The Apparition Man- Chapter One- [Life] Re-write

It was a tranquil night. The moon glistened upon the crystallized water. The murky Grey clouds that were expected during the heated summer nights had long disappeared behind the mountains across the lake. It was a lonely night.1

I sat on the Jetty. My head bowed. I Scraped my hands along the chipped wood. The moist moss crawling underneath my fingernails. 2

I brought my wrist to the light viewing the tender scars I had etched into my skin only minutes before taking to the Jetty. Crimson lumps had formed around small purple bruises. The tears swelled in my eyes. I was hacking myself into pieces. Well not anymore.3

I was numb to the core. I looked out at the lake. My eyes searching across the distant clouds, flickering along with the stars that accompanied the mood. 4

I rose to my feet stripping bare of my clothes. First was my blouse. My mothers favorite. It was blood-stained and damp from crying, but I doubt she would want to wear it after I was done with myself. Next came the pants and my underwear. My silky panties I had taken from my mothers friends dresser in hopes on impressing some boy in the mercy. In hopes of having sex.5

Once I had removed every piece of clothing that hung to my body. Reminding me of the frail disappointment I had become I stood naked letting the moonlight cover my body.6

“Freedom,” I signed inhaling every last ounce of oxygen my lungs could handle. I walked slowly toward the edge, following the ragged path. I ignored all signs of warning , furthering along the slats. The warnings of persecution and trespassing. None of it mattered anymore. The view before me would be the death of me.7

In my pocket was my suicide letter. My farewell and congratulations to everyone who had every meant anything to me. I had to leave something behind. I had to let them know that they would never be right. 8

I only hoped that they would understand that one more minute spent on this earth was one more wasted in this forsaken hell.9

I looked below me. It was not a far fall. The pain of the jagged rocks piercing my flesh and cutting me raw open did not faze me. It looked pleasantly inviting. It beckoned me further to the edge. It called my name. Kerry called my name. Echoing my suicide into the night. 10

I took one last look behind me. One last look at the world that had betrayed me. It would be a bitter good-bye, but one long overdue.11

I squinted. My vision becoming blurred. I watched as a familiar car pulled up onto the gravel road. The sound of the stones parting rattled my hearing while the bright , yellow headlights flashed in my eyes. Blinking. Impairing my vision further.12

I turned around veering away from the distraction before it would be to late to turn back. I looked up at the sky crossing my hands across my chest and closed my eyes. 13

“Freedom,” I breathed into the silence of the night. Stepping of the edge and into the water before me.
...14

Inside the screaming ambulance the dull cream lights shone depressingly in my eyes making it hard for my vision to clear. Making it unbearable to concentrate on the pain.15

I did not want the pain to disappear. It did made me forget the happiness in life. It made me wish I had of taken my life in another fashion. Try as I may in my attempt it did not take my mind away from my poor failed attempt at suicide.16

The man in the front seat grasped the speaker-talkie in his hand. He gripped it tightly, grasping it in one hand while he kept his eyes on me. 17

"Patient now in stable condition. She has a regular heart beat and breathing. Patient suffered a knock to the head: minor concussion. She has bruises on upper abdomen and is bleeding from several severe wounds on her lower arms and legs."18

My mother sat beside me. Keeping a close eye on me. Her hands stroking the stretcher nervously. Listening to the man in the front seat.19


I watched her eyes darting towards me. She Stirred cupping her trembling hands in mine . I watched out of the corner of my eye while tears of relief and fear swelled and fell from her unblinking eyes. Her face was flushed, Scarlett.20

I tried to move my head. I could not. The pain was excruciatingly unbearable. It pained as if a sharp dagger had been jabbed into my jugular. A torture, cutting away at my air. Cutting away me once steady breaths. My breathing was now becoming unsteady. I found no ease in the pain. I closed my eyes wincing, fighting against it. I struggled to draw a breath.21

I attempted to move. Rolling ever so gently onto my side. My back arched. A pang of agony sent ripples and vibrations throughout my entire nervous system. Had they ripped out my spine? Leaving it to protrude through my flesh? 22

I felt my arm twitching with pins and needles. I lowered it to my naked thigh underneath the sheet that was wrapped around my cold damp body. I moved my hand up towards my stomach and then to my breast realizing in embarrassment that I had not been clothed after the attempt.23

Behind me, a heavy hand rested on my shoulder rolling me onto my back. I faded in, and out with each short strangled breath and eased patiently onto the stretcher. 24

I strained looking up at my mother whose attention had shifted to the road outside. I squeezed her hand tightly beckoning her immediate attention.25

