yet today. I’ll be right back with them.” He walked out of the room for a moment, and then returned with a paper cup full of pills and a plastic cup with water in it. He tried to hand me the cup of water and the pills, but I made no move to take them from his hand. “You need to take your meds, Dave.”

“I don’t want to take them,” I said dryly.

“It’s not a matter of choice, you have to take them.”

“I’m not taking them, and you can’t stop me,” I told him, almost like a mocking child. He placed the cup of pills and the water on the little table that held the mirror, and stepped into the doorway of the room.

“I’m gonna need some help with this one, Robbie!” he called down the hall to one of the other orderlies. Another man in black scrubs entered the room behind the first guy. Robbie approached me, positioned as if to restrain me. Before he could get close enough to do so, I lashed out at him. I hit him with a solid punch to the jaw, and he staggered back a step out of surprise. He tried to grab my wrists to prevent me from throwing another punch, but I ducked out of his reach and ran around him. When the other guy tried to stop me, I shoved him aside and made a break for the door. The second guy, Robbie, caught up to me, and just about tackled me to the ground.

“We’re gonna need a jacket in here!” he shouted. A few moments later, two women in black scrubs were walking through the door, a white straight jacket in the hand of one of them. Robbie kept me pinned down until they had managed to get it over my head. He released me once they had done so, so they could tighten the straps on it. Then Robbie led me back over to the other guy, who tried again to force the pills into my mouth. As his hand approached me, I lashed out with my teeth, just barely missing his wrist. Robbie proceeded to try to restrain me back, and to get me to open my mouth. I locked my jaw, refusing to let it be moved. When he tried plugging my nose to get me to open my mouth, I still refused. I felt myself getting lightheaded, but I refused to open my mouth and breathe.

I grimace as I roll over and fumble around on my alarm clock until the alarm stops the annoying buzzing. I lay still for a moment or two, and then with a sigh, heave myself out of bed. I fumble around in a few drawers of my dresser until I find something to wear, not caring what it is. I grab a random hoodie from my closet, then trudge out of my room and downstairs.

I don’t bother with eating breakfast or making lunch. I’m not hungry now, and I know I won’t be later. I make sure I have the necessities in my backpack, and leave it by the door so I won’t forget it on my way to the bus.

I trudge back upstairs to brush my teeth and catch sight of the many pill bottles on my bathroom counter. I stare at them for a moment, thoughts formulating in my head. Better not take them this morning, the sensible part of my brain kicks in. What you did last night was more than enough, and not really necessary. You almost completely lost control last night. There’s no need to be taking any more chances right now.

I ignore the voice of sensibility and reach for the bottles. I stare at them for a moment, then start to open a few of them. I pour a few pills from each bottle into the palm of my hand, and contemplate them for a moment. I start to bring my hand to my mouth, and then am overcome by this overpowering feeling of rage. I chuck the handful of pills across the bathroom, and then swipe the empty bottle of pills off the counter, smashing them to floor, with various pills flying in every which direction. I storm down the stairs, grab my backpack, and rush out the door to the bus stop.

I’m in the library with my friends, but only physically. They try to talk to me, and I see their mouths move, but I don’t really hear anything they say. I sit there with them, comatose-like, until the bell rings. When I get to my first-period class I just sit there, not really paying too much attention to the teacher, and she doesn’t seem to be paying too much attention to me either. What I think, though, is a mistake. When there’s about few minutes till the bell, she pulls me aside, and asks me, “What’s up? What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” I ask back in a very nonchalant way, mustering up a somewhat confused face.

“You’re very, not you, today.”

“I’m really tired,” I say with a  slight, involuntary shake of my head.

She looks me in the eyes and asks, “Is that all?” Right then, the bell rings, and I turn back into the classroom to get my bag and go off to my next class. I don’t get very far into the start of my next class when a pass comes for me to go to guidance.

Great, I mutter to myself as I trudge down the hallway, my bag slung over one shoulder. Just what I need. When I want to be left alone and curl up in a ball, I’m being dragged down to guidance, where he’s going to drag some sort of shit out of me about last night, or this morning, or just recently. Then he’s gonna have to tell my parents because he’s required to when  it’s this kinda shit he’s being told by students, and then they’re going to have me shut away somewhere for being crazy and insane.

