Author: Anzu_Tells
Some secrets are buried deeper than the grave
Part I: The Name in the Crowd
I’m among my friends at a lively bar, drinking beer and cackling over inside jokes when Damian—certified attention-seeker of the group, always has been since all of us were kids—speaks up for another joke.
”Remember Daniel?” he says, looking as if his joke would be the star of tonight’s hangout.
Almost instantly, however, everyone freezes. My best friend, Skye, stiffens on my arm as I look around the table at everyone’s horrified faces. I notice all of them avoiding my gaze. I think, Why? Who is this Daniel?
Noticing everyone’s displeasure at his question, Damian tries back-pedaling, but I interrupt his weak diversion tactic: “Who’s Daniel?” I question.
It seems, by everyone’s faces at my question, as if I had inquired of all of them at once. Skye sharply tugs my jacket sleeve as a warning to stop myself from digging deeper into the hole, and maybe I would’ve if someone told me about this mystery Daniel, but no one, not even Skye herself, is answering me.
I eventually snap and stand up to leave, saying, “Suit yourselves. I’ll find out with or without your help. Why is it that you guys always seem to count me out on your secrets?”
Skye jumps up to clasp at my arm, looking at me with a mix of decade-old affection and… is that sympathy? No, that’s not it.
”It’s not like that, Ace, and you know that,” Skye says, lying through her teeth.
”Oh yeah? Then why aren’t any of you telling me who ‘Daniel’ is?” I retort, frustration at being left out washing over me like an old friend. Skye remains silent as I pull myself away towards the exit.
That was answer enough, wasn’t it? I think to myself as I step into the chill breeze of the night air, pulling my jacket tighter around me. It’s always been like this for the last three years—it’s always like everyone is hiding something from me. Something I feel like I should know, something they pity me for.
I halt in my tracks when I see, from the corner of my eye, the shadow of a boy. Maybe nine years old or younger from the height I can see, he is standing in the chilly air like a statue, just beyond the dim light of the yellow streetlamps. Just as I turn to properly face him and ask why he’s here alone at night where anything could happen, he disappears. I strain my eyes to look where he might’ve run away to, but I see nothing but the familiar quiet streets of Mayfair. It’s not unusual for mischievous kids to sneak out at night, but it does seem rather odd for it to be at almost midnight on a school night. Regardless of the oddity, I wouldn’t call it particularly safe in today’s day and time.
It’s well past midnight as I settle into the comfort of my bed. I pick up my phone, purely out of habit, and notice the multitude of messages from my friends, all apologetic but none offering to clear the air. I decide to ignore them until I cool down when one message from Skye catches my eye. It says: “I’ll be out of town for the month for my brother’s wedding. If you still want to know about Daniel when I come back, I’ll tell you all I know.”
The message in itself was cryptic at best, but it isn’t that that is making me want to call her up and learn about it now—it’s the fact that Skye, the person who can’t hide what she ate for breakfast around me, can wait a full month to tell me something that is so obviously a well-kept secret between the group. I don’t reply to her message. I don’t have to. If Skye offered to tell me the secret, she knew I’d want to know it enough to wait. I put my phone away and go to sleep.
Part II: An Insult to Logic
I wake up at dawn the next day, feeling irritated by the sheer existence of life near me. For reasons unknown to me, I had spent the whole night unable to sleep, tossing and turning the entire time. Maybe it’s curiosity that kept me up, I think. Maybe I should call Skye and just ask her about the whole Daniel thing. But I can’t. I can’t let her know how out of touch I’ve been feeling in my own life lately. Eventually, my pride wins and I decide to wait until she comes back for the grand revelation of the great secret.
I’m at the kitchen counter, trying to down a cup of coffee that tastes like gravel, when I spot the third wooden door that shouldn’t be there. I put my cup down and rub my eyes. Maybe I’m hallucinating from the lack of sleep, but no—when I open my eyes again, the door is still there, completely out of place in a two-bedroom apartment. I abandon the counter to test the door. I walk to it, convinced I’m going crazy, but when my knuckles touch the surface, it’s not bricks they come into contact with—it’s wood.
