Mind Storm

It was a camp site in the wilds. A bunch of young college graduates were celebrating their freedom before they would sign up for their six figure salary jobs with corporate power houses who would suck every bit of life out of them in the next ten years. Right now though, they were not bothered about such facts. They thought they had closed a chapter of their life and were celebrating.

His job was to pitch the tents, serve warm food and make sure no one gets lost in the woods. However, the presence of all the young people around him recalled a memory he worked hard at suppressing. One night when the campfire burnt bright and everyone was gathered around it with beers and quilts he abruptly started his story.

“I was at a mall, which had apartments on the higher floors. The importance of this detail is not very clear to me but it just gives more of a reason for the interaction of the people I would be mentioning subsequently.

“I was browsing through the shops when a little girl with pig tails entered the mall or as far as I can remember simply materialized out of thin air. She had in her hand a small box of sorts and with that box, there was a note. She was at a considerable distance from me but strangely I knew what the note said and still vividly recall those words, “When the red line meets your pin, I would trigger a chain”. Apparently, I was not the only one who noticed the little girl because just when I was trying to decipher the text on the box a man in a black pullover, sporting cropped blond hair ran up to the girl. It seemed the box and what it said meant something to him, he squatted in front of the little girl and in a panicked voice asked her, “Where did you get this from?” The answer to the question was not important to him and I believe he didn’t even think he will get an answer, that phrase – which was being repeated over and over again – was there just to fill an otherwise awkward silence between him and the little girl. That question was just his verbal reaction in fright.

“The little girl simply stood there; amazed, speechless and at the same time emotionless as the words being uttered by the man jumbled up into a senseless chant. He was not even looking at the girl, his eyes were fixed on the box – the only answer he wanted was the translation of the note into something he could understand. He took the box from the girl’s hands and slumped on the floor. His panicked filled voice silenced and he looked at the box in amazement and intrigue. It was at this moment that something glimmered on his wrist and I noticed the leather band with metal studs, much like a goth rockstar’s, that he was wearing. In between the metal studs on his band there a small paper pin, something which must have been once lodged there without as much as a second thought but was now a part of the cipher which accompanied the mysterious box.

“It seemed it was not just me who made a connection between the innocent little pin on the man’s wrist and the box. The momentary calm on the blonde guys face vanished as quickly as it had appeared and he bolted upright and announced, “It’s a bomb!”

“From the moment the little girl had entered the mall I was in a state of trance and retrospectively thinking I am amazed at how detached I was from everything around me. The proclamation of a bomb being present in a fairly crowded mall must have created quite a lot of havoc, however, neither did I notice it that day nor can I recall anything of the sort today. All I remember is that as I stood there bewildered and shocked at the knowledge of a ticking bomb so close to me I could not get my eyes off the young woman who to me appeared as suddenly as the little girl had a few minutes ago. She had short hair which came down till her jaw and sort of framed her round, innocent and cute face. The girl was dressed in white pants and a top which hugged her attractive figure.

“She entered this utterly confusing and strange situation with an aura of someone who can fix everything. For a split second it seemed that she knows exactly what to do as she walked up to the blonde guy saying, “Give me that” and then snatched the box from his hands. To me it looked as if the moment of panic had almost passed, that was until she went to the staircase and simply dropped the box from the edge. At first I thought that maybe the box will fall through the gap staircases usually have between them but then I looked over the edge and saw the box bounce off a step to a lower one and then disappear out of sight. At the same time another woman started going down the flight of steps, unaware that she is actually walking towards a bomb.

“If being in trance was not enough this new situation completely numbed my senses. I know the bomb went off because I felt a tiny shiver under my feet but I never heard an explosion. Everything after that was a blur, I soon found myself leaning over the railing, looking at the floor below me where I could see a pool of blood being formed. I then heard the voice of the blond guy as he shouted the same question over and over at the cute faced girl; “What the fuck is wrong with you, what the fuck is wrong with you?” I peered over little further and confirmed the notion that the blood belonged to the girl who was climbing down the stairs. The blond guy’s voice could not be heard anymore and he was down on his knees next to the dead girl. He just stared at her and everything was silent for what seemed like an eternity until a sob escaped the lips of the cute faced girl. She crashed to the floor as if her legs gave away and in between her sobs she tried to defend her actions. However, her speech was barely audible and all I could pick was, “…but, but… I wanted… care… didn’t think this would happen… save you” It was evident that her confession was directed to the blonde guy and the look in her eyes made it obvious that at that particular moment all she cared about was his forgiveness. However, all her sobs did was break the man’s solitude and he looked at her with a face which screamed of anger, pain, hate and vengeance.

“If things weren’t strange enough already, they got even bizarre. Other than the irregular sobs of the girl everything was silent but what was louder was the anger on the man’s face. Without a word he reached for a walking stick someone had dropped earlier, rolled it in the crimson pool in front of him and started smear the dead girl’s blood all over the pure white pants and the light colored top of the cute faced girl. A sick sound of thick, sticky blood being rubbed from the stick to the clothes engulfed the environment. The sobs of guilt turned into moans of pain but the repulsive sound of blood was what actually broke the silence. They both kept sitting exactly where they had slumped on the sight of the dead girl while the man continued painting the girl with blood. The absolute silence on his part made everything even more eerie.

“I didn’t realize it until much later, but as I was held captive by the grotesque picture in front of me my feet started moving towards the exit. To me it felt like I was floating away, I looked around amazed at the fact that I was moving without my knowledge and when I looked back I found that the man had the girl pinned against the wall and was smearing blood on her face, her hair, her neck – everywhere – with his hands. The girl had stopped crying, her eyes had a vacant look and she was as silent as every inch of space around her. There was still a hint of innocence on her blood dripping face but now she seemed entirely lifeless. It was not her who was standing against the wall anymore but she something which was protruding from it. The man’s face no longer had any sign of anger but in fact had an extremely disturbing impression of calmness. He looked more like a painter brushing on the canvas than a lunatic covering up another person in a dead girl’s blood.

“I don’t remember anything after that, I don’t know how I and when I exited that building. I just recall that the girl against the wall and the man holding her there faded away. I did not hear anything about this incident after I woke up at a hospital days later, nor did I ever try and find anything about it. I am left with this absolutely horrible memory though and the stark contrast between what the cute faced girl was when I first saw her and what she last looked like when she last faded away remains with me in the same way as they show the before and after pictures on the TV.”

He went silent after that sentence, his story had taken away the music, laughs and chatter of the camp site long ago. Everyone was staring at him, either wondering about the authenticity of his story or trying to shake off the picture of the two dead girls, wondering whose death was worse; one who transcended or the one who still might be breathing but for all practical reasons is just an object protruding from some wall.