I slowly open the door to the guidance department and trudge through the doorway. “Can I help you?” the secretary asks me from behind her desk.

“I got a pass to come and see Mr. G.” I mumble, barely audible.

“Okay. Sign in, take a seat, and he’ll be with you in a moment,” She says matter-of-factly. I’ve done what she says, and have been sitting down for only about a minute when Mr. G pops his head of his office door and calls me in.

I let my bag slide off my shoulder and onto the floor next to the chair in his office before I plunk down in the chair. “I’ve had a number of people come to me this morning, really concerned about you. A number of your friends came in this morning right after the bell, and one of your teachers just called me a little while ago. So what’s going on?”

“Nothing much,” I say nonchalantly with a shrug of my shoulders. But it’s not convincing whatsoever.

“Really?” he asks me. “Do you want to change your answer, or are you going to stick with it?” I say nothing, just stare back at him. We stare at each other for a moment before he breaks the silence. “Okay, we both know that’s not true. You’re trying to convince me otherwise, and you just staring at me like that confirms it. Given some of your past behavior, there’s something you’re not telling anybody, something not good. What’s happened recently?”

I say nothing, and shift my gaze from him to the floor. “Darren?” I still say nothing. “Why are you wearing a hoodie and shorts? Why not just a t-shirt? It’s certainly not cold out.” he questions, trying to get me to talk about something, even if only a little.

“Because I like hoodies. They’re comfortable. And it get’s kinda cold in the school sometimes,” I defend myself, trying to shake him off of the course he’s heading down.

I tried to edge around her, but she wou8ldn’t move out of the way. “Excuse me,” I said, very tersely and abrupt. She didn’t respond, although I know she had heard me. “EXCUSE ME,” I repeated, more forcefully. This time she looked over at me.

“No need to be so mean about it,” she retorted, while moving about two inches over.

“You’re right,” I started to rant back at her, and a smug little smile crossed her face, but it didn’t stay long. “I wouldn’t have been so ‘mean’ if you had moved the first time I said it, instead of ignoring me.”

“I didn’t ‘ignore’ you,” she started to argue back with a whole lot of attitude. “Maybe I didn’t hear you the first time, and that’s why I didn’t move before.”

“Well, even if you didn’t hear me the first time, you still could’ve moved over more than that meager amount you just did.”

“If you weren’t so,” she quickly looked me up and down with a menacing look in her eye, “big, maybe you could fit through the reasonable amount of space I provided.”

“A toothpick couldn’t fit through that space!” I nearly screamed at her, gesturing at the miniscule space she had grudgingly moved over.

“It’s not my fault you can’t fit through the space I so graciously provided when you so rudely tried to get through,” she jeered with mock innocence.

“Whatever, bitch,” I muttered through a clenched jaw as I gave up fighting against her and shoved past her.

“What did you call me?!” she shouted at my back.

“So you can hear me when I’m muttering under my breath, but you can’t hear when I’m speaking clear as day?” I asked her, as I turned around with mock surprise.

“I asked you a question, and I want the answer.” she demanded.

“Well, your Majesty, excuse me, but I couldn’t give a crap if you uttered a single sound from your pitiful excuse for a human being.”

“You know what?” she asked, with a clear tone of annoyance. I was finally getting under her skin as she had done to me purposefully for a year.

“You’re nothing but a careless living being trying to pass for a human?” I asked, with mock curiosity.

Please, no one come over here, please, I thought to myself as I tried to hide in the corner, away from the crowd. “Why don’t you come join the rest of us?” asked one of the girls out of the few that were approaching me.

“No thanks, I’m okay over here. But thanks for the offer,” I answered her with a very slight smile.

“Are you sure?” she tried again.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I reassured her, while nodding my head. As the group of girls walked away, I tried to shrink back even more into the corner. I’m not exactly sure how my parents managed to convince me to come to this, besides the other-even worse-option that they gave me.

I managed to avoid anyone else until the end, when I snuck out as soon as I possibly could. As I climbed into the car, my mom immediately started questioning me about how it went. “How was it? How many people were there? Did you enjoy yourself; have a good time?” she asked me in a rapid fire manner.

“It was horribly uncomfortable; there were too many people there for comfort; and no, I did not enjoy myself or have a good time,” I answered her back, about as fast as she had asked the questions.

