An Eternity of Eclipse

by Con Template

  Dawn tilted her head, her hair falling over the shoulders of her red dress. She didn’t believe me. “Do friends whisper sweet nothings in your ear when they drop you off at work?”

  I blushed, sitting uncomfortably in my chair while the four girls peered down at me like in one of those cop investigator shows. All I needed was for the lights to be dimmed and a lamp to be near me and we’d be set.

  “Well, tell us this much,” Ara compromised once she saw that I wasn’t willing to spill any beans, “is he picking you up after work? Are you guys hanging out this weekend?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly, my face reddening at all the attention I was getting, “but not in the way you would think.”

  It wasn’t like I had much of a choice in the matter. He was a Demon who was after my soul; he would never leave me alone.

  “She’s blushing!” Missy teased, giggling with Dawn and Ara. The only one who wasn’t laughing was Kina, but that was no surprise. She hated my existence, and I imagined that no matter how curious she was, she wasn’t going to stop being a snotty snob and show me some semblance of civility.

  “Guys, stop,” I told them. “It’s not like that.”

  “If it’s not like that, then you better make it like that!” Missy encouraged hotly, looking at me like I was crazy to let go of such good eye-candy. Her black hair, which had blonde streaks in it, danced over her black halter dress when she said this. “Eclipse is hot!”

  “He’s a bad influence though,” Dawn added briefly, clearly thinking back to Eclipse being the culprit who convinced DonKi to try and cheat with someone else’s girlfriend—a.k.a her.

  Ara waved a hand of dismissal. “DonKi had it in him. No offense Dawn, but I always knew your advisee was shady.”

  “Yeah,” Kina agreed at once, nonchalantly crossing her leg over the other. She was the only one out of the group who wore long black pants and a yellow off-the-shoulder top. “He was always such a goody two-shoes and he looked innocent, but he was always crushing on one of us. Just like his name, I knew there was something off about him. I’ve always had a hunch that one of these days, he was going to show his true shady colors.”

  I frowned upon being reminded of my failed prospective relationship with DonKi and his apparent “shady” disposition. I nodded in concurrence with the observation Kina made about him, hopeful that with this change in topic, the other three girls would go on a tangent and begin to talk about other things. To my dismay, Ara, Dawn, and Missy proved to be difficult interrogators to distract.

  “In any case,” Missy started, reverting her attention back to me. Curiosity continued to pour from her. “What’d you guys do last night?”

  I let out a tired breath. In an effort to get this “boy conversation” over with, I relented and gave them a bone to chew on so they’d leave me alone. “He walked me home, we spoke on the way there, he dropped me off at my apartment, and that was it.”

  “Did you guys kiss?” Ara asked at once.

  “Ara!” I shouted, scandalized at her intrusive question. I was already a prude by nature. Being asked things like this, especially concerning Eclipse, made me flush like no other.

  “Look at how hard she’s blushing!” Dawn giggled, pointing at me with adoration.

  I could feel my blush deepen.

  Ara laughed, playfully patting my shoulder as only an older sister could.

  “Fine, fine, fine. Be shy,” she teased, finally ending the interrogation. She gave me a sneaky look. “We’ll let it go this time because I know that you’ve never had a boyfriend and you’re always super shy when it comes to this stuff, but we’re going to get to the bottom of this sooner or later. You can’t hide this from us forever. I could tell from last night how much you were into him and how much he was into you. If something hasn’t happened yet, then something will happen. It’s only a matter of time, and the girls and I are looking forward to hearing about it when it does happen.”

  “Oh man,” I groaned pitifully, the blush on my face turning a million shades of red. “You guys sure know how to make a girl feel uncomfortable.”

  No matter how awkward I felt, I had to admit I was feeling warm inside as well. It felt liberating to genuinely be part of a conversation with these girls as opposed to pretending to be interested. It felt nice to feel included and to feel like I really had friends, if only momentarily.

  “Are you excited for the Fall Break coming up, Grace?” Ara asked moments later, effectively reminding me why I would never truly be friends with any of them. “Are you going to see your family?”

  “Yeah!” I easily lied once I was reminded of the four-day weekend that was coming up for our school. I felt my walls raise back up, reminding me that none of these girls would ever know me for who I really was. We were not and will never truly be “friends.” I feigned a relieved smile at the thought of “seeing my family” again.

  “I’m really excited. I haven’t seen them in so long and I can’t wait to hang out with them again!” I faked a hearty laugh before shining the spotlight back on them. “What are your plans for the break?”

  The girls were about to share their plans when Dawn’s shocked voice swam into our ears and garnered our undivided attention.

  “Hey girls, check this out,” she prompted from her computer. “My God, this kid is seriously disturbed, isn’t she?”

  Curious as to what she was referring to, the girls and I immediately hopped off our stools and flocked around her. We leaned forward to gaze at her computer monitor to see what she was talking about. Once I saw the contents of what was on the screen, I felt terror freeze my blood.

  Crime scenes.

  Crime scene photos from a bedroom.

  Crime scene photos from a murder.

  Crime scene photos from the bedroom where I murdered my parents.

  Oh my God . . .

