Bitter Sweet (A short story)

Below you will find a short story - (please bare in mind I wrote this when I was 16)


Bitter Sweet

She woke; startled from her sleep, as though someone had shaken her vigorously. Unaware of someone else’s presence, her ghostly persona sat up on the crisp, white sheets. Her dark eyes darted around the room like a hundred knives piercing his skin. Her head titled slowly towards the ceiling, her eyes didn’t move. The darkened circles fixated in his direction. She sat, looking blankly up at him.

Terrified of agitating her, he could not move. In place he stood frozen, starring right back at her motionless figure and waiting for even the slightest movement. Ten minutes slipped by as he sat, watching and waiting for her to move.

It had happened years ago, the incident that had caused his wife to become mentally destroyed. He had found her in the bathroom of their home lying lifeless on the floor. Nobody could work out what went wrong. It puzzled everyone for years. Then they finally gave up; and just locked her up in this room. Ever since the incident she could not handle anything. Doctors described it as temporary insanity. It had become much worse than that: she was a lunatic, not a mortal being. He did not know what else he could do anymore. So he just stayed by her side day in and day out, waiting f or some kind of improvement. Waiting for his love to return to him.

Her eyes widened and rolled backwards. As he looked at her, they turned the colour of her sheet. A shrill moan irritated him, as she rocked herself backward and forward, backward and forward, still moaning. Her colourless eyes penetrated his body with her every movement.

As he backed himself up against the wall, he could feel his hands grabbing for an escape. He had been warned about these kinds of people, and that she wasn’t herself. She made the hairs on his arm stand on end. He was shivering as though the room had all of a sudden dropped in temperature. All he wanted was to be out of there but he was trapped in her stare. He could not yell for help. He could not move. If he lost focus for a second, it could be over. He was not willing to give up that easily.

Her moaning became louder and shriller, ear piercing and continuous. All of a sudden, silence came upon them. A silence that he had not heard for some time. The room became so lifeless that all he could hear was the slight banging on the door from the neighbours. Relieved to notice that she had stopped rocking, he relaxed his tightened stance. She was now sitting and staring at the door. “Wicked man... stupid girl... torn... torn...torn....wicked” a spiteful voice proclaimed, it didn’t even sound like it was coming from her.

A load seemed to have lifted from his shoulders. No longer having to wait for her next move, he shifted himself slowly towards the window being extremely careful not to turn his back on her. He still could not bring himself to leave her alone in that room.

She screamed “You should burn in hell”. He exclaimed as she turned her pale head towards him again, staring a hole right through his heart. He could not mutter a single word he could only glare at her dumbfound. She rose from the bed and sprang towards him. An almighty force thrust him into the wall. Her arms grasped his throat and then his face. He grabbed hold of her shoulders and threw her towards the bed. With what little strength he had, he bound her to the bed, locking her arms and legs in place. The only way to calm her now was to prick her with a deadly poison. He could not bear to see her hurt someone else. It was the only solution.

His heart grew heavy, as he watched her struggle to loosen the restraints that kept her attached to the bed. She glared at him with her evil eyes. If only he could find her again, everything would be better. She shook her head at him, “It was all you! It was all you!” The pace of her movements grew faster and faster. He moved closer to his beloved wife, the syringe clasped tightly in his palm. She was frightened, he kept moving towards her. “It’s the only answer; you cannot hurt anyone else this way. I did not want it to end like this, but I have no choice. I love you.” She screamed at him in uninterpretable tongues and broke free from her confinements.

She grabbed at his throat furiously, tightening her grip, anger and pain in her eyes. She removed the syringe from his grasp and it shattered to the ground below. He tried to loosen her arms from around his neck, but he wasn’t strong enough. “You poisoned me all these years and made everyone think I was crazy. I played along because I knew otherwise you would kill me. But, you ruined my life! For that you will suffer.” His breathing ceased, his vision failed. She won the battle, in her arms his body became a motionless figure. She dropped her husband from her grasp, went to the mirror and smiled at herself. As she turned to leave, she looked at her husband lying lifeless on the floor and said “I could not stand to see you suffer anymore. You ruined my life so I ended yours. Revenge is bitter sweet.” With a flip of her hair, she departed the room.