***
Her name was Calypso Grimes. 18 years old, female. A girl with average brown hair that was short, pasty skin, and a dainty body.
Now she knows that the supernatural was real. She nearly died when a monster mauled her and stalked her into her very soul. She battled for her soul, realized that her troubles with human emotion could be mended—actively choosing to live when before she never would’ve done so. And she was the one that not only killed this monster but ate it alive in a frenzy she wasn’t sure what made her do so.
But she was alone with this information, as her best and only friend, was killed along the way.
So to have this... Mock therapy session, this utter farce, not only wasted the time of everyone present--but nearly made Calypso walk back everything that she promised herself to do.
The fact that it was held in a patient room signaled to Calypso that this was an utter shitshow. The "doctor" was at his desk, the girl's files clutched in his constantly moving hands. Also signaling uncertainty, which Calypso would've found sick enjoyment out of if she wasn't physically and mentally shattered.
But the most damning aspect of it all was the fact that her mother was sat right next to her. Not even centimeters away.
It wasn’t quite catatonic… But Calypso just blankly stared out. Her face sagging into an expression of wretched vacancy. A total summation of her entire life--but even then, even then, she wondered what the fuck was going on here.
Was this a new method? A sick joke? The one time she wanted to express something, the one time she... Wanted help...
Muted. Hack-job. Barely there.
"Sooooo..." the "doctor" twirled his pen between his fingers, looking at the files again. His face buried in his auburn curls and massive glasses. It made this scene even more of a parody in the poor girl's head. "Ms. Grimes. Calypso Grimes, what a beautiful, beautiful name... Are we doing okay today...?"
"I never really understood what 'okay' was in the first place," Calypso bluntly spat. Just to get a reaction.
A nod. A series of nods that got to the point of head shakes as he continued to look down at his notes. "You've clearly had... Such a bad string of rotten luck lately. But hey. Youre going to get through this. And soon after that, it'll be like it never ever happened in the first place."
He proceeded to grip the files, press the pen into the one hand, all to push forward a box of tissues that was on his desk toward Calypso.
Calypso simply stared at the packaging. Baby blue, with a literal toddler's face on the verge of bursting with hears. "We're here whenever you're 'swaaad'", the tagline for the brand read.
It was all the vindication she didn't need right now. But as an immediate result, the broken and empty girl simply locked up, drowning out whatever this person had to say. Absolutely numbed.
All she felt was the passive patting of the back from her... Dear mother. Calypso wanted to explode from that alone, never mind the fact this shoe-string session was going to go on for an hour.
It all began to blur, anyways.
Most of her recent days were the same. Didn’t matter what the background or circumstances were—of lying in a hospital bed, being checked on periodically, the police coming in asking her questions, or the odd reporter that somehow made it in and was immediately chased off. She responded to it all the same. Speech muted into mumbles or gestures, consistent and long form thoughts given up on. Alive only in the most baseline sense.
As a person—or thing—that reveled in morbid subject matter, in tragically ironic theatre, her current condition was not lost on Calypso.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Back then, when she wanted to think, Calypso debated about writing everything down. Telling everything—their tale, their struggle, and as much as it pained her then, their admission of guilt. All everyone got was this fabricated story of these two girls wanting to go camping, a last hoorah before entering the adult world. The girls knowing fully well that they made this story as sanguine as possible, to bury not just the doubt, but their respective troubled histories. Maybe they would’ve chickened out. Maybe they would’ve agreed that they overreacted. But the literal impossible robbed them of that choice.
Calypso then ruminated, truly letting it sink in that legitimate pure evil existed in the form what she and her friend experienced that night, the concept wasn't hyperbole anymore. The supernatural not only exists, but the natural order of things allow it to exist. Everything, every single thing, that these two girls whined about—that there is no hope, no point, and no meaning. All of that was vindicated.
So the girl elected to do nothing. Because it never would’ve mattered anyways.
But she couldn’t dwell in doing nothing for too long. Because she had a funeral to go attend.
It took a week or so, but the service for her dear friend was finally put together. Calypso was wheeled in by her mother, still in her unmovable state as she gathered stares from across both aisles. Not many people knew Calypso, but knew of her influence. It only took a look, and one knew that aside from the girl’s own mother or family, Calypso was the most hurt being there.
As the girl hung her head low, Calypso tried not focusing on the details that gnawed at her. How the funeral felt inexpensive, how the casket was firmly closed due to what’s left of the contents inside. How the family’s aisle either had empty seats, or people incredibly spaced out from one another. How the guests were only teachers, staff and some of the members of her friend’s soccer team. None of the two-bit, digesting boyfriends she had even showed up.
The girl’s mother. Her poor yet infuriating mother was practically wailing out into her wetting hands, as what Calypso assumed was the current boyfriend trying to console her, clearly uncomfortable.
As Calypso glanced across the row of the 5 or 6 pictures set up around the casket, she remembered their shared aversions of them. And among brewing muck of guilt that submerged her, Calypso was very regretful about that fact.
The result of it all became a funeral that didn’t feel like a sendoff, but an exercise in trying to redeem a deeply flawed person, a person that clearly had good in them, but it was still apart of a very damaged whole. School teachers focused on her potential that was never going to be seen, one of her aunts talked about how she was such a joy when she was younger. One of the soccer team members just said that she’ll miss her and that she always made her laugh.
Calypso chided herself, as she gripped the handle of her wheelchair. She should’ve been up there, shaming these people for never reaching out towards this spirited, poignantly rash young woman. Who used humor to not just cope with her insecurity she had to fake not having, but use it as a tool to communicate with these humans, to connect with them, versus their self-critical judgement.
But whatever revving anger she tried to ignite became cold quickly, giving way to a crestfallen crush. Calypso very well knew that summing up Alice Graves was a difficult task. She was the reason that they were attacked that night, she baited the monsters and didn’t know what she was doing. Ending her life and forever altering Calypso’s for the worse.
How can one eulogize a friend that raged at you with the fury of your mortal enemy? How can you remember the good times, when she was often the source of bad moments you want to forget? How can you love someone that only took their death to finally admit that the feelings weren’t an elaborate joke?
The most frustrating part of all was that it wasn’t planned, wasn’t on purpose. Alice was just as guilt-ridden as she was rageful. Creating this person of painfully compromising good and ill. But humanity wasn’t quite built, nor accepting, for handling complications.
But fleeting, broken up thoughts passed the time for Calypso. It was time for the final tribute, everyone becoming silent as the funeral staff set up the television and started the movie maker video.
Calypso’s eyes became glossy as the familiar tones faded in
Somehow the family got a hold of Alice’s CDs, the most recent album most importantly. They only listened to it once or twice in her room, out of many moments of intimacy. Alice confided to Calypso on more than one occasion that her musical tastes were also a failed attempt to appease, to fit in. She never liked the grunge, metal, or rock bands that the people she found herself in the circles of—but she had to. But, there was the one band… Alice could never voice it on her own, but their music not only expressed her plights but hit on her exact issues as a struggling problem, trying to be a person.
As she wept, Calypso silently mouthed the lyrics to Leave Out All The Rest. Trembling under the hard reality that Alice was truly gone, and ultimately collapsed into a fit of tears. Wailing. Painful screams.
All her mother could do for her in that moment, was to grip and rub her broken daughter’s shoulder.
***