“If you had such a horrible time, then why did you agree to go?” she asked me, almost incredulously.

“Because I basically had no choice. You and Dad practically made me go. If I didn’t agree to go, you guys would’ve taken away all my pleasure reading items, my iPod, guitar, and the likes. It was either suffer six hours of nearly unbearable discomfort, or suffer six weeks of most definitely unbearable punishment. That’s why I went.”

“Oh. Did we really?” my mom asked, not entirely sure.

“Yes, you did. Because I was pissed at you and Dad for quite a few hours afterward, and still kinda am.”

“Well, at least now you can go hole up in your room when we get home.”

My parents never really thought anything was suspicious about the new house when we moved to Fredericksburg. The first thing that set me off was that the history of the previous owners was very vague. The only information I could manage to find was that they had passed away recently, and at a fairly young age. The thing that struck me as most odd was there was no cause of death listed on the Death Certificates: it was filled in as “unknown.”

My suspicions seemed to soothe as nothing happened for the first few months after we moved in. Then weird, random things started happening. Objects were found in different places than where they were last set down, which aroused my suspicions again. I decided to try to do some more research, and after extensive digging, managed to find some very intriguing information about my current place of residence. I learned that several centuries back, a boy, around my age, had died on the grounds upon which the house was built.

Before the subdivision was built, this area used to be a single piece of property. It was a Victorian style mansion with several acres of surrounding land. The plot of land that was my family’s property was where the original foundation of the mansion had lain. The boy’s name was Richard, and his family was plenty wealthy. He had everything he could ever want, except true happiness.

Richard fell into an incurable depression. His family paid for various treatments of the time, but they either didn’t work at all, or were barely effective. They eventually admitted him to an asylum. After a while he managed to fool the orderlies into thinking he had gotten everything under control, and was allowed to leave. He hid his pain and troubles from his parents until he decided that he just couldn’t live anymore.

He committed suicide by hanging himself from the balcony railing of the stairs in the main entrance hall. When his parents came back home from a night on the town, they walked into their house to see their son’s body hanging in front of them, slightly blue. Richard’s mother would’ve screamed if she wasn’t paralyzed with fear and disbelief. His father stared for a moment, and then called the butler to come and take down his son. Richard’s body was buried on the property, right next to the house.

Richard died with contempt of life. He hated anyone who was happy, because he couldn’t be happy. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t be happy, no matter what he tried. He lived as any other boy his age did, but he didn’t have the same satisfaction in his life as the other boys. He vowed with his last dying breath that he would do all in his power to make as many of the living as he could suffer the same pain he did, in one way or another.

I was somewhat skeptical that maybe it was Richard’s ghost haunting the area, because after all, I didn’t really  believe in the paranormal type stuff. I had thought it was something else that was causing my feelings of suspicion in the beginning, but as more and more stuff started happening, the more I came to believe that it was Richard’s doing. Objects were showing up in hazardous places, and other dangerous situations started happening. I was always the first one up in the morning, and I would notice things like fishing line tied across the top of the stairs, and knives placed precariously in doorways. My parents didn’t believe that these things were happening, because they never saw any of it. Even if I didn’t touch the objects, they were either moved back to their original positions when my parents awoke, or my parents just weren’t able to see them. I stopped trying to convince my parents of the supernatural happenings that were taking place right under their noses. I learned to live around all the hazardous pranks and objects. Then came one night when it went too far for me.

I was home alone that night, my parents were out on an anniversary date. I had just turned out the lights and walked out of the kitchen when I heard a clattering noise behind me. I slowly turned around and turned the light back on. What I saw paralyzed me with terror.

There was a knife floating around two to three feet away from me, at about chest level. I could only stare at it. As I stared, I noticed it started coming closer, slowly at first, like a fraction of an inch per second, then faster. I flung my arms up in front of my chest in self-defense, and felt the stinging pain of the knife repeatedly slashing my arms. I lost track of how many times the knife was thrust against me, and eventually fainted from shock, terror, and probably blood loss as well.

I came back to consciousness with my parents crouched over me, looks of distraught concern filling their faces. “What happened?” my mother asked me.

“More like ‘what did you do?’” my father asked, almost with a tone of annoyance.

