Chapter 1- Autumn leaves.

My life only ever crashed and burned twice. The first time was on a lonely September evening.  

The world was like a brand new watercolour set left in the rain. Before a bright and beautiful thing, perfect and full of colour became a lake of grey as the paints ran, mixing together and creating a sickening shade of brown. And with every moment becoming darker and murkier, saturating in the black lack of light from its own pallet, that for long had been dormant and unused but always there. Always waiting.  And it seemed like all the paints were there, but nothing compared to their former selves, somehow deformed and disfigured, crippled by the rain, which after everything, wasted them away more with every moment.

Me and Jasper stood outside the school. Everyone else had left, except for Vita. I saw her in the distance sitting alone. I childishly played in the pile of golden leaves; kicking them and watching them fall. Jasper paced down the path. He looked troubled.  Jasper had been quite distant, his behaviour strange.  I tried to smile but he did not smile back.

I stared into his electric green eyes and saw uncertainty. Something that scared me more than anything had done before. He looked coldly down on me. I looked up, trying to catch his gaze but he avoided my eyes. Jasper tried to evade my looks, as if they burned and blistered.

"What a beautiful autumn, look at the leaves" I said breaking the silence. He did not answer.

"Monica..." he whispered my name, so smoothly as if it was not a sound but silks and satins, with a dark velvet touch. My name never sounded so grimly, when said by him.  I gripped the leaves I had been collecting, pressing them closer to my chest.

"Yes?" I answered, trying to sound as brisk and light headed as before, but my voice shook.
"I just want you to know... I just ... I can't stand it any longer, I cannot take it anymore!" he shouted, ripping the leaves I had collected out of my hand and throwing them to the floor. "I can't take you any longer because every day I slowly give away my hope! I've waited too long for this, for me to gain your love and it's really not worth it. Not what I expected" he paused for a moment taking a long look at me. He sighed. "I'm sorry, I'm just tiered..." I could not say anything. I didn't know what was going to happen next but I felt a horrifying aching in my throat which made it hard to breath.
"I'm so sorry but I hate you, I don't want to be with you" he finally blurted out.

Something within me broke. It was as if a little gear, ever so slightly moved inside me, slowly but steadily causing a disastrous chain reaction. Those three words in seconds whipped away the few little traces of happiness I had spent so long building up; digging them up amongst the awkwardness, pretending they were real, pretending it was a dream.

Like millions of daggers his words burrowed into my chest, repeatedly stabbed into my heart and ripped it from inside my chest. The numb pain of rejection and the loneliness which to me was all too familiar slowly devoured me leaving an empty void where before I felt my fiery heart. His words played back like a broken record in my head. There was an iron cage, compressing my lungs. The air immediately felt heavy, difficult to take in. My eyes filled with salty tears.  It seemed more like a lovely lie of which I shallowly convinced myself. Everything I thought was true and good was unveiled before me, revealing nothing but a sweet illusion, or maybe a bitter sham. I could not look at his face. It pained me greatly to see his expression. I knew what it was like. I reconstructed it in my head, but did not look up, in case my assumptions were correct.

After all, I had been nothing but a stupid naive girl, driven by my obsession and giddy passions. How could I be loved in return and earn respect if even I believe that my behaviour has not deserved any.  
He had been that idyllic dream but when dreams become reality the sad truth is they are no longer dreams.
I turned away; cold frost ran down my back. Iciness, a sickening and sinking sensation.  All, I felt, that was in my power was to run away. So many feelings erupted inside me.  I ran from him. I could not bear the sight of him. I ran where my feet would take me. Away from everything I felt my heart painfully beating and echoing like a deafening drum in my ears, disturbing my chaotic thoughts. I also felt my feet begin to ache and I knew I could not run any longer. I ran deeper and deeper thorough the park and watched everything slowly absorb into the shade of the trees. They greedily consumed the light and peace of mind.

It was the forest now. I was past the border of the disciplined nature that grew passively under its master's control. Here the trees were wild and untamed. Here the delicate rose bushes intertwined with the wild ivy, intermingled and grew up the tall and wise oaks. As I rushed past the roseless thorns pierced my skin, letting drops of dark purple blood slip down the strange flowers. The golden leaves fell from the trees and crinkled under my feet. The leaves were dry and dead. Their corpses littered the ground and decomposed. The trees were almost bare. They dropped the memories of their past too carelessly.  

Thoughts came too quickly and disappeared in seconds. But one thing that never left was confusion and hurt. His words puzzled me. Everything before must have been a lie. Jasper could not lie. That is what he told me. Or was he lying about that then?  So many memories, I have had with him. How horrific it is to find that they must all be lies. When we talked and laughed, he did not love me. When he kissed me, he did not love me. When he held me so tight that I could hear his heartbeat and feel his breathing on my skin, he did not love me. When he said he did, he did not love me.