I snap my hand back and take a few steps back, blinking rapidly as if that would make it disappear. It didn’t. It stayed like an insult to logic. I did my best to convince myself that it’s just my exhausted brain playing tricks on me and avoid looking at the door as I pass it to go to work.
It’s evening when I come back home with Kenny, the guy whose desk is beside mine at work, having convinced him to check out my “haunted” apartment. I’m aware that I might be setting a trap for him to start an undying joke about me being delusional, but I needed someone else to tell me if that door existed or not, and I wasn’t about to go to my friends, knowing how little they trusted me. Kenny looks delighted having gotten the chance to humiliate me, and I’m almost certain I’m signing over my rights to dignity to him, but what other choice do I have?
It’s almost as if my worst—or best—belief comes to life when we walk up to the wall where the third door was and find the wall deprived of anything wooden, much less a door. A mixed sigh of both relief and embarrassment escapes me as Kenny turns slightly to face me, barely holding back a snicker.
”What was that about a third door, Carter?” Kenny remarks, smug as a bear having found honey where he was promised.
I give him a sheepish smile as I say, “It doesn’t exist, just as you said."
"You bet it doesn’t. Better mind your sleep from now if you don’t want to end up crazy by next week,” he concludes, as I wince a little from the comment’s sting.
I bid him goodbye after a good many not-so-subtle jabs at my so-called non-existent sanity. As soon as he leaves, my smile drops as I groan internally about the damage I had voluntarily let my pride take.
I’m almost at the door of my bedroom when I hear something. A light knock, maybe. I stop in my tracks and hold my breath for a second as the knock registers as a knock made on wood. I turn, and my heart almost drops to my stomach when I see that door again. I tighten my jaw and clench my fists as I approach the door. Maybe I was imagining things. Maybe I was going insane from having to live with this unwavering sense of missing something and not knowing what. Maybe I was all that, but what I’m not is a coward, and if all this is true, then I’ll face it head-on.
I force my trembling hand to grab the doorknob and turn it. It’s locked. Just great. Not only am I imagining it, but now it’s locked too? It’s like even my brain creates problems I can’t solve. I let go of the knob and kick the door out of frustration. As I step back from the door, breathing heavily, I feel a dull sense of twisted satisfaction at least having tried to face my problems.
Part III: The Strings That Pull
A fortnight later, it’s evening—the sun having retired an hour back—when I enter my apartment. I’m somehow more drained than usual. I keep seeing the boy from that night everywhere I go. Whether it’s across the street, on the subway, outside my workplace, in the reflection of a shop window, sitting at a restaurant table, or even at the end of my apartment hallway. I’m convinced it’s my imagination at this point. Every time I see him, it’s never enough to memorize his features before he either disappears or runs away. I did try running after him, but that somehow always ended up in people laughing at me for chasing a ghost, and so I eventually stopped. But from what I have seen… he seems oddly familiar, like a memory I know I have but can’t truly place. It has stolen my sleep and any remaining sense of peace. Now I can’t walk more than a few feet without feeling something crawling up the length of my spine—not fear exactly, but the instinctive certainty that I was being watched.
I barely close the front door when I hear it. A voice. A young boy’s. My bag slips from where I had slung it over my shoulder as I turn around—fast enough to get whiplash, but not enough to distinguish the cold prickles on my back—to look at the door that couldn’t be seen by anyone other than me. The past two weeks I’ve done my best not to look at it; the only thing looking at it got me was more restlessness. But now, I can’t take my eyes away. I close the distance between the door and myself until I can clearly hear what the voice is trying to say.
”Why didn’t you help me? Why did you leave?” the childish voice, now slightly distorted, says before going out completely.