“I didn’t do anything,” I responded weakly, but defensively. “I had just left the kitchen after cleaning up from dinner, when I heard a noise, so I turned around to see what it was. When I turned around, there was a knife pointed straight at me, floating in mid-air. Then it came at me, like someone was trying to stab me with it, so I put my arms up in self-defense, and ended up with all these cuts on my arms.”

“Let me get this straight,” my father said in an inquisitive manner, “you turned around when you heard a noise in the kitchen, and there was a knife floating in front of you?” He sounded very skeptical, like I was psychotic. I nodded my head, the only thing I could do. My father leaned over to my mother and whispered in her ear, “She’s gone crazy. First she tells us she’s seeing all these supernatural kinds of things, and now this. She’s lost it. We’re taking her to the hospital.”

“Charles,” I heard my mother whisper back, “she’s not insane.”

“Are you sure about that, Lynnette?”

“I know my daughter. She may be a little crazy, maybe even a little weird, but not psychotic and insane,” my mother responded to him in my defense. “I agree; she needs to go to the hospital to get the wounds cleaned, bandaged, and stitched up if they need to. But we are NOT having her admitted to the psych ward. I don’t care what you think right now. If she says she didn’t do this, then she didn’t do this. Why would she lie to us? What would she have to hide? She talks to us on a daily basis, about everything that’s going on. I would know if she was hiding something from us, and she’s not.”

“You’re hysterical right now. I’m not going to argue with you,” my dad responded to her argumentative points. My mother just glared at him. “Let’s just get her to the hospital right now. They look pretty deep, and probably will need stitches. We can discuss what to do with her once we get there and doctors have had a chance to take a look and give us their opinion. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

“Fine,” she growled back at him. “You okay to walk?” she asked me much more gently.

“I think so,” I answered her, “I don’t feel faint or dizzy right now.”

“Okay. Let’s get you out to the car.” She gave me a hand up, and followed closely behind me as I shuffled to the car. The drive to the hospital was tense silence. My mom sat in the back seat with me trying to comfort me while my dad drove. When we reached the hospital, my mom remained very quiet, only speaking when it was absolutely required of her to provide information. My dad spoke, but in a very coarse manner. I knew he didn’t believe me, that he thought I was making up the whole story to try to cover up something that I didn’t actually do. I figured that’s what the doctors and nurses would think as well, but there was nothing I could do once we were at the hospital.  

Once my parents filled out the admission paperwork for the ER, a nurse took us back to a “room,” which was really more of a cubicle with three walls and a curtain. The nurse took my vitals, asked a few questions, wrote some notes on what I assumed was my chart, and then left. A few minutes later, the doctor walked in.

“So what happened?” he asked, even though I’m pretty sure he has basic background information already. My father started to explain, but my mom silenced him with a gesture of her hand.

“Let her explain,” she said coldly to him.

“You probably won’t believe me,” I started off. “A ghost attacked me with a knife from our kitchen while I was home alone. I threw up my arms in self-defense. I lost consciosness, and reagained it when my parents came home and aroused me.”

The doctor looked at me with suspicious confusion. “So, you’re saying that there was a supernatural presence that tried to stab you, and you put up your arms in defense, and that’ s how you ended up with all these lacerations?”

“Yes,” I answered, maybe a little too hurriedly. “Our house is haunted by the ghost of a teenage boy who committed suicide. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear it’s true!”

The doctor continued to stare at me suspiciously for a moment, then put on the gloves that were on the tray he wheeled in with him. “Regardless of how they happened, they need to be stitched up. I’m going to administer a general anesthetic into each arm before I do the stitches.” He took one of the two syringes off the tray, and gave me the anesthetic just below the elbow on my right arm first. He waited for a moment, then tapped his fingers along my arm. “Feel that?” I shook my head no. He picked up the needle from the tray, threaded it, then set to work stitching up the many lacerations on my right arm.

When he finished on my right arm, he repeated the same process on my left arm. The whole process took about an hour, but it didn’t feel like it was that long while I was watching him intently as he stitched up my arms. When he was done with stitching, he took the roll of gauze off the tray and started wrapping it around each of my arms over the stitches.

