Breaking the Silence

Kari here. Sorry about the absence. Things have been a bit frantic here. Thank you all for being patient, assuming there's anyone still reading this. I've needed some time to myself.

So, here's what happened. I went over to Ms. Fisher's apartment at about eight with her books. She lived on the fourth floor of an apartment building in town near the seafront. The elevator was broken, so I took the stairs up. As soon as I got to the landing I saw that her door was ajar, but there was no light coming in from inside, so I assumed someone had broken in or something. I crept up to the door and listened for footsteps. Hearing none, I went inside. I turned the light on, and saw their living room in front of me; all tasteful, neutrally coloured furniture, arranged straight out of a catalogue. The door I entered was on the far left side of the wall, and so to my right was a TV with a cream sofa and some chairs arranged around both it and a wooden coffee table. In front of me was a dark wooden dinner table and chairs, and behind it, a door, which was also open, showing just enough of the wall inside for me to see a streak of red. I sprinted to the door.

The police arrived about two minutes after I called them, along with an ambulance. I couldn't stay in that apartment, so I crawled into the hallway, where they found me. I was sobbing and shaking. I've never...I didn't realise I lived in a world in which something like what happened to that woman could happen. I never even thought that something that grotesque could be a part of the same reality that I inhabited happily, safely, for all this time. I...

I'm not going to say what had been done to her. You don't want that.

 A paramedic, a young woman, wrapped a blanket around me while police and other paramedics ran into the bedroom. The sight of the body quickly sent them all back out again. None of them were prepared for that. After about half an hour later, when I was sitting in the back of the ambulance, still draped in the blanket, a rather ashamed policeman told me that I needed to come to the police station for questioning, and to deliver a statement.

That took hours. I recounted finding the body over and over and over and over and over until they were sure that the details were consistent. Eventually my parents came to pick me up.

When we got home, Simon was sitting on my house's doorstep. As soon as we pulled up, he sprinted over to the car, pulled open the door and hugged me, tight, squeezing me tight into his chest. I started crying again, like a fucking baby.

We went inside and we both went to bed. I felt that I needed him there or I couldn't sleep. I was wrong. Even with his arms still wrapped around me tightly, I woke up screaming and crying from a nightmare. This happened again and again throughout the night, and most nights since then. The worst, however, was one two nights ago, a repeat of that one nightmare, complete with the splitting headache.

Ms. Fisher had a headache.

I think I might be sick.