Happy Place

“You’re going to a happy place.” That’s what they told me the night of John’s death. They thought I was the culprit. I hadn’t killed him! I think... I only remember black and deep red. I couldn’t have killed him. I loved him. The police had me put in handcuffs. The whole neighborhood was standing outside, all there to experience the shame of being handcuffed. John was on a stretcher. the priests from the local church blessing him. I was over 20 feet away, yet I could hear what they were saying as clearly as if I was standing right next to them.
“May you have a good life hereafter. May the demon who has done this perish and be destroyed in our world to be banned for eternity to the blazing spitfires of hell.”
At the mention of the word demon, I snarled and growled. The sounds coming from deep within me. A darker part of me. I dove towards the stretcher, needing to see him. Hold him. My John. Immediately four priests blocked my way, as if they knew what I was going to do. This thought infuriated me, I ripped the handcuffs off and held out my hands, ready for the kill. When they all held out a cross. I couldn’t put another step. As if I was a little child, the police officers put a new pair of handcuffs on me and led me to the police cruiser. When the priests put a cross around John’s neck, it felt as if something within me broke. His face relaxed from the pinched expression he had had before to a half-smile as soon as the cool metal touched his chest. I sat back in the seat and let everything wash over me.
As the car started to slow, I saw a brightly colored building. Bright red doors and windows, the walls painted pink and yellow. The roof emerald green. Everything fraying at the edges. The paint was fading. The roof crumbling, the oaks that surrounded the building in a perfect circle were charred black at the bottoms. Branches snapped off the farther up you looked. The fact that it was made to look so happy made it the most depressing thing I had ever seen. I was hoping we would pass it but we stopped right in front of it. There was a lighter spot on the front of the building, there had been a sign there. A long time ago, now, it was nowhere to be found. The thought of this being my home made me sad, it immobilized me. Turned everything black in front of my eyes. I slumped back in my chair and the police officers carried me into a room.
I opened my eyes, only to see my worst nightmares confirmed. A room, as brightly colored as the outside. Only now, nursery rhymes were playing. Giving it an eery ring around me. the room had some toys in it, children’s toys, there was a large dresser with a mirror and make-up. Everything black. In the corner of the room there was a girl, not over 15 years old with flowing black hair just beyond her waist.
“You awake?” she asked “My name is Sunny” I snorted. “Something funny?” she said threateningly, raising one perfectly shaped eyebrow.
“Nothing, it’s just ironic” I said, waving my hand at her face. She was wearing black eyeliner, at least an inch completely around her eye. Black eyeshadow and lipstick. She had me pinned down in a second.
“What stuff?” she hissed in my ear.
“Get. Off. Of. Me. NOW!” I said slowly in clipped words.
“Make me...” she whispered tauntingly. My vision stained red. Deep, blood red. A shiver ripped through my body. I knocked her off of me and threw her into the wall with inhuman strength. “I warned you” I said with a wink and a vicious smile.
The people from the church ran this home, they checked each room every four hours. Just to make sure. When they checked on us, they found me painting my nails black, after having finished copying Sunny’s make-up. I was using her old make-up. Which was mine now, I smiled at the thought of my acts. She was sitting nice and quietly in the corner.
“What happened here?” Christopher- the head priest, asked. Unsure what to do he simply stood there with the two guards that were in charge of guarding our room and not getting killed in the process.
“We had a small...” I said, trailing off as I looked for a word to describe it, “disagreement.” Priest Christopher closed his eyes and muttered something under his breath. He made the sign of a cross on his chest. The two guards, Charlie and Gareth, took away her body. As they walked away, I could hear Christopher screaming furiously at them,
“how could you allow this to happen!” He wasn’t asking, he was simply stating the obvious. They were lazy and only in it for the money and the poorly dressed women. I continued with my nails, surprised at how long and sharp they had gotten in such a short period of time. Where first were my poorly taken care of, bitten fingernails, were now long black nails. All of them an inch at least. It really was a shame that Sunny broke the mirror in her struggle against me. There was only on shard left that you could look in properly. I looked in it, afraid of what I would see. Sunny had done a considerable amount of damage, causing one big slash that reached from the corner of my lip all the way up to my temple. She had taken this sharp piece of glass and hauled out at my face. She put up a fight and I condoned it until she did that. I screamed out with uncontainable fury, sounding like a wild animal. I pinned her chest down until she had barely any air left to breathe. Then I cut her arms with the same piece of mirror that had caused me my pain. Then as she finally screamed for mercy, I whispered in her ear the last thing she would ever hear. Her goodbye.
“Too late.”