I stand, fully paralyzed like having invisible strings pulling tightly at my joints, as the sentence keeps repeating itself in my head over and over, looking for a memory that doesn’t seem to exist. I step back from the door as soon as the metaphorical strings let me, clutching at my head to get the repetition to stop. It doesn’t work. I debate calling someone—anyone—but everyone I think of gets crossed out as an option as fast as they come. Not my family—they’d worry about me losing my mind. Not my friends—who’d say this is why they never trusted me. Not Skye—who wasn’t in town anyway. Not a single person else who’d genuinely believe me.
Only when my vision starts tunneling does the repetition stop. I plop down on the floor and take deep breaths to calm myself. The sudden quiet in my head is stark against the loud insistence of the repetition. It’s like the sun peeking after what seemed like a never-ending storm, and I welcome it with open arms.
I didn’t sleep a wink that night or the night after, but I didn’t have the willpower to get up either. I told myself it’s the weekend and no one will care if I stay in the safety of my bed, and just as I’m close to having convinced myself to turn into a hermit, the bell rings. I jump—well, as much as one can lying in bed—before reluctantly standing up to answer the door.
I open the door to find my friends. Damian, Julian, Maria, and Alissa. Huh, so they finally remembered I exist, I think. I stand in the doorway, blocking the doorframe with my body as I look at them with the most uninterested, cold look I could muster. It probably isn’t much considering the fact that I look like a mess who’s been living in a dump, with deep shadows under my eyes.
”Came here to hide secrets from me again?” I ask in a tone so sharp that it surprises even myself, and even more so my friends, who look like puppies having been kicked for showing affection. Maybe that’s what they think they are now, but they don’t know that I no longer possess the sanity to be either logical or kind.
”You haven’t answered any calls or texts for over two weeks, Ace,” says soft-hearted Maria with an awkward yet gentle smile.
I don’t smile back. If they think they can just undo everything that began with Damian’s slip of the tongue, then maybe they don’t know me at all.
”Thanks for stating the obvious, Maria. Is that why all of you are here, to state the obvious of me overreacting?” I say with sarcasm so sharp it cuts through the tense air, making Maria and the others look away.
”Ace, don’t do this to yourself. You look like a ghost. Don’t worsen things by isolating yourself further,” says Julian sharply.
”You guys think you know everything, huh?” I say.
My head feels dizzy and I’m starting to lose my balance, but I refuse to show weakness in front of them. I force myself to stand upright, but Alissa’s perceptive eyes never miss much as she snaps: “Stop it, Ace! Don’t you see what your actions are doing to you?!”
My actions, I think. What have I done so wrong for all this to have unfolded? Am I not worthy of peace or happiness?
My body finally gives out from sleep deprivation and malnutrition from not being able to swallow food. My knees give way as I topple forward face-first, eyes closing into a sleep that doesn’t provide any true rest.
Part IV: The Weight of Memory
I wake up in the familiar softness of my bed… with the addition of all my so-called friends in my room. I adjust my eyes to the afternoon sunlight before forcing my eyes to glare at them, but it’s a half-hearted effort from the sheer weight of exhaustion. A stinging slap at the back of my head makes me groan a little too loudly for what seems to be a light enough slap.
”You wake up from fainting from pure self-sabotage, and your first instinct is to glare at the same friends who took care of you? When did you turn into such an ungrateful brat?” says a voice I know all too well. Skye.
I close my eyes for a brief second before turning my head to face her. “How are you back so early?” I ask her, completely ignoring her rather rude comment.
Skye only glares back at me in response as Damian snickers in the back. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Julian barely holding back a smirk and Alissa biting her tongue to prevent herself from howling outright. Only Maria has the decency to look neutral and explain.
”Julian called her after we got you in bed, said she’s the only person who can bring you back to your wits,” starts Maria.
But Damian cuts in with: “And Skye drove back to town the moment she heard about it. The romance is heartwarming, really.”
At that, Alissa finally bursts out cackling like a hyena. Julian kicks Damian, but both of them are smirking. Skye’s glare is now distributed between all of us equally, except for Maria, who seems to have taken Skye’s job to look flustered.
This is more like it… it’s always been more us, the us back when I hadn’t gone MIA. The thought is like a bucket of ice-cold water dumping onto my head, taking my smile along with the brief warmth of our friendship.
