Dear Ally

The month before it started, a girl at our school killed herself. I had hoped that would be the end of it, but then one Sunday I got an e-mail from an address I didn’t recognize. I was curious and opened it and started reading.

The e-mail was signed by that student, Leah, the one who had died just the month before. At first, I was skeptical; I didn’t believe my eyes. But sure enough, attached to the e-mail were three video files, just as she had said. I didn’t even need to open them; I already knew what they contained just from the little preview thumbnails. That night, I went to bed with a heavy feeling in my stomach, like a ball of lead. I didn’t want these video to be leaked to anyone. I couldn’t have them leaked. But what if it was all fake? Leah was dead now, after all. Still, whoever it was, they did have the videos. I barely slept that night.

Monday morning, while on my way to school, I got another e-mail. After making it to the classroom, I hid my phone under the table and read it.

I swallowed hard. It was signed with her name again. What if she had scheduled these e-mails to be sent out at specific times, had prepared them before she died. Then there wouldn’t be any harm in not doing this challenge, wouldn’t it? No way for her to hurt me if I didn’t? But then again, what if there really was some elaborate mechanism that would leak these videos in case I did not. It was just an earthworm, I thought.

That day, I barely paid attention in class. When we were walking home together after school, Zoe, my best friend, even asked me if everything was alright, that I looked a bit sick. I told her that I was fine and that I was just feeling a bit dizzy. It wasn’t a complete lie. I can’t say that I was looking forward to the challenge, but it was more than that. I felt trapped somehow.

That afternoon, I went into our garden and picked up an earthworm. It had rained the night before and the soil was still wet, so there were plenty to choose from. I chose the smallest I could find, but it was still almost three inches long, squirming and writhing on the damp soil. I picked it up and put it in a paper cup to carry it inside.

I sat down on my bed with my laptop open and turned the camera on. My mouth was dry and I couldn’t swallow. I looked directly into the little lens and showed the earthworm wriggling in its cup to the camera’s eye. Then I put it up to my lips and froze. A musty, earthy smell came from the cup and I could even hear the worm quietly thrashing against the walls of its paper prison. My eyes started burning. I pinched my nose and threw the cup’s contents into my mouth. I made the big mistake of chewing, since I couldn’t bear the thought of a live worm writhing in my stomach, but with the first bite it burst, leaking bitter bile all throughout my mouth. It felt like chewing a rotten rubber band. I swallowed it quickly and showed my empty mouth to the camera before turning the recording off. I threw it all up into the toilet afterwards and brushed my teeth three times, but the taste wouldn’t go away.

The next morning, I got another e-mail, having sent the video the night before. This one was short.

* * *

Next Monday, I heard again from Leah. I dreaded opening the e-mail in school and so I waited until I got home again to read it, though that didn’t save me from feeling ill with anticipation all day.

Compared to the earthworm, it sounded less viscerally bad, but I knew it was going to be humiliating, even if it was anonymous. That night, I tossed and turned in bed, but couldn’t sleep. The next day, Zoe asked me if I wasn’t actually sick. I told her I’d just slept badly the past few nights. I told her not to worry about me.

After school, I went into a stationery shop. They had so many types of paper and I knew nothing about the subject, so I asked an employee, if they had pretty paper for a love letter. “Oh, are you writing to your crush? That’s wonderful, we have some really fine paper right here.” I paid for a sheet of thick cherry blossom-pink paper and he wrapped it up in some parchment paper for me. “Young love is wonderful, isn’t it,” he said while ringing me up. “He must be one lucky boy.”

That evening I wrote the letter, carefully trying to steady my trembling hand. The next morning I went to school extra early and after posting the letter, I hid in the girls’ restroom until the bell rang. We had chemistry class first thing in the morning, but the smell of burning chemicals made me sick and I had to go back to the restroom just to throw up. I must have looked really pale, because when I came back, Zoe tried to hug me. I gently pushed her away, telling her that I thought I might be developing a cold. Half the class was sick at that time, so it wasn’t too far-fetched.

During the mid-morning break, a huge crowd had gathered about the locker, fifty people or maybe even more. A guy from the year above us read the letter aloud to everyone in a mocking tone, so even the people in the back could get in on it. People laughed and found it icky. Even later that day, it was all anyone could talk about and people kept sending pictures of the letter around to others. The next morning, I got another e-mail.

* * *

I skipped school that day, just so I wouldn’t have to suffer through all those Monday classes while being a nervous wreck. I couldn’t bring myself to do it just yet and laid in bed all day, hugging my pillow and alternating between crying and staring at the wall while zoning out. I tried to reason with myself, but there was no way out for me now, not while she had those videos and the information that I wrote that letter. I hated myself for it, but I would have to do the challenge.

The next day, I woke up sick. I had a major headache and kept vomiting, even though I had barely eaten at all, so it was mostly just bile. I had already lied to my mom, telling her that I was sick the day before so I could skip, and now she thought I was getting seriously worse, but I tried to assuage her and told her that it was probably just from something I’d eaten.