When he had finished doing that, he called my parents out into the hallway, beyond the curtained entrance to my room. I could hear hushed voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. After a few minutes, my mom stormed back in, and came and sat by the side of my bed, crying, holding my hands, trying to comfort me for the upcoming news I was surely about to hear as much as herself. The doctor and my father discussed a few more things outside, then came back in. The look on my father’s face was one of triumph. At that point I started getting very nervous.

The doctor looked at me, then started in on what were possibly the most condemning words I have heard in my life. “In my professional, medical opinion, you need to be admitted to the psyche ward. Self-harm, for any reason, is not healthy.”

“But I didn’t cut myself!” I started to interject.

“Coming up with excuses that are out of the realm of possibility just means that there is even more mental instability. It is for mainly these reasons that I feel you should be admitted to the psychiatric ward. Your parents-” my mom gives of a very disapproving grunt, and the doctor continues, changing tracks slightly, “your father agrees with me that you should be admitted, or at least have a psychiatric evaluation done.”

“Let me guess, if at least one of my parents agrees to it, there’s nothing I can do about it, is there?”

“That’s pretty much right. There are a few legalities involved, but in essence, yes: There’s nothing you can do about it,” the doctor responded.

“Great,” I muttered to myself, “I’m going to the looney bin, even though I’m not looney. They think I am, but that’s just because they don’t believe me.”  The doctor left during my muttering, and a few minutes after that a nurse came in with a wheelchair. She had me get into it, then wheeled me off to the elevators, my parents following behind. We went up a few floors from the ER to the psych ward.

After we went through admissions, a somewhat lengthy process (lots of forms and signatures), my parents were saying goodbye. “We’ll bring you a bag of clothes and toiletries tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I answered back solemnly. “Don’t get attacked by Richard,” I remarked quietly as they walked out the doors of the ward, heading to the elevator. At that moment I started sending thoughts out to Richard’s ghost: Please don’t hurt my mom; I don’t particularly care what you do to my father right now, but please, my mom believes me; don’t harm her.

My parents brought a few days’ worth of clothes and toiletries like they said, but my dad wouldn’t let my mom stay to visit for even a few minutes. I passed through a few torturous days in the psyche ward before I managed to convince the nurses that I’m okay to be discharged. When my parents came to get me, my father looked very skeptical that I was really ready to go home. I pretended that I didn’t believe that the house was haunted anymore, that everything I thought before were delusions.

When I got home however, Richard picked up right from where he had left off. It was harder pretending that I didn’t believe the paranormal stuff when it was happening right in front of me. There were more attacks from Richard, always when I was home alone, which seemed to be fairly frequently, despite my father thinking I was insane. Each time was different from every other time, but similar at the same time. They always caused physical damage to me. It would be done in different ways: cutting me with knives in different places, throwing objects at me, causing disorientation, those types of things. I would try my best to hide what would happen, but I couldn’t always conceal it. My father assumed it was just me being insane, didn’t even bother to listen to my “fake” explanations. My mother, on the other hand, believed me, and was really concerned. But seeing as my father was head of the household, there wasn’t much she could do unless he wanted to do it.

Months passed by torturously, with my father threatening several times to take me back to the psyche ward if I didn’t stop harming myself. No matter how many times I tried to explain to him that I wasn’t doing this to myself, that our house was haunted by a murderous spirit, he wouldn’t listen. Despite my efforts to try to communicate with Richard, to help him, things only got worse. I was in and out of the psyche ward countless more times. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t get Richard to stop, and I couldn’t get my father to believe.

Richard’s attacks kept becoming more and more intense. I would have completely black periods in my memory, and I could only assume that Richard had started possessing me. I found damage done to the house, the objects within, and myself. I would wake up in my room, looking like I had just lost a fist fight, but have absolutely no clue how I got there or what had happened before. When Richard outright physically attacked me, it was worse. The attacks were getting longer, the injuries he was causing worse. He started by causing injuries like sprained wrists and ankles, and hyperextensions, then muscle pulls and tears. Then he moved on to breaking my bones.

My father gave up on trying to stop what he thought was my own behavior, and stopped threatening to put me back in the psyche ward. He left me as my “Mother’s problem.” Soon Richard started attacking my mother as well; even then, he still didn’t believe that the house was haunted. He thought that because my mother spent so much time with me, taking care of me, that my “delusional mind and way of thinking” had spread to her, like a disease. We gave up trying to convince my father, knowing it was a lost cause. Instead, we concentrated out energy on dealing with Richard.