Maybe I was happy before I met Jasper, but I guess it was the kind of happiness a wild bird experiences in its gold cage, hidden away from freedom and not yet aware of its absence. How sweet was my captivity and buried in day dreams.  But then, he released me into the world. He opened the ornate door and told me to fly and find my happiness. I flew and found it in him.  But then the happiness broke my wings, leaving me unable to chase after the elapsed dream. So I sit here and watch that wounded fantasy flutter away.

I saw what I wanted to see. I idolized him. I traded sun and stars and earth for him and thought I would never need them since he was there. I let him into my life. And it all felt natural, as if what I felt was not just a lust that I hid behind innocence and fear of the unknown, and disguised it as love. I remember when I first saw him. My heart melted inside my chest.
He looked across to me. I smiled at him and he smiled at me.

It was the midst of winter. One of those fairytale winters, where snow falls, daily covering the frozen earth in a blanket of pure white.  The cold did not feel as cold as it should and the low dim winter sun that shone only for a few hours lit up the earth well enough. It was not yet Christmas but the all too familiar spirit slowly crept up, building up to the big day.  I sat by my window, like I used to like to sit, and still occasionally do, drinking a rich and creamy hot chocolate, wrapped up in sweater and scarf. I watched the snow gently falling and felt and unexplainable warmth and comfort, alone in my tiny apartment, which until then, never felt like home.

The doorbell rang and uneagerly I came to answer it. Outside the postman stood, package in hand.
"Monica Watson?" he asked, looking through his list.
"Yes, that's me" I answered, in the tone one only ever uses for official business. The post man handed me a brown parcel tied up with string.

I had not been accustomed to receiving mail. Mail had been long replaced by modern technology and letters had now become extinct necessities. I snuggled back down into my chair, placing the parcel on my lap, ready to open. I pulled at the string, letting it slowly untie. The package opened. Little gears and screws toppled to the ground. And finally fell a crumpled note. The note was filled with formalities and technicalities. I read it without interest and gained no information from its contents. I carefully picked up a shard of metal. It had been an odd rounded shape. I took another piece, not dissimilar to the previous and saw that they fitted together. One by one I started to assemble the machine, like a jigsaw. The machine was hard to put together, but not impossible. I knew I could definitely fix it, whatever it had been.

As the machine grew so did my curiosity. I became completely absorbed in its making. More pieces came daily. 2pm on the dot. The postman would return with new parcels, never saying anything but my name and then silently handing me the following package. With the third delivery there was a check enclosed. It was clearly addressed to me and was quite a large sum of money. I kept the check, waiting to return it to someone who carelessly had mistaken me for someone else.  But no one came.
The phone rang but all I heard was abrupt breathing.
"Who is this?" I asked, but the breathing did not cease. I put down the phone. It rang again; the same loud sinister breathing could be heard through the receiver. I asked again and again but there was no reply. Just like before: Only the breathing. The phone just kept ringing.  Constantly.

I felt a chill run down my spine. This chill was fear. To escape it I unplugged the phone. Silence. Deathening silence.  But then another ring. It was on my mobile.
"Unknown number" and again the terrifying breathing. I silenced all the phones.
This did not make me feel safer. I felt a constant presence. As if I was being watched. I did not know who or what was coming. What was waiting for me.
I felt totally helpless. Never in my life have I felt more venerable.

With more and more parcels I watched the invention grow and develop, but I knew it was no longer a game. Things for me became even scarier. The phone calls never stopped, blocking all communications. But everything started to change around me. I saw everything in my apartment alter when I went out. Things began to be moved and occasionally they would even go missing. The changes seemed ever so mild at first, a paper somewhere placed elsewhere, but later bigger objects. Someone had been coming in when I left. Checking up on me.  I changed the locks but even for the new lock they found a key.
Then I started finding notes.
Read the note, written in bright blue ink.
I hid the note and turned on the tap to run a bath. I sat by its edge, watching the steaming water fill the bath.

Suddenly the water changed.
It turned electric blue. Brighter than any other shade I had seen. This was no accident. And not just one tap: Every tap in the apartment ran the same toxic water. The smell was like a stench of chemical waste, something decomposing and an odd head spinning, mind twisting, enchanting sweetness.
It was to do with the machine. Nothing had been said about it. I had no one to speak to and tell my problems to; my parents on holiday and any vague acquaintances not answering to any messages. It was as if someone had tried to block me from making contact with the outside world. It had to do with the strange colour too. But more particularly the liquid it's self. Someone was trying to make me ingest or inhale it. I had to get away. I couldn't let the mysteries drive me to insanity. I had to somehow escape from it. This was no longer a joke or a game. I battled with the built up curiosity, shunning it behind logical thinking. I had to be around people. It was safer that way. I left my apartment, going out into the town without purpose.