  “Hey, I’ve heard of this,” Missy murmured as the girls’ eyes grew wide when they realized how infamous this crime was.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of this too,” said Kina. Beside me, Ara added, “The ‘six-year-old murderer.’ This was a crazy case.”

  As the rest of the girls voiced their agreement, I continued to stand there, absolutely paralyzed.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  My heart hammered profusely, my eyes unblinking while I gaped at the computer screen.

  Slowly, Dawn began to scroll down.

  My stunned gaze moved over the article that was written about me, my family, and the murder. There were small thumbnail photos attached to every section of the article and each of these photos caused my stomach to churn. I painfully swallowed past my dry throat, the chills rummaging through my body. I used all the willpower I had to keep my composure.

  “What happened to her?” Ara asked after they were done skimming over the contents of the article. The girls were all blissfully oblivious to the storm brewing within me.

  “She was convicted and sent to a mental hospital or something,” Dawn answered. She clicked on a link and went to another window. She scanned the new browser. “Apparently on this website, it says that she kept on denying that she killed her family when everyone knew that she did. How crazy is that? I know she was a kid and all, but how screwed up could you be?”

  “Yeah,” the girls agreed while I remained silent, traumatized with being forced to face all of this on an unexpected Friday evening.

  I had never read an article about myself. I was always afraid to. I was right to be scared because it wasn’t a pleasurable experience by any means. I felt so sick to my stomach that I was surprised I hadn’t thrown up from the nausea alone.

  “Their family name is Hwang.” Missy shuddered before turning to me. Her dark-gray circle lenses buried into my eyes. “Doesn’t it freak you out a little that their last name is the same as yours?”

  “Yeah, it’s really creepy,” I admitted quietly, staring warily at her. For a paranoid moment, though it would be impossible because there were so many Grace Hwangs in the world (and
because I was pretty sure my first name was never revealed to the public), I thought she was going to accuse me of being that child. When she didn’t, the nausea stewing inside me quelled slightly.

  “Maybe she was possessed,” Ara carelessly suggested from beside me.

  “Ara, don’t joke about that stuff!” Missy hissed at once. Fear entrenched in her eyes. “You know how much that scares me.”

  “Just because it scares you doesn’t mean that it’s not possible,” Ara continued to speak, her eyes staring at the contents of the browser. “I mean, think about it. How could a girl that small kill her entire family? She must’ve been possessed. Who could be that sadistic? Especially when she was only a child?”

  “Maybe the cops made a mistake,” Missy offered, oblivious that in an effort to defend the child, she was actually defending me. “Maybe someone else broke in and killed them and then framed the poor little girl.”

  “It was rumored that police officers walked in and saw her stabbing her mom’s body,” said Dawn, reading some of the comments off the article and rendering Missy’s attempts to defend me futile.

  “Why are we looking at this anyway?” Kina chided sharply.

  In a rare moment, I felt thankful that she was there. I was actually grateful that both Missy and Kina were there because the enormity of looking at these articles had a stronger effect on me than I could’ve ever anticipated. I wanted Dawn to close the browser, and I hoped Missy and Kina would succeed in getting her to do just that.

  “Yeah,” Missy agreed, looking at Kina and then to the computer screen. She frowned and casted a reproving look towards Dawn. “How did you stumble upon this article anyway, Dawn?”

  “One of our law professors is having us look at some bizarre and crazy cases so we can have a discussion about it in class,” Ara answered for Dawn. “We’re trying to find the most disturbing one and I can’t believe Dawn and I forgot about the child murderer.” Ara turned away from the computer and spared a glance at me. Horror clutched her features. “Oh my God. Grace, are you okay?” she cried upon seeing my ashen face. “You’re so pale!”

  “I-I’m fine,” I said shakily, snapping out of my daze.

  “Why wouldn’t she be pale?” Kina answered angrily for me. “Even I’m freaked out and I usually never get creeped out by things. Just close it. You guys sure know how to ruin a perfectly nice Friday evening.”

  “Fine, fine,” Dawn murmured, closing the window. “It’s just so strange. I wonder where the kid is now.”

  “Probably in a mental hospital where she belongs,” Kina muttered before roughly nudging me to shake me out of my reverie. “There. They closed it. Stop being such a chicken.”

  I nodded at her, my eyes pulsing with relief. At the sight of me being okay and the color returning to my face, Kina gave me a small glare that pretty much said, “You’re lucky I feel like being nice today because you’re pathetic” and went back to being the self-righteous bitch she had always been. Under this circumstance though, I didn’t mind because she was the reason why they stopped talking about the article and she was the reason I was able to breathe again. For today, thank you, Kina, for saving me . . .

  After the rest of the girls settled down and began to have menial conversations about school, I still felt disconcerted, so much so that I knew I had to rectify this. After allowing a few minutes of small, useless talk to pass between the girls, I pretended to look at the time. I looked at Ara who was now quietly reading and highlighting her law book.

  “Ara, my shift is nearly over. I’m going to go categorize the books and clean the study rooms before I go.”

