Mind Games

Category B: Highly Commended (2023) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Tarini Guddanti

It lurked in the darkness. Waiting and watching for the perfect moment to strike. The corners of its mouth curved up into a sneer as it spotted its first victim. A young girl around the age of sixteen, with curly jet-black hair. Brown skinned and self conscious. She had glinting black coal-like eyes that furiously darted around. They never stopped once, continuously checking if anyone had noticed her. Yes. She was the one. The hiding shadow shrunk in size. Smaller and smaller, until it was no bigger than the tip of a needle. It vanished for a second and reappeared on the shoulder of the small, innocent girl. It creeped up the girl’s neck, stopped at the ear and wormed its way in.

She stood waiting on the pavement, her head bowed, but her eyes flickering around her. She could feel something watching her. Something that was not supposed to be there. Something that meant trouble. Her mind worked rapidly, feverishly searching for an explanation. And all of a sudden, everything went completely still. The type of still that comes before a cold blooded storm. The girl’s eyes stopped moving and her brain went numb. She shuddered. In spite of the hot, summer weather, she felt as if something icy was dripping down her neck.

The feeling seeped through her skin. She could feel it freezing every single part of her body. It had finally reached her chest. The chill wrapped its icy hand around her heart squeezing it tighter and tighter. She couldn’t breathe, hard as she tried. The little air that she managed to inhale felt like sandpaper. It viciously scraped against the sides of her throat, leaving a blazing fire behind. Tears pricked her eyes and it was not long before she felt them streaming down her face. Her heart thrummed in panic, despite the cold, spidery hand that had wrapped itself around the beating heart. Looking around, vision blurred by tears, she felt as if there were a hundred eyes on her, all filled with contempt and dripping with derision.

She never noticed the concerned, compassionate glances people shot her. She never noticed the three hundred people rushing towards her, as her legs gave away, her vision darkened and she fell, with a soft thud on the concrete ground. She never noticed the soft murmur of caring whispers. She never felt the protective blanket that these voices left behind. And she never, ever realised she was worth everything.

In the deep, cavernous recesses of her brain, it smiled. A naughty little smile, but sinister enough to kill. It knew what it was doing. It knew everything about her. Her weaknesses and her insecurities. Everything that it needed to be in control. And now? Now it was.

Years had passed and by then, she thought it was over. She thought that her panic attacks, her nervous wrecks, her anxiety attacks, her feelings of isolation were over. But now they resurfaced. Now she didn’t know what to do. How could she?

She never knew what self-love meant. ‘Be yourself’ they told her. ‘Love yourself’. She stood there for hours on end, her reflection staring right back at her. She stared at the tears that poured down her marred, bumpy, ugly, face and she stared at the variety of scars on her stomach. Some fresh and some nearly invisible, but all ones that she had given herself. Each one, holding a savage memory. She looked away, racking with quiet sobs. How could she love herself, when all the mirror would show her was a broken, damaged thing? How could anyone else love her when she could not love herself? It was a vicious cycle, one that never ended.

Its eyes snapped open, glowing a fiery red. Once more, it smiled to itself. How fun. Playtime once again. Crawling through the abyss of her mind, it reached her ear and began to play its game.

The girl’s body shook a little harder as a little voice in her brain whispered to her. ‘You don’t belong. Why are you even here? You’re ugly. Nobody cares about you. I wish you were dead.’ She gasped in pain. The last one always hurt the most, to the point where she could feel it. Her heart was being ripped apart. All that was left behind was a shell with nothing inside. She could almost hear it being dropped, the faint whoosh of a falling glass heart on to a marble floor, the deafening crash that followed and sound of the scattered fragments spilling across the tiles, too small to be pieced back together. It wasn’t the voice that hurt her the most, but instead the knowledge that she hated herself so much that she would be willing to hurt herself. Willing to die.

She tried to fight the flow of memories that had started to flood her mind. An ocean of them, leaving not even one little space to breathe. Each drop of memory, made up of her own tears. But she didn’t feel sad. Every little feeling that was in her seeped out with every tear she shed. There was nothing left behind except for a numbness that weighed her down. A numbness that spread throughout her body leaving her defenceless and isolated. She searched for the right word and there she found it. Broken. A broken little girl, who had no purpose. No use. Nothing to live for. Nothing. At. All.

She closed her eyes and fell back onto her bed. Wishing with all that was left of her heart, that she could disappear into the darkness that she saw. And she did.

There. It was done. Another victim, another innocent soul that was a pawn in its game. It giggled mischievously. Harmless as it seemed, the little monster could drive anything to madness, to death. And it would. People would notice. But by then, it would already be too late. Just. Like. Her.