My mother turned around responding to my tightened grasp. She wiping her nose on her sleeve pulling the sheets up loosely around my body. She let my hand fall. Tucking them underneath the stretcher, best as she could. I could no longer feel the cold. My lower body warm. 26

In distress I beckoned her closer. Wanting to scream as a new burden hovered over me. I thought that it was strange that I was so concerned about exposure to strangers when my body was riddled with pain.27

"I'm n-naked mum," I somehow managed to gasp. 28

I had been exposed to another male, or males depending on the number of men in the ambulance. I was enraged. The only person who had seen me naked, and who was ever to see me naked was Kerry. This was not on.29

I immediately began to panic.30

What if they had seen the cuts? My bruises? Or Kerry's name etched freshly into my thigh? What would Kerry think? To know that another man had seen my naked body? My sacred parts? Why did they not cloth me?31

"Mum,” I strained sliding my arm from underneath the sheet to find hers.32


“ I need my clothes," I whispered attempting once again to rise from the stretcher.33

She attempted to lay me back down. Hushing, soothing me with soft talking.34

"You will have to wait till we get inside the hospital love. You had no clothes with you. Keep yourself rugged up underneath that sheet. Not long now"35

I struggled against her. Cutting her out. Frustrated with her need to calm me down. I damn well that I had left my clothes on the Jetty. What did she mean there were no clothes? I had taken them of and left them in a pile. There was no wind to blow them away?36

"On the jetty. I left them on the jetty with the note. I left them there I know I did. We have to go back and get them. There was something important in my pocket."37

"No Reidy you must have misplaced them. There were no clothes when I found you. When we get to the hospital they will get you some clothes to wear. Until then close your eyes and try to relax. I will go home after the doctor has seen you and get some of your own. Relax will be alright. Do not stress you will make it worse for yourself. You need to rest.”38

I pulled the sheet tightly around me. I was beginning to feel nervous,. I started to shake with anxiety. My hands trembling. I gripped the sheets pulling them closer on top of me. 39

" No,” I cried. 40

“You tell the man to turn around and get my clothes. I don't feel comfortable. I want my clothes. I am cold. Tell him now to turn around. They are on the jetty. I promise you."41

My mother stared at me confused at my demand.42

"There were no clothes Reidy. I just now told you that. If you were you would be clothed. Don't be so self conscious. No one is looking at you or watching you. All right? Do as I asked. Close your eyes. We will arrive at the hospital shortly."43

I shook my head. Distress was seeping through my veins. In my head. My temples throbbed.44

" I'm naked. I need some clothes. They are watching me. They have all seen me. They will anger Kerry. I am sure they already have. I know they have. I can hear him in my head"45

The man sitting close to mum who I had not noticed until now looked over at her. He was holding a syringe in his hand. I watched as he squeezed it. Taking note of the substance that squirted onto his navy pants. 46

I pretended not to notice steering my attention towards the ceiling. I griped the sheets tighter. Frightened of what may come of the syringe. 47

"Reidy. Love. Kerry is not here anymore. We have been through this before. He is not alive anymore. It is okay to still talk to him, but he is not going to talk back. You can't keep blaming yourself for his choices. You cannot regret the things you say and do for the sake that he might see or hear you and think less of you. in case you think he might see you. You have to move on sweet heart. Let his voice go. Keep him in your heart."48

I held her arm pinching it hard. She flinched, pulling it away and frowned caressing her arm. A frown burying her fading eyebrows.49

"Kerry is as much alive as you and I both are. I hate knowing that I didn't succeed with dying I wanted to be with him. Now here I am forced to live in this pitfall existence. I am stuck in this shit hole with a pack of pretentious self absorbed skeptics. Who have no idea what heartache feels. What it feels like to be completely lost.”50

My mother sighed impatiently. Waiting for me to finish my rant. Still rubbing her arm.
I should have punched her. I would have, had I not been weak.51

“So fuck you. You self-absorbed hypocrite. I know you still talk to dad as if he were here. You think I don't hear you crying yourself to sleep at night. You think I don't remember what he did to me. What you did to me."52

I hit the stretcher immediately regretting it.53

"J-e-e-sus Christ", I screamed grabbing my mother's hand. Trying to rid myself of the infuriating pain. That burned through my body. Shaking me once again.54

The man stood up. He held the syringe between two fingers and ,walked over to my mother hushing something in her ear. I could not grasp a word he was saying. My legs began arm began to wobble. Panic hit the core of my heart. It began racing, pumping the blood throughout my body. 55