Everyone notices the return of the tension as soon as my small smile drops. Skye finally drops her glare and turns to me with the most dangerous expression she can: the concerned best friend who’s been worried over my antics for over a decade.
”Don’t look at me like that, Skye. You know it’s my weakness, and it’s not fair that you always use that card to get information out of me,” I say, looking at the flower pattern of the comforter instead of her eyes. I’m safe from spilling my guts to Skye as long as I don’t talk to her, and that’s exactly what I plan to do. I’m not going to make her leave me, afraid of the belief that I was losing it.
”Get out, guys,” says Skye calmly to the others.
They don’t even hesitate before leaving us alone in the room, closing the door behind them as they do. It’s always like this, I think with a sudden jolt. Every time something happens to me, everyone expects Skye to fix it.
Skye sits down on the bed beside me, putting a few safe inches between us. I don’t look at her understanding, deep brown eyes. I know I’ll tell her everything if I do so, and I won’t. Can’t. She came halfway through her only brother’s wedding for me. How much more will I owe her? How much more will I dump on her? How much can she take before leaving me? The thoughts sound like a death sentence even inside my head, but I’d rather keep her in the dark if it means she won’t have to worry about my sanity.
”Don’t you want to know about Daniel?” says Skye gently, interrupting my thoughts.
The suddenness of it makes my head snap to her. Skye’s brown eyes meet my gray ones, but unlike the surprise in my eyes, in hers is crushing heartbreak. The look of pain in her eyes makes my breath catch for a second, but she hides it away as fast as it comes—enough to make me question if I imagined it too. She gives a small smile before standing up. My hand instinctively reaches up to pull her back before I snap it back into my lap.
Skye doesn’t seem to have noticed that as she reaches into her scrappy backpack and pulls out a small bundle of newspaper clippings. Skye comes back to sit where she was sitting before, taking a sharp inhale and giving me the bundle. Her eyes stay on mine as her fingers linger just a second too long against mine upon handing the clippings over before pulling back.
I look down at the bundle and pretend not to notice it while actively hiding the flutter of warmth the touch had awakened. All warmth disappears the moment I read the heading of the first clipping:
“9-year-old boy found dead in the morning after the most brutal storm the city has ever seen.”
And that apparently wasn’t enough, for the photograph of the boy that followed made my head spin. It was the same boy that seemed to appear everywhere I went but was invisible to everyone else. Like everything involving work recently, I force myself to read on.
The boy’s name was… Daniel Mercer. Born of French descent, he had been the only child of two hardworking immigrant construction workers. His death had come as a shock to both the authorities and his parents. Upon looking further into his forensic report, the case being over 13 years old, the police deemed it a murder, but the lack of evidence left the family without the justice of putting the person behind their sweet young son’s immature demise behind bars.
I couldn’t finish the clippings; the first one alone made breathing hard for me. Suddenly, the papers slip from my now-sweaty hands as memories hit my brain like one tidal wave after another. The pain is exhilarating, but the memories are worse. I clutch my head as fragments of the memory my brain had forcefully forgotten come back:
A storm with lightning and thunder. A rooftop. Our friend group of six as ten-year-olds. An argument with another boy that quickly escalated into a physical fight. A half-constructed staircase out in the open pouring rain. A shove. The boy begging for help. Skye running toward him. Everyone else, including me, pulling her away from the bleeding boy.
The truth was clear as day even if the memory wasn’t. I gasp as the realization hits like a gut punch. Guilty tears run down my cheeks as the memories keep playing over and over.
”Skye. Skye. What have I done?” I cry out.
She doesn’t answer. She just closes the distance and holds me in the tightest embrace I’ve ever known. The comfort and safety in her hug make the tears flow much more quickly. I mumble apologies I know don’t matter. How will they after what I’ve done? They never can.
”ACE!” a voice shouts once, but it’s far away, almost like it’s coming from underwater.
As soon as it does, though, Skye pulls back and cups my face. Her eyes hold mine as her thumbs brush away my tears with care that threatens to bring another round of tears from the sheer weight of how much I didn’t deserve this.
