Blue Pencil Dolls

two | it rolls

//: London in the MM. Dr. Isaac in the cast.

It was a strange sensation, seeing someone like that. 

Of course, it wasn't just the severely uncomfortable twistedness of her neck, and it wasn't just the blood. There were other factors that added to the bubbling in my stomach, the awkward effervescence. For one, I just saw someone die the same day that I met them. This had happened before, in a similarly scarring way. With Ashley, I watched her get torn apart right before my eyes. With Alice, I was away when it happened. Deep in the realm of dreams and un-reality.

That was another factor that added to my bewilderment—my un-reality was eerily similar to the one that had been ensuing in London's bedroom.

Her reaction was understandable. When she walked in with Vlad, I was still standing in front of the scene. As soon as she walked in the house and started calling my name, I already knew how piercing the scream that would come from her lips would sound like. It's not that I didn't expect it, I just didn't know how it would make me feel.

I felt depressed and a grave sense of fear.

We called an ambulance, but it was only to remove Alice's body. We already knew she was dead, and even though embracing that fact made London and Vlad sob like there was no tomorrow, they still wanted answers. They still wanted to know who killed her. Just the arousal of the question triggered an itch to my skin; just recalling the entire scenario, from my nap to their arrival, made me realize how inconvenient, unfortunate, and mysterious it all looked. I knew what London was thinking, because I would have thought the same thing if I was her.

It looked like I did it.

There were reasons it couldn't be true, though; there was no blood on me or my clothes. Also, I don't think I even knew how to break someone's neck like that. The only reasons why I was a suspect were that I was the only one in the house with her, and I didn't call the police as soon as I found her. These did not provide any substantial proof, just reason for distrust.

London didn't seem to care, though. She still let me hold her while she cried, and she still talked to me about how much she already missed her cousin. I guess my honest explanation of what happened was enough for her. If it really was honest, I wouldn't be sitting in the backseat of Vlad's car stroking her hair while trying not to get distracted my flashes of Alice's face and questions about what happened. It was true in the sense that it was all I remembered, but there was something else at play here.

We all knew by now that I couldn't trust anyone, not even myself. So an "honest explanation" could be the result of an altered perception of events.

"Where's Vladimir?" London asked, wiping her tears.

"I can see him from here. He's on the phone."

"Probably calling her parents to let them know what happened."

"No, he did that already. He cried a lot during that conversation. This one is different; he's calm. A little bit concerned."

London sighed and sat up. She moved away from me and to the far left of the car to rest her head against the window. I moved to my end of the backseat, waiting for us to drive off. Being across the street from the hospital where a dead body was just dropped off to wasn't the most comfortable experience for me.

Vlad finally came back with the same calm-and-concerned expression on his face. He was a fair-skinned tall guy with a model's jawline (which made me wonder how he got to be with Alice). He just sat in the driver's seat, his chest rising and falling for a while. Neither of us asked him who he just got off the phone with, but he knew it was one our minds.