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Genre: Drama/Romance, Magical Realism
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By the end, I had found out that I was in love with my childhood best friend, Darryl. The first time I felt, it became the end. Everything was so easy when we weren’t trying to be lovers, merely kids who cared about one another and had occasional hot moments. I remember being on that stage so happy yet sad. Happy that I’d grow up with Darryl forever, that time was infinite so I could tell him how I feel. Sad because I felt insecure about how I’d be able to conquer the world.  
Everything was perfect. Life was wonderful.
Until I left the auditorium, and I bumped into his mom. Tears strained her face, and I wondered what was ailing her so much. It kinda scared me. She hugs me tight and then, looks me straight in the eyes.
“Darryl was murdered.”
Everything went black. I remember nothing after this point absolutely. I just remember seeing headlights. Dad’s Ford Expedition. Darkness was everywhere, so I hopped into the car, where I thought I find peace. Wrong. I gasp.
I’m taken aback by the creepy white mask and his red shirt. Well, I thought it was just red. Turns it was a white shirt with…blood.
“Dad, what is going on?” I ask.
“Diana, the world is ours. We are free,” he says.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“To a perfect place. You’ll see.”
“Okay,” I say calmly, not really understanding. Completely out of it.
By this point, we were trailing off Susan Lane. Dark it was too much, I was scared like all the times I imagined that big spider talking with me outside my door. Half the door was missing. Or the time I imagined Diddy and Dixie growing and morphing into monsters. I was always scared. Since I’ve known Darryl since birth, I requested that he stay over to hold me. He couldn’t always stay. But when he could, it was so special. There were glowing stars in my room, and we’d try to count them all. But we’d always fall asleep.  
We reach the red and blue road leading to our highschool. A light is always there at the end, like at the end of the tunnel. And that’s when I notice a wizard figure waving his hand casting a spell on my dad. I recognize the thin arm and hand. It’s Darryl’s. He’s here, but what’s he up to?  
I don’t look at him too much, just focus on the road ahead of me. I’m strangely calm, although it’s black, the road. Nothing is said. Everything is dead quiet. Even the radio isn’t on.
We end up at Memorial Hermann, the hospital Darryl and I were born in. Strangely, the hospital is now named Darryl. The car stops, and I don’t even get out. It disappears. But now, Darryl and I are running away, holding hands. We are going inside. It’s nothing like Memorial Hermann. A totally different place. I can’t even describe it because we’re running so quickly. Someone is following us, but I can’t see them. I feel Shadow and Maria running before the inevitable doom. The inevitable parting. But Darryl and I are still holding hands when we reach this other hospital called Rose. We eventually reach a room called Margaret Rose. My mother.
1
A fairly narrow hallway, mirrors everywhere. We reach a mirror, and my mom’s in it. I don’t know what’s going on, but Darryl says something to me telepathically.
Don’t show sympathy. Don’t say a word. She’ll manipulate her with you.
Suddenly, a surge of fear rises up out of my body and my mind. My thoughts that were like a spiritual lender to my mom. I see it in the third eye. My mom is in the first room. I feel the fear and anxiety raging through her entire being. I feel her entire soul exploding more and more. She’s one step away from being obliterating. And strangely, I feel this entire purification and cleansing. But my mother is feeling more and more tight. She almost can’t take it anymore.  
In this room, a tennis ball drops, and my mom is screeching with utter most anger and hatred I’ve always seen from her.  She had always screamed and yelled at me as if I was a mistake and I could never do right. In this room, the mirrors on the walls crack. My mom is belching, she is seething. She can’t take it anymore. She screams what has she always felt for me.
“YOU STUPID UGLY BITCH, DIANA. I HAD EVERYTHING BEFORE YOU WERE BORN! YOU ARE SO STUPID! YOU THINK YOU CAN AWAY WITH THIS! YOU STOLE MY TENNIS BALLS, MY CLOTHES, MY SHOES! I JUST WANTED YOU OUT OF THE HOUSE! DARRY WAS A NUISANCE! ME AND YOUR FATHER WERE HAPPIER WITHOUT YOU!”
She slaps her mouth, bubbling like she’s completely ashamed. But she can’t fake it any longer! She tries to bluff to cover her evil misdeeds. I see them clearly now.
There’s a police officer at the door to the next room.
“License and registration please,” the officer stated.
“What?” my mom says in a small voice, acting innocent. She has always acted as though she can’t hear people. But really it’s a cover up, so she isn’t obligated to care.
“LICENSE AND REGISTRATION PLEASE!”
“Oh okay,” my mom says calmly, but I know what’s coming next.
“Okay, thank you,” the officer says, “Take a seat in the next room.”
She does so, but then, there’s a projector showing in front of her…everything. All her evildoer deeds. The times she hit me as kid, pretend choked me over sunglasses, sedated me to sleep with medicine, whipped me with a belt, thrown shoes at me. I was never safe. God was to condemn her.
She’s in real fear now.
