STORYTIME|FICTION WRITING
Tuesdays With Me and Glee — 4
She could hide, but she couldn’t run from what about to be done
- **This is a continuation of a fiction story that I started 3 Tuesdays ago with the intention of adding more to it every Tuesday until the end February.
- I’ve included the previous stories because I change parts of them from week to week when I go back over it and add the new part.
- I like having a collection of this process, which is new and experimental.
- This is all part of my exploration of writing fiction (other stories of mine that are related to this process are included at the end of this one)
Chapter 1 —
The days were long and monotonous, but morbidly satisfying.
The nights were finally starting to grow shorter again after winter had reached its zenith, which meant that long days became even longer and filled to the brim with even more monotony.
Sareena wondered if she would end up feeling more satisfied in morbid ways.
Her father didn’t let anyone play music when they worked.
He said that it disturbed the dead.
She sometimes wondered if he was referring to the cadavers or to himself.
Soon, Sareena would be 12 years old, and she knew what that meant, even though no one had told her.
She knew.
When she was younger, she used to think of ways she could try to get out of what was bound to happen, but no matter what she schemed, she could think of nothing foolproof.
She was no fool, but she sure felt like one.
Something had to work, or she would end up dead, just like the rest of them.
At least, that’s what she thought.
As she got older, things began to change-
she changed and life as everyone knew it changed.
Chapter 2 —
Ten years had gone by in what seemed like the blink of an eye.
Sareena was now running the funeral home that had been in her family for three generations.
As much as she cursed the smell of formaldehyde, methanol and other liquids whose essences had perfused her clothing, hair and skin, there was a part of her that secretly got off on it.
Gasoline, paint thinner, cigarette smoke…the (un)usual list goes on.
It was so unladylike.
Didn’t matter…she never liked the idea, let alone the reality, of being a lady.
When Sareena finally started her menses at 16 years old, she cried for a month straight.
She knew what was coming for her-
she knew what was coming for them all.
By the time she was 18 years old she could feel it growing inside of her.
She called it Glee —
because, like many other deadly and dangerous things that made her sick, it also made her smile.
And these days smiles were getting harder and harder to come by.
Chapter 3 —
“Who the fuck opened the goddamned window?” Sareena murmured aloud to no one through clenched teeth as she sat bolt upright in bed, eyes still shut.
When she squinted through one eye to peer at the lone window across the room, she saw that it was, in fact, still shut.
Where did that steady, icy chill that woke her from her sleep come from then?
Before she could finish the thought in her half-asleep mind, she knew.
The time was drawing near.
There was no one left in Sareena’s family.
She’d buried or cremated them all, according to their written wishes.
Every single one, even the ones who were younger than she was.
She imagined what kind of life she might have 10 years from now, but she could never take it seriously because life was drastically different than anything she had conjured in her young, 12-year-old mind 10 years prior.
She knew that her family had some dark secrets, but nothing could’ve prepared her for the reality.
Sometimes her mother’s voice guided her towards what she felt were hopeful solutions, but inevitably, her father’s voice drowned out everything.
Sareena knew what she had to do, and not just for her sake, but for the sake of the entire world.
One of the best things that Sareena stared to do during this time of her life was wake up at 4am every single day.
No one told her to do it.
How could they?
She didn’t have a computer, a telephone, not even a carrier pigeon.
There was the mail, but those who used to deliver the mail to her family’s property stopped doing so a long time ago, once the list of missing people in the zip code started rising inexplicably.
Some people had theories.
Plenty of people talked — from miles and miles away, but not to Sareena.
There were voices though.
Voices that started as mere murmurs that slowly grew louder over time.
Time.
That was the luxury that Sareena was quickly running out of and desperately wanted more of….
She could hide, but she could not run from time —
and it seemed the time had finally come.
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