The city was my solace; Bright and full of life, I could hide amongst the indifferent crowds. I pretended to be one of them: the ones that rush around with constant errands, never pausing, never stopping, never thinking. I avoided the thought of going home, to the apartment, empty and cold, to the machine, that for no reason pinpointed me as its target and jeopardised my chances of a peaceful life.

I sat alone in a cafe, once again acting out the stupid role- tapping on my turned off phone, acting busy. I looked up and from across the room I saw him. Our eyes met. He had been looking at me, admiring me. The cafe was half empty. The setting sun tinted the walls a blood red. I stirred my coffee. I had always despised the vile drink but drinking coffee seemed like such a normal thing to do I decided to try it.  I stirred it, regularly glancing up at the young man across the cafe.

He was tall, well built and not too much older than me. The young man was not incredibly handsome but far from ugly, possessing an air of ordinarity in all his appearance: his nose was a little long, quite think eye brows darker than his blond or perhaps golden brown hair. His features were masculine but not brutal. But what struck me most were his gorgeous green eyes the likes of which I had ever seen. They were bright and mesmerizing. Their colour was truly amazing; brighter than the usual green, like all the colours of the summer forest mixed into one irresistibly alluring shade. They shone with the light of a thousand fireflies: unforgettable and unmistakable.

When he saw me smile, he began to beam as if I was what he had been waiting for. I played with my straight black hair, curling it in ringlets around my finger. I fluttered my eyelashes and noticed his cheeks burning red. I too blushed as I had done very often, so prominent on my pale porcelain skin. He tried to pretend he was not looking at me, but it was difficult to hide. He quickly gave up his little charade, admitting that I had caught his eye. I looked down, too shy to continue to look upon the stranger.  
I took a sip of the coffee. The bitter edge shocked me. The taste was sharp and unpleasant. Revolting for a split second but then melting unbearable sweetness with an unpleasant aftertaste. I immediately looked down at the cup. I jolted back.
The liquid in the cup was like pale blue ink. Unbelievably blue.  
I suddenly felt dizzy. My head spun crazily and everything I saw began to mutate into a shapeless blur.  I became confused, disorientated. The world continued to vigorously spin before me. I felt the nausea taking over and everything before my eyes going darker and darker. Until finally blackness became the last memory of that day.

It was last winter, so long ago. After winter came spring and new life, in summer the life flourishes and then by autumn it slowly dies like everything around it.  And then time flew so quickly, bringing me to that moment, in which I thought I found out the truth. I ran away from it all. I sat under a tree, my orange scarf, tangled in the branches, by a pile of crimson leaves.  I felt a lump in my throat choking me. For a while I remained in denial. Yearning for those sweet embraces which I wanted back so badly. I do not want this stupid truth. My feelings are ashes. His words burned.

In the sky there were heavy clouds but no rain. I never wanted any of that but now I found myself dancing on broken glass. First carefully, but then as the music got faster I stopped thinking about what I felt and wanted to show my talent. The glass felt like quick sand. It sucked you in deeper but I just kept dancing. It wasn't harsh or painful like it seemed at first. Only when the music stopped had it dawned on me what I had done. It had not cut me once, not twice but many times and many of the cuts wouldn't heal.  I tried to blame him for ending the music, but maybe he did the right thing. He stopped it before I drowned.

I heard footsteps. It was Vita, with Alexandra, my best friend. They came to get me home. They didn't ask what happened.  I wondered if it mattered to them. Vita smiled, but there was something unpleasant in her smile, maybe the way the corners of her lips sloped down then, like the lips of a harlequin. Her pretty hazel eyes sparked but made me feel uneasy inside.  
Alex flicked her strawberry blond hair, like she always did, but didn't smile. She looked down on me, like I had been an infant, a pestering child who frustrated her, but did what a good friend always did, and stuck by me. Alex was self obsessed and vain with a short temper who was almost intolerant to people, but always felt she needed to fit in.

"I have a plan" she said. "You are going to make him sorry he dumped you. Shall I tell you what you are going to do?" and without waiting for my reply she continued. "You are going to put on your nicest dress, put some make up on, look totally gorgeous, and go to Mellissa's party"
She pulled me up, and whipped my tears with her clean handkerchief, like she was my mother and lead me home. Vita followed waiting for the events of the following evening, the party of the year...