I let the sheet loose looking up at my my mother who nodded allowing the man to hover over my helpless body. I stretched out my arm in agony knowing what was about to happen and scratched my mother's arm in an attempt of support causing only more pain to shoot throughout my arm and shoulder.56

This time she appeared uncaring and unmoved. She was blocking me out. Ignoring my attention. She looked away, sniffing. Rubbing her eyes. She whispered something I could hear clearly even when while the blood rushed through my ears. Sounding like the crashing waves of the ocean57

"Get that thing away from me you sick, twisted bastard." I screamed pulling the sheet up over my face and the rest of my body. I shook violently. My Petrifying fear of needles causing vile to forth in the pit of my stomach. Rising up my throat. I swallowed it down. The taste burning my tongue.58

I lay back down attempting to scrunch myself up into a ball. My arms and legs in agony. I couldn't let him touch me. I would not let him infect me with that demented pesticide they called sedation.59

"Go away,” I whined. Thrashing my arms around in front of me. Pushing the man away. I shook him of violently trying to salvage myself from the pain I was about to encounter. failing to protect myself.60

“Get away" I screamed as he lay his hand upon me. "No. You can't touch me. Go away."61

He shook his head holding the syringe above me.62

“This will only hurt for a second. Hold still and it will all be over soon. Can you hold her down sweetheart,” the man said ushering my mother to rise to her feet and hold me down with every ounce of strength she possessed. She was going to need it.63

She nodded holding my arm tightly as he injected the medication into my arm with speed.64

It was all over before I had a chance to squirm or attempt another escape from her grip. I was weak. Pathetic. I stood no chance at fighting. I slowly stopped struggling feeling it seep into my skin. Coursing through my blood stream.65

My tears swelled. My eyes blinking as they streamed down my cheeks, Salty on my chapped lips. My body felt numb. My breathing and heartbeat dulled to a relaxing rate. I could hear the blood soothing back to its normal pace. I was delirious. I began to feel drowsy. Suddenly nauseous. 66

I had been drugged and could indicate a familiar sense of awareness. Something I remembered from long ago. A vague feeling of nothingness. I remembered being sedated. Sedated at the mercy.67

"I hate you, " I whispered closing my eyes. Bitter. I hated my mother for what she had put me through. I despised her even more for her deceit. Whose side was she on? Did she hate me that much to deny me of my battle.68

The man's rested his arm on mine. He held my wrist outright feeling for a pulse. Once he was satisfied he nodded to my mother letting my wrist softly onto the stretcher. I was not in any mood to be pushing him away, and even if I wanted to my body would not allow it.69

I watched him walk over to his chair and take a seat. 70

I closed my eyes. Telling myself that it was easier to watch him. The way he was watching me. He scanned my body. His eyes falling to my breasts. Scanning me like the pervert he was. As they all were. 71

72

Men were animals. They were Sick perverts. Who make detailed examinations of womens bodies for there own deprived pleasures. I hated them all. More so than any man. I hated my mother.73

Why could they have just let me be? Let me drown in myself awareness. In my insanity. With my need to be with Kerry? Why did everyone have to believe he was dead?74

I hated the fact that these people were so invasive. Could they not see the unhappiness that devoured my every existence? Could they not see the signs that I was falling apart. Destroying myself slowly in the process. I was not happy on earth. Not without Kerry.75

I swore if ever got out of hospital deemed sane I would do it again, and again, and again until I finally succeeded. Until I made Kerry proud. Till we could be together. Finally. Away from this world. Away from everybody who believed that I could never make it to him. I would show them. They would soon see.76

I felt cold and bare. I did not even have the strength to cover myself.77

My tears had stopped. I was a shaking mess. Suddenly it all started to drown out. Fading away. Dulling into the night.78

The noise of the ambulance. The men in front chattering. My mother whispering besides me. Her eyes pinned to the window. Whispering prayers to my father.79

I felt sleepy. I felt- relaxed. I could not say a word. I lay there silently. Emotionally shattered and broken.
...80

I lay awake in a hospital.81

I was clothed and felt dreary. My head lightly throbbed. The pain was merely a tingle. 82

I had been medicated. Knocked out and silenced. And for what? So they could keep my mouth shut? To Keep the truth from escaping me? The truth that they did not want to hear? The truth was that I did not want to live anymore. It was simple.83

It was my wish. A play on words if you would. It was my dying wish to be dead. To be a rotting limpid corpse. Charred and buried for eternity. My only desire now on earth to be with my Romeo. To be with Kerry.84