”It wasn’t your fault, no matter what anyone else says. Promise me you believe my words,” Skye whispers in a voice so fragile it makes my chest tighten, but I can’t make her the promise she wants me to. I can’t, because for the first time in my 24 years of life, I don’t believe her, and I wouldn’t lie to her—she deserves better than that.
I’m sorry, Skye. I’m so sorry, I think, just as I close my eyes and press my forehead to hers in apology.
”ACE CARTER!” the voice from before shouts again, louder this time, as if closer. But both of us ignore it.
I don’t open my eyes as I feel Skye’s hands fall from my face and pull away. I don’t open my eyes when I feel her warmth leave me. I don’t open my eyes when I hear the door opening and her leaving.
Wait, she’s leaving? The thought breaks through my momentary peace as my eyes fly open. No, no. No, no, no, no, no. This is exactly what I knew would happen if I told her about everything that has happened to me since the bar argument, I think as my chest tightens around my heart, making it hard to breathe.
Part V: Purgatory on the Fourth Floor
My legs sway dangerously as I force myself out of bed and out the bedroom door… only to collide with my older sister, Chloe.
”Ace! Where have you been? I’ve been calling your phone for weeks and I’ve been shouting your name for a while now,” says Chloe.
So, it had been her shouting that took Skye away? The realization fuels my panic with white-hot anger as I shove her away. “Where’s Skye?” I snarl.
Chloe doesn’t flinch; instead, she looks at me with a look so sympathetic that it breaks my anger… for now. I calm down enough to speak without turning violent. “How did you come here alone? I gave only Mom the address,” I ask, somehow without raging about Skye.
It’s starting to dawn on me that it might not have been entirely Chloe’s fault. If it was possible for Chloe’s sympathy to deepen, it did, and I hated it. I hated being pitied, much more for a reason seemingly everyone except me knew.
”Ace,” Chloe starts, her voice much softer now, “Mom hasn’t been around for almost a year before you leased this apartment.”
My mind goes blank for a second. What is Chloe rambling about? Mom’s around, I know she is. I clearly remember her visiting the apartment and scolding me for not finding a partner that very day in this very apartment.
”Did you lose your mind or what?” I say to Chloe, mad at her once more.
”It’s not me who’s insane,” says Chloe, just as gentle as before, if not more.
Just as I open my mouth to argue, Chloe holds up a hand and walks back into my bedroom. She comes back just a few moments later with the newspaper clippings in hand. My heart drops into my stomach and I want the ground to swallow me whole. I turn pale as Chloe walks up to me and offers me the papers. I don’t take them. I can’t make myself read them again.
”I know what’s on them,” I reveal quietly, head down out of shame.
”You saw the first page, not all. The story doesn’t end with Daniel,” says Chloe, her tone a weird combination of both scolding and sad. It throws me off, to put it lightly.
I reluctantly take the papers again, flipping a few clippings to reach the middle. What I see inside shifts the ground beneath me. The article holds my name and my face from three years back… the title reads:
“A group of six young adults found dead in a car crash near a cliffside. Investigations doubt it was simply an accident, yet evidence remains insufficient to solidify claims about the vehicle being tampered with. Local citizens believe the crash was orchestrated by vengeful spirits."
"What is all this, Chloe? I can’t… I can’t make sense of it,” I choke out as tears threaten to overwhelm me once more.
Chloe doesn’t reply immediately. Instead, she gently takes the clippings away from me and tosses them on the couch behind her. “That’s the thing, Ace. This has gone far beyond sense and logic."
"What does that even mean? Stop being so cryptic and tell me what all this is!” I snap, white-hot rage offering to take captive what little composure I have.
Chloe shakes her head with a small, affectionate smile—the kind I haven’t seen for over four years after our massive argument. She says, “You’re still just as short-tempered as the last time I saw you.”
