Cursed (Old Version)

Cursed: Chapter 18

Chapter 18

I sound so excited when I explain the plan to everyone that I'm even shocked a little bit. Every detail seems to grow off another detail that I just have to explain, and that alone is enough to make me excited. The truth is that I'm excited about facing this because it feels almost like a showdown. Just to get it over with...but in the right way. This way makes me feel like a hero, as opposed to me feeling like a sacrifice. This will give me answers and justify everything...right?

I think that's what I need...

“I know I'm being stupid,” I mumble to myself while pacing.

My family wanted me to get some sleep after explaining the plan to them earlier, because it was obvious that I hadn't been sleeping before that. I can't sleep, though. So I resort to pacing and talking to myself. It sounds crazy, but I KNOW that everyone does it.

“This isn't helping me get my thoughts straight, though,” I whisper exasperated as I flop onto my bed. “I truly think I'm the worst person to be giving advice to myself...”

I pop up and look at my reflection in the mirror, scowling a bit playfully, “Don't you look at me like that. I can make this right...”

I chew my lower lip, feeling a strange kind of excitement reveal a truth... “That fire, that fight, that...everything. I'm different. Not because I didn't survive...but because I did.”

Even if I only survived barely.

I walk up to my mirror and place my hands on the sides of it, staring straight into my eyes, “I suuuuurrrrrrvived. NORMAL people don't survive stuff like that. W-why...why didn't I die? How do I make myself...right?”

I feel tears form in my eyes and I shake my head, laughing to myself, “I really am cursed, as if I could ever doubt it. I can't even die... I can ask to, but apparently when it comes down to it, I can't seem to die. Sooo...this is all we've got, huh?”

Like two different people in the same area, I continue to stare at my reflection as I begin to break apart before my own eyes. My mind starts to rip apart that reflection, showing how it can't be me. How it isn't right in some ways. How I'm...different now. I can't even tell if this is a good or bad dissection of myself...but whatever it is...

It's separating.

A knock on my door snaps me out of it and I eye it suspiciously, feeling that I must have imagined the knock. You don't get knocks on the door at the exact moment that you want help. That stuff only happens in movies! I eye it for a bit longer before returning to my own judging gaze, only to be shocked out of it again by another knock.

“Y-yes?” I ask quietly.

“You aren't sleeping,” Carter says smugly through the door.

I laugh under my breath and run my fingers through my hair, “I think I know that already.”

“You need to, though,” Carter says in a hushed voice as he opens the door to peer at me.

“For a ghost, you suck at sneaking in,” I say, remarking on how much my door squeaks as he opens it.

Carter smiles and shakes his head, “I didn't want to sneak up on you. I wanted to check up on you,” he admits, walking towards me with concern now filling his usually playful eyes. “I...know you, Carwen, and this impulsive plan screams...problems.”

I glare at him without thinking, “Y-you don't have the right to analyze me.”

Carter looks at me incredulously, “I care about you, so yeeeeaaaaah, I do.”