Where The Sad Teens Go

PREFACE

Jupiter's softly swollen eyelids meekly tremble open then strain as she stared fixedly at the steel doors at the end of the bed, gaze frozen in trepidation. She feels as tense as the string of a violin- ready to snap or scream.

He's dead, Jupiter tries to reassure herself with flashes of the massacre that unfolded last night. The killers dead body. Mangled. Bones still caught on muscle, among other things, protruding from clotted flesh and entrails, limbs bent ineptly, thick blood swelling out from underneath, staining the concrete and shining under flickering buzz of the fluorescent light. Her knife hot in her hand, glinting- stained with blood, standing at the balcony, looking down. I killed the killer.

Even still, a deep unease licks down her spine and shoulders.

He is dead.

As much as she screams the words- these facts- inside her head they still don't seem like the truth. They seem like a lie. To make herself feel better.

Everything is so bland, so shiny, new and white- it's inexplicably disorienting. Her head aches in dull throbs. Jupiter looks down, brown eyes now at the thin sheet covered body, her body, which elicits a feeling of dissociation, a severance from the foreign physique, heavy and hot, draping over her soul.

Her left leg is hanging up, in a thick casting. Her left arm is as well. They ache though not in a burning way. In a faint echo. In acknowledgement that it did and it will again after the medication runs through her system.

An IV is pulpy bag on thin metal, gushing down the transparent vein that is breathing into her right inner arm. Her swollen fingers twitch in their gauze and she hisses, eyes clenching. They had just been set back into place.

The door slowly opens, a hushed shrill. Jupiter can't breath. She looks out from under her lashes, heart beating erratically.

Alive.

The killer is dead.

A young girl peeks out - wide eyed with curiosity and a mischievous grin taking up most of her lower face. She then scurries over, with a squirrel like grace, happy that Jupiter is awake, not noticing how the bruised and broken teen quickly sit up and scrambles backwards.

She looks just like Lélia...

"What-" Jupiter's voice comes out like desert skin, cracked and dry, along with a small fit of raspy stale sounding coughs afterwards. It's Lelia's little half sister. What is she doing here? "What are you doing here Lesley?"

"He's is coming for you next, ya' know" Lesley states nonchalantly, combing her plush teddy bear's fur with her thin fingers, large gray eyed gaze on the the hospital floor.

Purr shakes her head slowly, mouth dry and chapped lips parted. She whispers "no", disbelieve and resignation pressed harshly together down onto her tongue, ripen in her voice. With a prickling coldness scratching at the bottom of her stomach, she continues, tone taking on a shaking fragile flourish. "You're wrong."

Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

I killed the killer.

Didn't I? Jupiter sketches out the memory out again, the murder, the death. His face-

The mask. He was wearing a mask.

I never saw his face.

The heart monitor beeps in high pitched hitches, than just starts to hiss static. Dark murmurs, growls. A small voice replies, worry tainting their supposed air of authority. A thump. Someone cries out, begging. Something sharp diving deep into something firm yet soft. A howl of scream, painful as well as panicking. Something heavy smacks against the smooth polished flooring just outside of Jupiter's door.

"Mr. Sad Man here now, are you ready?" Lesley's grin is still too wide and gaze too innocent to believe whereas Jupiter's eyes resemble that of a caged animal, her lips are trembling, she feels so cold. So very cold. As cold as death. "Are you ready?" She begins to chant. "Are you ready?"

"NO!" Jupiter's shrills, the back of her head prickleing with a burning chill apprehension as well as white hot terror.

"The happy place," Lesley hushes, "he is going to take you to the happy place."

There is a sudden series of poundings on the door.

"It's where all the sad teens go."

The door bursts opens.