She couldn’t sleep.

Aicusa tossed and turned, unable to find comfort under her blankets. She admitted defeat when the clock read a blurry 12:54. She sat up groggily and swung her legs over the edge of her bed. She looked down and let her legs sway in the puddle of black that the dark left behind.

The faint blue light from the digital clock touched her pale skin with a rugged smoothness. She reached to the nightstand and picked up her glasses, putting them on so she could see. Everything that looked muddy now looked crisp and sharp. The blue light, as she could see it better, ended abruptly on her arm, consumed by the black of the night.

She got up, feeling her sweatpants rub awkwardly against her legs. She pushed herself up from her bed, her bare feet brushing against the soft carpet. She flicked on the light and shielded her eyes, trying not to cry out from how badly the light hurt her eyes. She slipped on her tennis shoes and grabbed her coat from the closet. Maybe a little walk would help her clear her mind and help her relax enough to sleep.

She turned her light off and stayed in her room for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dark again. When she could see decently, she opened the door and looked left and right down the hallway to check to see if Cole was up. She stayed quiet to try and hear if he was shuffling in the kitchen like he sometimes does. I guess tonight he’s actually sleeping…

Aicusa began to walk down the hallway, being careful of the creaky floorboards. The house they were in was old and she spent most of her time finding all of the creaky floor patches that she could avoid if she didn’t want to wake up Cole when she would get up in the middle of the night. About halfway to the front door, she realized that she would have to mail out the rent that morning. She sighed a bit and went back to her room, feeling her freedom to clear her mind slowly crawling away. She turned on the light again, wincing as the light hit her eyes and she tried not to be too loud and she searched for the envelope of money. When she found it, she went to the kitchen and set the envelope on the table, looking for a Sharpie.

As much as she didn’t want to, she turned on the light and opened the “junk drawer” finding a perfectly good black Sharpie. She picked it up and began to hope that she would be able to go outside before Cole had a chance to get up. She wrote Rent on the front of the envelope. She put the sharpie back up when she was done and turned the light off. Walking carefully to the front door, she kept an ear out to any sudden noises or shuffling. She kept herself quiet as she left, shutting the door behind her gently with a soft click. She walked across the street to the sidewalk and began her hopefully “mind-clearing” journey. She looked up at the sky and saw that it was cloudy… Should have grabbed an umbrella… She pulled the hood of her coat over her head, putting her hands in the pockets.

She wanted to speak, but she didn’t want to seem crazy if someone passed by or heard her, so she kept all the words inside of her head. The thrills of the late night spoke to her like mothers calming their children down for a nap. It was just her walking, clearing her mind from all thoughts and perhaps getting a little bit of exercise. A loud boom echoed across the sky, signaling a storm was coming. The thunder, as her mom had told her when she was younger, was the cause of angels bowling and getting strikes. She felt the rain hit her hood, creating soft pattering sounds. The rain, as her mother also said, was the cause of the angels playing with a sprinkler. Of course, the girl wasn’t religious, but she knew her mother was just trying to calm her down and keep her focused on happy thoughts when it rained.

When she was younger, she was terrified of the rain. She thought the levels would get so high that she would end up drowning in the water. She didn’t want to go outside before it rained, or a few days after it rained. She also thought that when the ground was muddy, she would get sucked into the ground and suffocate on the dirt. She had weird fears as a kid and she grew out of them.

As she looked up at the clouds, the rain hit her glasses sending drops racing each other down a smooth plastic surface. Cars that drove by her on their late-night commutes shone weird lights at her; the water that had already pooled up by the sidewalk splashing her feet every time the cars drove over it. She didn’t mind this. The water felt good against her face, relaxing her. As she closed her eyes and stopped walking, she could imagine all the people looking at her through the windows and thinking she was crazy… Crazy? As if… As her hands slid up to take off her glasses, she stopped, her mind racing like a hamster running on a wheel trying to get its final meal of the day and ready to crash onto the ground. She stopped thinking and took her glasses off, opening her eyes only slightly.

The girl let her mind wander… She remembered all the friends that she had gone through… Every single one having their own unique trait like all the stars in the sky that were lined up only to be destined to explode. She remembered all the ruined faces she had encountered throughout her life and before she could save them she realized it was far too late as the gunshots echoed throughout their heads; sending lifeless bodies plundering to the floor, their necks wrapped in a delicate rope that had locked its way into the soft flesh and hung on. There were so many… Memorials in her mind were placed in the caverns of the dark place, and every day she pondered if anyone ever missed them. Perhaps not, but were they gone? Was the delicate rope and gunshots enough to put these stars to a permanent grave and hold them down, suffocating on their own breath and lies, exploding from the inside out? She sure hoped not.

As she began to walk again, the rain that fell on her damp hood came down harder, like the hits from words that never found their way back into the abusers mouth so that they just hung there in the heated air and sank into the victims flesh; no sign of mercy in their mind until all that was left was a burning feeling of hate…

Perhaps she was letting her mind wander off too far…

Aicusa broke from the story in her mind and turned around, beginning the long walk home. She had found herself further away than what she intended.