I didn’t dare to do it while my parents were awake, so I waited till midnight to open up my laptop. I placed it at the foot of my bed and filmed myself. The next morning, I proceeded just like with the letter, shoving the thin piece of clothing through the slit at the top of the locker’s door. After that, I ran home and cried some more.

* * *

Most of the weekend I spent in bed, shaking with dread, and throughout Sunday night I kept staring at the clock counting down to morning, for I knew that at 7 o’clock sharp I would get the next e-mail. I turned off my phone and shut my laptop; I didn’t want to see it, didn’t even want to think about it. But there was nothing I could have done. I dragged myself through a miserable day at school. Before classes started, one of the teachers pulled me aside to ask me if I was doing fine and if everything was alright at home. He told me that a student had told him they were worried about me. Zoe barely talked to me throughout the day, not even looking me in the eyes when she did, but even without those signs of guilt, I knew it was her. She was the only one that cared about me.

That night, I opened my laptop, though filled with reluctance, and read the newest e-mail.

The next day, I went to school. I didn’t feel sick anymore. I felt a weird kind of elation, just like when you’ve stayed up all night and can see the sun climb above the horizon and suddenly you don’t even feel tired anymore, nor awake, but just there, in the moment. We didn’t have to switch rooms between fourth and fifth period, so everyone left their stuff lying around. I waited until everyone had left, then snuck back into the classroom. I tried looking for something suitable, but all I could find was a half-drunk water bottle. I shoved it under my sweater and went to the restrooms on the second floor, which were practically empty during lunch break. I went into a stall, dropped my pants and shoved the head of the bottle inside of me. I felt nothing, except for the plastic bottle cap rubbing up against my insides as I did it. After I was done, I took a picture, my cheeks glistening wet, just like the top of the bottle. I had barely had enough time to put it back and sneak out of the room again, when the bell rang and everyone filed back in.

* * *

The final challenge, that’s what I was promised and that’s what I clung to for hope. One final humiliation and it would all be over and I could finally find rest again. I had barely felt anything since the last challenge, neither a headache nor that sinking feeling in my stomach that had accompanied me for the past few weeks; I only felt numb. So, when Monday came around, I had already made my peace with whatever it was that I would have to do.

I sobbed into my pillow until I couldn’t breathe through it anymore, then screamed into the wet fabric and the clumps of sticky down feathers and kicked my legs until they hurt and gave up. I knew that my parents would be out Thursday evening, so I planned to do it then, so that I would have the whole house to myself with no one unexpectedly knocking on the door. I spent a dreadful week until then. Zoe barely talked to me anymore and I cannot blame her because I avoided her too.

Thursday, I spent the whole afternoon in my room, studying, as I had told my parents. That evening, they went out, told me there was food for me in the fridge and that they’d be back around midnight. I heard the lock snap into place; it sounded like the blade of the guillotine hitting the wood beneath my neck.

I went into the bathroom and took one of my dad’s unused razor blade from the cabinet. I unwrapped it and held it up to my eyes to look at it. Shining stainless steel. Then I took off my pants and sat down on the edge of the bathtub. I couldn’t steady my breathing; my hands shook. I hovered the blade close to my skin, forcing myself to do it and failing, when I trembled and accidentally nicked my leg. A sharp sensation shot through my leg up into my spine and after a second or two, a tiny red dot appeared where I had pricked myself. There was no turning back now. I set the blade onto the skin of my leg and began to carve in big bold letters that name that spelled my doom. As I dragged the razor blade across my skin in painful cuts, it tore open white gashes that slowly filled with blood, collecting in little droplets, a necklace of pearls as red as rubies, until they spilt and trailed in rippling streaks down my leg and onto the cold floor where they mixed with my own tears into one blotchy reddish puddle. I tried to take a picture, but I could not even check to see what it looked like through that hazy veil before my eyes. I bathed myself and it burned as I lowered myself into the water, clotted blood like dead rose petals rising from my wounded leg, and I knew I deserved every second of that pain. When my parents came home well after midnight, I still sensed them open the door to check in on me, though I pretended to be asleep, lying there, bandaged under my pink pajama and buried among my stuffed animals, forever dirty, bloodied and damaged.

* * *

It was Friday morning. She had leaked all of it. Of course she had. I knew it for certain as soon as I entered the main hallway and everyone’s heads turned to look at me. I didn’t make it two steps before they started hurling words at me. “What is wrong with you?” “You’re sick.” “Disgusting.” “Psycho.” I didn’t even try to hold back my tears as I went straight to our classroom. The whole class was already there. In their midst stood Zoe, tears of hatred and humiliation flowing down her cheeks. “I thought we were friends,” she said. “But you’re just some fucking perverted freak. You’re a freak.” I ran crying from the room and hid in a bathroom stall.

My phone vibrated and I saw another e-mail. I tried to read it through tears and convulsions.

I haven’t locked the bathroom stall behind me; I know they’ll get my body out sooner or later anyway. I just hope the razor blade is still sharp enough.