Richard started attacking my dad, but still, he didn’t believe. He thought it was me and my mother trying to make him go “delusional” too. The times when Richard would possess any one of us was getting worse. He would attack one of us through another. Or if it was only one of us home alone, he would cause us to wreak havoc upon ourselves and the house. Life became one hell of a living nightmare. We stopped scrubbing the blood splatters off the walls, and the blood stains out of the carpets. The house was falling to ruins within. We were helpless against this murderous spirit. My father started renting a one-room apartment near his workplace so he didn’t have live in “The Asylum,” as he termed our house. He continued to pay the bills for the house, and had groceries delivered to the house weekly, but he refused to live with us anymore.

He stopped in about once a month to “check” on us, but I honestly think that every time he stopped by, he was seeing whether or not we had reached a state where he could legally have us admitted to a permanent psyche ward. I think he was close to that verdict the last time he stopped by, because when he stopped by this time, he seemed totally and utterly convinced that “the time had come,” as he had put it. He went down to the basement, and came back up a few minutes later with one of the big suitcases. He went upstairs, first to my room, then my bathroom, then the master bedroom and bathroom, and packed up clothing and toiletries for me and my mom. My mom and I stood speechless, looking back and forth between each other and upstairs towards the room that my father was in at the time.

My father lugged the full suitcase downstairs and out to the trunk of his car. Then he came back inside and headed to the kitchen. A few moments later, I heard a metallic clatter from the kitchen, and a very wet, dull, heavy thud. My mom and I slowly and fearfully headed to the kitchen, afraid of what we would find had happened to my father.

What we saw as we entered the kitchen was my father, lying on his back, in a pool of his own dark, crimson blood, with a knife that had been shoved into his stomach, then up towards his heart. The front of his once-white shirt was now the same color of the expanding pool of blood on the floor around him. Then Richard attacked again.

Another knife came flying through the air. It was headed towards me, but my mom threw herself in between me and the possessed knife. Richard didn’t bother to avoid her. He seemed like he had fun murdering her. He gouged out her eyes, and then cut open her abdomen. He removed her organs one by one, the large intestine, the small intestine, her stomach, liver, kidney, spleen. Then he extended the cut from her abdomen up her chest jaggedly. He ripped her lungs open with the knife, then stabbed her heart and ripped it from her chest.

I don’t know how I could tell, but I knew that when Richard killed me, it was going to be as slow and painful as he could make it. I felt Richard starting to possess me, and I fought as hard as I could, but he still won. This time though, he didn’t knock out my conscious mind, just took physical control of my body. He made me go into the garage and get a handful of six inch long nails from my dad’s old toolbox. Then he made me go back through the kitchen and out onto the back deck.

He forced me onto my back, then started driving the nails through my ankles into the deck. I screamed at the excruciating pain, but I knew that somehow, no one would hear my suffering screams of torment and horror. I sat up and tried to pry the nails out of my ankles, but he forced me back down onto the wood, and drove more nails through my wrists. I screamed again in agony, but still having a gut feeling that my screams would not be heard.

A few seconds later, the knives that were used to brutally murder my father and mother were hovering over me. I felt one plunge into each of my shins, shattering the bone. They were then dragged upward to the bottom of my hips, splintering the bone in my legs. I let loose a volley of agonizing screams from the excruciating pain, but he continued on. He pulled the knives out of me, and stabbed them into my wrists, just above the nails. He dragged the knives up my arms to my shoulders, shattering the bone in my arms as well. Again I screamed from the excruciating pain. Then he removed the knives from my shoulders, this time twisting them as he pulled them out.

The last thing I saw were the tips of the knives directly in front of the center of my eyes. Then, just like he did to my mother, he gouged out my eyes. He wasn’t finished yet, though. He proceeded to stab a knife into my stomach, and drag it up my chest, like he had done to my father. Then he took the two knives and used them to pry open my rib cage. I screamed as I felt my ribs crack near my spine. He tore my lungs like he had done to my mother, and I felt my last breath instantaneously leave. He then stabbed my heart with one knife, and used the other to sever its connections to my body.