Kerry was very far from your typical Romeo. He was more like a borderline psychotic. A man who could love. A man who had loved and would have done anything to protect me. He had died for me. He was a man who would rip anyone to shreds. Man or woman the moment you laid your eyes upon him. The minute he thought you were watching him. 85

He had done it me. The first time that I lay my eyes on him. The very first day at the Mercy.86

He had ripped through me. All hell had broken loose in the mercy that day. He had shook me completely. Wracking my senseless. I had been full of fear, recently sedated and he had scared every ounce of stability out of me . But I was determined to prove that there was another side to him that no one else was willing to try and figure out. Or see for that matter.87

I had the parts of the puzzle figured out. His dreams. His desires.88

I had ideas about how his mind worked. It took a lot of trust on his part to let me in. When he finally did it was like the weight of the world had been lifted of my shoulders. Beginning to know him. Know who he was. Why he was the way he was. Helped me to grow as a person. He helped me to find the real me. 89

He was more than just an average bad boy. He was a rebel. He was Hades reincarnated in all his glory. His faith led me to believe that there was more to him. More than the anger and the angst that he portrayed on a regular basis. I had been with Satan and his demons too.90

It was what I had fallen in love with. His split personality. His dark inner self. It was like his alter ego that trespassed over my heart. He made me discover the darkness beyond the barb wire, picket fence. I had been poisoned behind for so many years. He had opened the wound and allowed all the toxins to spew from me. Loving me for who I was. Where I had come from and who I was to become.91

It was one of the reasons I stayed alive. I wanted to discover life beyond the normal. Beyond society's jarred ideas of what life should be. Who people should be. What faith little was left in humanity. 92

I wanted to experience the joys that horror could cast upon someone's life. I wanted to know what it felt like to be out of my comfort zone. Afraid. Alive. Feeding off my own fear. Discovering the many layers of my inner- self and my inner demons. It was what I missed the most. In the sad, lonely existence that I lingered in .I would rot in now that Kerry was gone.93

In vein they wouldn't let me die. They would not allow me to find peace. They wanted me to stay alive. Telling me that I would find love again. That I would be loved for who I was. That someday I would find ' the one.' 94

I would give them their wish of happiness for now. Their dreams of my happy-ever-after romance where a man would come when the time was right and sweep me of my feet. A man to fall in love with. Marry and one day start a family. Confiding in conformation. 95

It was bullshit. The idea was a senseless parody upon Kerry's life and his existence beyond the afterlife. There was no point in finding another man. In trying to move on in hope that one day someone would understand me the way Kerry did. That someone would cherish me the way Kerry had.96

I was ashamed to even think about parents. His parents, both of them who seemed to have forgotten him so quickly. As if he had never existed to them. He was a fragment of their past.97

It chilled me to know that they could be so cruel. To imagine what they really thought of their son. To forget his beauty so easy. They did not even appreciate it to begin with. They never knew who Kerry was and how they had killed him inside. Turning his world back to the world. To their love. Igniting his bitter resentment.98

They never had the time to try. He would always remain a memory. A memory of a boy who had so much to live for. Lost to soon. I pitied them in many ways. I was appalled by the way they had treated him as their forgotten child. The loner. The freak. He was so impressionable in their eyes.99

When he's death came to their horrific attention they paraded their love for him. Acting as if he had been the perfect son that they worshiped and could not live without. It was fair. Given they were all he had outside the Mercy. I of all people was not one to judge a parents love. I knew deep down all parents loved their children.100

I was saddened by their facade It had been blatantly obvious that they didn't give a damn and only did do it to boost the families reputation through sorrow. I never heard his mother once speak about the boy I had know. It was as if she had been disappointed by him. That a weight had been lifted of her shoulder and now he was deceased she could move on with the perfect life she had made for herself and her husband.101

I never did understand the higher class citizens and there constant craving for public attention or some sort of recognition. It was deeply depressing in my eyes that wealth meant more to them then their loved ones. I hated the fact that they would rather dine with colleagues and splash cash around while their children were suffering alone. Kerry had been alone.102

I sat up slowly rubbing my eyes and looked across the cream, covered scratched paint walls. I saw my mother sitting behind the curtain that was draped around my bed. I wondered if she ever loved me. Really loved me. I wondered if she hated me for who I had become after my fathers death. I knew she blamed me.103

I felt like a prisoner closed off for decontamination. Hidden behind an ugly white mask of fabric that had hidden and lost many lives before. Covering them up from the light of the world. Inviting them into the darkness. I was one of those People. I would soon see the darkness. It would envelope me and consume me whole.104

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