Reconciled Reminiscence

Emilia was in a deep sleep, her eyes shut and her breathing shallow. She was dreaming. But it wasn't the kind of dream you have where you can move around and interact with people, or even talk to anyone at all. It was more like she was just there and seeing what was happening.

She saw herself hovering above her bed, then sitting up and looking around a bit before laying back down. She looked so peaceful. Emilia could remember those days in the past when she would lay in bed for hours not being able to fall asleep. Sometimes it even made her tired.

Suddenly, she heard a door open, and footsteps approach her room. Her eyes shot open in fear as something was swung at her head. As if it were all happening in slow motion, Emilia saw Lauren's smiling face as she swung at her old friend's head with a baseball bat. Simultaneously, Emilia felt pain shoot through the right side of her head as blood splattered on the wall behind her bed. She heard Lauren laugh hysterically, then flee from the room out the open door while shouting "Bye bye bitch!"

Emilia sat up in shock and saw that there was no blood on her head anymore, but instead she had a bandage wrapped around it tightly. She began to cry silently, trying to make as little noise as possible so that no one would wake up and see her crying. She slowly slid out of bed and walked over to the mirror that was on the wall next to the door near the top of some stairs leading down into an entryway where everyone would walk through when they got home from school.

She looked at herself in horror and disgust as she held onto the banister for support to keep standing up straight, since she felt like she might collapse if she didn't hold onto something. Her hair had been shaved off close to her scalp, leaving only a single long patch of hair on the left side with some sharp edges sticking out at odd angles throughout it. The right side of her head had multiple small cuts on it that were still bleeding slightly into the bandages that covered them over tightly to prevent them from bleeding anymore than they already were. There were many bruises on both sides of her face, including one near each eye, one on each cheekbone, one under each eyelid, and one around each corner of her mouth, each darker than the last until they turned purple and mauve from bleeding under their skin for too long after getting hit so hard by Lauren's baseball bat.

Emilia felt sick again when she remembered what happened earlier in their lives. Lauren had always resented Emilia for embarrassing her during elementary school. Lauren had a medical issue that caused her to get sick whenever they had P.E. activities involving swimming. Because of this, Lauren was often excluded from certain events while everyone else carried on. This made her hate being around anyone who knew her secret, and her resentment toward Emilia grew.

Lauren only allowed Emilia to be close to her because she used to be able to swim with everyone else during P.E., but now things have changed. Eleven years later, their relationship had deteriorated significantly, culminating in this violent act of revenge.

Emilia continued crying until someone woke up downstairs and called out upstairs loudly, asking, "Who is making all that noise?" When nobody responded except another person shouting angrily, "Shut up! You're gonna wake everybody up!", Emilia sobbed even harder. She could hear footsteps coming towards her, climbing the stairs in the direction of her bedroom. Nervously, she wondered what would happen when the person discovered her, standing against the banister with tear-streaked cheeks and a heavily bandaged head.