A miniature wave of reminiscence washes over me as images of our childhood together speed through my head like a bad quality movie on fast-forward: running whenever we got the chance, making blanket forts, stealing each other’s snacks, breaking toys just to get the other to cry, scraping knees but never complaining to see who’d break first, and lastly, constant rivalry to see who could win Mom’s time. But almost just as quickly, I remember the never-ending flow of hatred from both sides—the kind that breaks relationships faster than egos.
”Don’t change the topic. This isn’t about my habits,” I say, strict now.
”Or is it? Think Ace, think. Everything that’s happening is tied to you, to your mistakes,” says Chloe, her voice losing the accents of ‘loving older sister.‘
Rage surges through my veins, erasing whatever comfort the childhood memories had brought. I open my mouth to speak, to tell her that I wasn’t the reason why I left home, to tell her how much damage she had caused in my life—but the words die in my throat when the world suddenly starts spinning, everything turning into a glorious rotating spectrum of colors I couldn’t identify.
When the world eventually does come into focus, I see the 3D version of the photograph of the six deaths on the newspaper. My heart beats aggressively against my chest as I approach the car—my car—with a speed that could rival a turtle’s, but all I’m thinking about is whether what I’m seeing is real, if any of this is.
The wreck sits in the middle of the road, charred and twisted. The fire is gone now—probably has been for a good amount of time—leaving only wisps of smoke rising from the ruined hood. Everything is eerily quiet except for the occasional ticking of cooling metal.
I finally get close enough to see inside the melted glass, my restless heart longing to see not a single familiar face inside the wreck. Much to my horror, the first face I see is mine. Barely recognizable, but undeniably me. In the arms of my burnt corpse is Skye.
I inhale sharply, but couldn’t seem to exhale. How… how is this Skye? How is this me? How is this any of us? I just… I just saw them all not a few hours back, heard them talk, heard them laugh and joke… how can they just be dead? How can WE just be dead?
”You’re still not home,” a voice says.
But I know its owner now. Daniel Mercer. And so, I didn’t turn. Couldn’t, really. All I could focus on was looking at Skye’s corpse and remembering the last hug before Chloe came. How was it that I so vividly remembered her hug, her voice, her perfume… only to see her dead now? Logic is proving to be a disgrace over and over, isn’t it?
”You kept your promise,” I whisper to a dead Skye who’s not even here now, voice cracking. “You always said you wouldn’t let me die as long as you breathed."
"Who says you’re not dead?” says Daniel again, voice slightly impatient but still bearing the distorted sweetness I remembered from the whisper that had paralyzed me not 48 hours ago.
Tempus fugit, indeed.
”Me,” I say with confidence that didn’t come from self-belief, but from sheer delusion.
Daniel gives me a sweet, innocent smile—which I see from the corner of my eye since I can’t seem to be able to take my eyes off Skye’s half-burnt corpse—that contradicts the reality of the darkness in his dead eyes before vanishing into thin air right in front of me. I don’t even bother trying to act bothered or scared. My conflicting thoughts about my life in the past three years are undeniably taking first place in the race for priorities. Oddly, I think I should be genuinely used to it by now. The feeling of constantly feeling out of place is slowly turning into an old friend. I keep standing, staring at the wreck where the six burned dead bodies lie like if I stared enough, maybe it would disappear or never happen in the first place.
As I feel the familiar ground shifting beneath me, I briefly close my eyes for a quick prayer: May you be happy wherever you are, Skye. Maybe my prayer wouldn’t reach her, maybe it’s too late, maybe she deserves better… but with that mentality, the negative possibilities could be endless.
I try to focus on something else. The universe, or maybe just my fate, decides to make the world spin just then. I try to enjoy it this time, and frankly? It’s kind of nice when one gets over the fact he’d probably want to throw up his guts afterward.
This time, the world comes into focus right across the street from my apartment building. I look at the building once, then twice. Like everything in my life now, the building was far from what I had initially believed. I believed I lived on the fourth floor of this very red-bricked building, but this building… had only three floors.
Daniel’s voice comes from inside the building in the form of a shout, loud despite the distortion.
He shouts: “Are you coming home?!”