  Ara smiled warmly at me and waved a hand in dismissal. “It’s okay, Grace. I can do it. Just go ahead and study.” A coy smile curved her glossy red lips. “I want you and that Eclipse guy to have plenty of time to hang out this weekend, so just try to get all your work done now.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I assured her, briefly glad that she was so considerate. However touched I was, I couldn’t be swayed from my original task. I got up and gestured a hand of dismissal of my own. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m done with my work. You guys just study. I’ll take care of it.”

  I left the girls and hurried to the back, pushing the rolling cart that was overflowing with returned books. I took a few minutes to visibly categorize books in front of the girls, watching them as they spoke about their church events for the weekend. When I was certain they had forgotten about me, I steered the rolling cart away from their vantage points and snuck into a study room where I was given full privacy to do what I needed to do.

  Click.

  Once inside, I closed the door, turned on the lights, and ran over to the computer sitting atop the black study table. Even within the walls of the small study room, I could hear the girls chatting softly up front. Relieved that they were oblivious that I was in here, I took in a deep breath and logged onto the computer, doing what I wanted to do moments prior: read all the articles about the horrendous crime I committed.

  I was never brave enough to read any of this before—I didn’t find it necessary to relive the most miserable time of my life through these articles—but now that the girls had inadvertently unearthed all of this, I knew I could no longer escape the curiosity that plagued me. I wanted to read everything that had to do with me and I wanted to know everything I could about the murder. I couldn’t run from it anymore; I had to face it head-on.

  Warily, I typed the words into the search bar: “Six-year-old murderer” South Korea.

  It felt as though I was having an out-of-body experience as I began to click through all the links that generated on the search engine.

  I read articles, I went to forums, I went to various websites, and I had never felt more enlightened and hurt at the same time. People were calling me sick, they said that I was a “psychotic little bitch” who should be locked up for life, and they said that I was a possessed child from Hell.

  The shame that consumed me was unbelievable.

  It was agonizing to read and to take in. I may not care about my family, but I was as selfish as they come. Reading all the cruel things people were writing about me had a bigger impact on me than I could’ve ever imagined. Then, against my better instincts, I persevered past my hurt feelings and went to the website that had the crime scene photos.

  I wanted to look.

  I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

  Once I was exposed to all the uncensored photos that a government employee had leaked onto the internet, I had to cover my mouth to keep from throwing up.

  The thumbnails I saw earlier were nothing compared to these high-quality, full-sized pictures. I groaned quietly to myself, swallowing past the bile rising in my throat while my eyes scanned through every image plastered on the screen.

  I now understood why people were saying such malicious and cruel things about me.

  Everything that lay before me was the epitome of evil in its rawest form.

  There were photos of my mother dead in her bed with her throat slit and multiple stab wounds on her body . . . There were photos of my father on the floor with a bullet to his forehead and stab wounds on his body as well. His eyes were open—it was as if the last thing he experienced was shock, dismay, and horror . . . There were photos of my brother laying facedown in the hall, a bullet to the back of his head, stab wounds on his body, and blood pooling around his pajamas . . . Then, I saw the last photos . . . photos of my older sister laying among the clothes in her closet. There was a bullet wound on her stomach and stab wounds on her chest.

  What was different about these series of photos was what I noticed in the background. Beside all the blood-soaked clothes, buried underneath my sister’s dead body, you could see presents that she had hidden for someone’s birthday. I inched closer to the screen to read one of the labels on the presents. My heart plummeted to my stomach when I read what she had written on the pink stationary label.

  Happy 6th Birthday, Grace Bear! Big sis love
s you!

  I bit my lower lip. I tried so hard to remember what happened that night while I gazed emotionlessly at the pictures of my dead family.

  I didn’t understand.

  How could I forget something so horrible?

  How could I forget how I killed them?

  How could I, to this day, not have any emotions for these people who were my family? My only family?

  How did I become like this?

  What was wrong with me?

  I didn’t understand, and at that moment, I had never wanted to understand more in my life.

  "And the world shall know true power."

  25 : Stolen

  I did not think it was physically possible for me to run down the stairs with so much alacrity. I ran down step after step without so much as holding onto the railing. I was in every possible danger of falling to my demise, but none of that mattered. Why would gravity matter when my very sanity was hanging on by a thread?

  After my shift ended, I tried to act as normally as I could around the girls. I packed up slowly and initiated small conversations. Then, I warmly wished them all a good weekend before I threw my bag over my shoulder and meandered out the door. On the outside, I appeared calm, but internally, mayhem plagued me. It wasn’t until I reached the staircase that my outer appearance reflected the hailstorm ravaging my insides. In a split second, I took off down the stairs with the world blurring around me.

  All I wanted was to see Eclipse. I wanted him to bring order to the chaos wreaking havoc within me. All I wanted was for him to shed some light on the darkness I had been encased in for so long . . .

  “I want to remember what happened that night.”

  I couldn’t have gotten to the point faster when I sprung out of the library exit like an unstoppable bull. My lungs were gasping for air and my face was burning with heat. I imagined I didn’t look completely put together when I approached him.

  Eclipse canted his head at me while allowing smoke to slither away from him. He wore a curious expression on his face as he observed me. He was perched against a marble column beside the library, smoking freely while waiting for me to get off work.