The Lovely Suicide Children

Chapter 45: Bleed Out

Later that night, I decided I no longer wanted to wait for surprises. I had to run towards it myself. Around 2 am when I was sure everyone was asleep, I grabbed a flashlight and my dad's pocket knife. Quietly, I tip-toed out of the house and into the darkness. The cold pierced my face and hands. The light of the moon wasn't enough for me to see since it was covered by fading clouds. With the flashlight out, I turned it on and ran towards the trees. I was scared, of course, but I could no longer let fear bother me. There were lives to save, especially Roses'.

"Is anyone out here?" My breaths puffed into the air as I called out. "I'd like to talk to The Lovely Suicide Children."

As I stood in the middle of trees, slowly peering around, I felt calm. No one said anything, and no one moved. I don't know what I was looking for, but nothing seemed suspicious. After a few minutes, a weird sensation took over my body. The trees seemed to have leaned to the side, and everything became distorted. I took a step forward but felt like I would fall to the floor. I wasn't dizzy, but I believed the Earth was tilting. I faced the direction of the house, but couldn't see anything out there. Just an empty void of darkness. 

Panicking a little, I began walking towards the direction I came in. However, I kept falling to the ground. When I scrambled to my feet, I moved the flashlight around. The beam of the light picked up dark patches on the trees. Finally giving up on walking, I focused the flashlight on one tree. To my weak heart, a towering figure was embedded onto the tree in front of me as if someone had painted it. 

"Run away," my inner dialogue was telling me. I couldn't listen to it this time. No more running away. "There's something here with you." My thoughts continued to whisper to me.

"I'm not leaving," I said out loud with the flashlight still pointed at the weird outline of the figure on the tree.

My breaths lingered in front of me, and the world seemed to pause. Suddenly, two small beams of light began to shine on the face part of the outlined figure. I dropped my flashlight and stumbled backward. A yell escaped my mouth. Fumbling to grab the flashlight, I was able to aim it back at the tree. As soon as I did, I was no longer met with the outline of the tree but the actual figure of an all black shadow like human figure standing in front of me. Behind it, were more.

My lips felt dry, but I couldn't turn back now. "What do you want from me? What do you and Sunny want from me? I'm not afraid."

A short shadow figure began walking towards me. I couldn't exactly call it walking. It was more like watching a little boy or girl walk for the first time with their legs bending, falling, and tumbling. She looked at me, although her face was dark and only one of the shadow figures had eyes amongst them all. With its hand trembling, she reached out towards me. 

Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but with my heart in my chest and my burning sensation to leave, I reached for her. As soon as our hand's met, I began laughing. I don't know why, but their soft rubber-like hand tickled me. It snatched its hand away and started laughing like a little girl. The others behind her giggled, and I smiled and laughed along with them all.

"Do you want to play with us?" I heard someone say in the crowd. I shined my flashlight at all of the shadow-like creatures. I should have been scared, but I wasn't. I stepped forward, hand in hand with the little shadow girl. 

"I want to," I said. 

As I walked along with the crowd, I heard dark background sounds. Tones. Coming from something or someone else. I turned around, but couldn't see another source. More laughter erupted, catching my attention again.

"Come play with us, Olivia!" A male voice called out. I couldn't see who said it because they all looked the same except for their heights.

"What do you all want to play?" I asked.

"Hide and Seek!" Someone yelled out.

"Tag!" Another yelled.

Soon they began yelling out many games. In the end, I chose tag. I started chasing them around, and they did the same with me. Whenever someone touched me, I fell to the ground with my flashlight and burst out into laughter. We went further and further into the woods. I didn't care though. I was...happy.

At one point, I tripped over something and began bleeding. I shone my flashlight at the blood. A stick or something had scratched me. "Timeout!" I called out. The shadow children surrounded me, and all bent their dark heads over me.

"You're bleeding," one said.

"I'm okay," I replied back.

I wiped it with my shirt, but more blood oozed out. One of them grabbed my hand, seemly examining the blood. "Let it bleed," she said. "Let it bleed out."

"What-"

Soon all of them began lightly chanting the same thing as her. "Let it bleed out. Let it bleed out. Bleed out. Bleed out."

"Wait I-"

"Olivia!"

I heard a familiar voice somewhere behind me. I turned around. No one was there, but I listened to his voice again.

"It's me, Robert," his voice called out once more. However, there was dark laughter behind every word he spoke.

I got up and began running back the way I came in. "Robert!?" I yelled out.

"Bleed out," the shadows behind me called as I ran. "Don't leave us. You can stay forever. Bleed out. We can help you."

I looked back, tumbling as the shadows struggled to walk and follow me. It was creepy now, no longer fun. I dodged and missed trees as I ran. "Robert?" I called out again, passing more trees. When I finally got out of there, and back to the house I stopped running. I looked back at the trees, but nothing was there.

"Hey!" 

I whipped the flashlight around in the direction of my dad's parked car that wasn't in the garage. Standing in front of it was him. Robert. I quickly ran up to him. "Robert, is it really y-"

When I got to the car, he was gone. Nothing was there. He vanished. I broke down in tears, wishing he was still there. I didn't want to want to go to school without him. I know the thought was extreme, but I didn't want to live without him either. I didn't want to be here with Sunny, my father, and the whole school making fun of me. I wanted to go where he was. Wherever he was...