Third and final room. A speaker reports loud so my mom can’t fake ear loss. “Report. Report. Report. Arrest her.”
“What…?” my mom is asking, but now she knows what is to come. Her fate.
And there is no excuse.
Jesus Christ handcuffs her, and my mom looks like as big eyed as Klobber, my childhood nightmare. God silences her and freezes her from moving.
“It is I God, your creator. The highest of Heavens. The highest of Earth. The highest of all nature and beauty. I pronounce to be GUILTY under Bible Law. We shall destroy you, mortal.”
My mom now starts begging. God is not having it.
“But BUT YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME! DIANA AND THEIR STUPID BOYFRIEND OF HERS HAD MORE CHEMISTRY THAN I EVER. SHE ALWAYS HAD EVERYTHING I DIDN’T! WHY DON’T YOU KILL HER? AFTER ALL, SHE KILLED HERSELF. KILLING HERSELF IS A SIN. AND I DID SO MUCH FOR DIANA. I FED HER, CLOTHED HER, BOUGHT HER TOYS. WHAT MORE CAN YOU ASK FOR? IT’S NOT FAIR! IT’S NOT FAIR!!!!!!!!!!!”
HER ENTIRE BODY, MIND, AND SOUL FEELS IT ALL CRACKING, SHE’S MADE OF GLASS NOW. AN IMAGE OF PERFECTION, NO AUTHENTICITY.
She screams and screams until all of her destroyed. She a now a baby with cartoon black eyes, a white headdress, and a diaper. Paper thin black smile. She gets transported to a game that preaches louder and louder. “DARRYL COULD NEVER LOVE YOU. DARRYL COULD NEVER LOVE YOU.” OVER AND OVER.
My mom keeps claiming she’s an innocent baby, and that she doesn’t deserve punishment. But Darryl stabs her a million times with a sword until nothing is left of her. She’s gone. She could never hurt me.
I stand innocent.
Bright light fills the room, and now, we enter a room called Angel Light Rose.
2
It’s my sister. She has dark hair just like me. She has the perfect figure that I had always wanted. Slim thick toned body. In this singular room, there are mirrors on all walls. Even the floor had a mirror. The floor moved up, the walls caved in. She was getting crushed by her own vanity.
I was more than relieved when she got destroyed.
3
Final place. Richard Rose. My father.
It seems as the rooms blended in with one another. I was stepping in blood all the way through. Until I made all the way to the end.
“I kill him, Diana. We can finally be together. Like I had always planned.” He smiles like a clown. A scary clown. I felt frozen. I felt glued to the floor. I can’t move.
Until I scream, “DARRYL!”
“Diana, no!!!”
I run. I run fast like Speedy Gonalez. All the memories. The ones of telling my father that I loved Darryl and to keep a secret. The one of my father telling Darryl and manipulating him to get him to a private place to shoot him with several bullets. One in the heart, one in the face, one in the legs, one in the arms, one in his privates. It’s racing with me, trying to eating me alive.
I manage to get out. The white hospital seals the door as if it locks my father from ever getting out. He is destroyed by a bright bright light. The happiness Darryl and I will be having soon.
In Heaven.
4
There’s a girl outside waiting for me. Black long, long hair. Bangs in the front as if she’s hiding something. Body like mine but a bit bigger. Small chested, cute bloated belly, and curves. She has an important message for me.
“Diana, hurry. There isn’t much time. There is only one way to truly prove God’s existence, and it’s through you. You must prove to everyone what they have done, their treachery. My cat Syshin will guide you the way home. It’s a scary path. Darryl’s at your house waiting. It will be the shortest yet longest trip of your life.
As the journey continues and I follow Syshin the Shadowy Black Cat, I realize it more and more. That it was predestined from the start. We always were, and we always have been.
Darryl and I are the modern Adam and Eve. Player 1 and Player 2. He’s Player 1. I’m…Player 2. We have the rarest of loves in existence. A love that is shaky and insecure, yet so intricate and beautiful.
It was easier when we were friends.
There is no marriage in Heaven.
“Darryl and Diana, you are saved. Welcome home.”
I cried uncontrollably, trying to run away from him. I was blind sighted by my tears. I kept running and running, crying harder and harder.
NO ONE LOVED ME, NO ONE EVER LOVED ME.
I AM WORTHLESS.
A voice broke through the night sky so loud that it turned to day. I know where it all truly started.
A boy named J. Darryl is my future. J is my past. A fake. And my name…is that girl. That black headed girl.
Alia.
Princess Alia.
Princess of the Earth.
…And Prince of the Earth.
God’s chosens.
The only ones who could see beyond.
God has a special place for us that we can access at any time. A place where there are no cell phones, no TV, no internet, nothing to distract us from each other. For us to work through everything, even with the biggest cries of both joy and fear.
It ends here in my neighborhood on Nancy Lane.
But this time, there is no pain, just a forever knowing of each other.
Naked and unashamed.