“It’s hard to think in here, I can’t see why you spend your time at all these parties.”
I opened my eyes to see him emerging through the door from the raging party going on and into the quiet dark walled room I found, luckily with soundproof walls.
“Because it’s hard to think when music is louder than my thoughts.”
He had made his way over to the bed I was sprawled out on top of by now and he was watching me, waiting for my face to flicker and show even just a hint of expression to tell him what I was thinking. I never gave him that satisfaction. My mind is the only privacy I was granted now a days and my thoughts the only secrets that weren’t being spoken through the hallways in school.
This room was dark with no windows and had a navy blue record player sitting comfortably on the opposite side of the room which wasn’t but a few steps away in the corner. I could tell it was happy to not be able to hear the sounds of the wasted teenagers drinking their lives away just a flight of stairs and a long hallway away. The only noise that could be heard from here was the muffled sounds of the pounding music flying through the downstairs of this enormous house. I could probably stay here for days and no one would notice and even then I wouldn’t be worried about someone coming to look for me. I would probably be discovered next weekend when the owner threw another banger and invited countless bodies into the home he grew up in. I would probably be discovered by two trouble minded teenagers wandering in making out with their greedy hands running up and down each other's bodies desperate to feel, desperate to be felt. They would probably ask me to leave and I would probably realize then it was time to walk out this stranger’s house. Or maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I would give them their desired privacy and go downstairs and drink away this life of my own. You see I’m trying to be different, I’m trying to live my life to the fullest and have fun and all that boring cliché stuff. I only say this because I have been feeling dead for quite some time now and I am trying to be passionate and lively and I am trying to find something beautiful in the hollow shell I am living in.
So far I have obviously not gotten very far if I am spending my nights in this room sealed off from the party while a white woolen sheet covers the doors to show it was off limits to the party guests. I was never one to obey the rules, certainly the ones set for me by my peers. Now that I think of it, I don’t even really go to school with these people anymore. I haven’t gone to school in at least a year. Or maybe it’s been five. For some reason I just can’t remember. Who was even throwing this party? Did I know them well or was I just here for the free vodka and lack of anything else to do?
“And you like that, not being able to think I mean?” I was brought away from my thoughts by the familiar boy still analyzing my facial expression and waiting for me to respond.

“I did until tonight. Now the familiar numbing of the noise only makes my mind race with poison thoughts, the kind that hit you all at once and demand to be recognized.”
I spoke slowly and he watched my lips move to form words that I myself didn’t even know why I was speaking and I think he was finally starting to understand this girl with an acid mind who spoke in free verse poetry and did everything she could to prove to the world she wasn’t afraid of a single thing on this planet. Little did they know that absolutely everything terrified her. Even just the act of breathing made her question the uncertainty and absolute inevitable doomed world we were all suck on and every time she looked at the stars she felt an aching emptiness knowing she will be trapped under the same sky until her body, this body that I live in is piled into the ground with billions of others to rot like the human race was just a blip on a radar. Yet I’m starting to find comfort in my insignificance and unimportance. It’s quite beautiful and tragic to think that all the pain I feel when I’m so unbelievably sad and all the hope that courses through me when I’m so unbelievable happy is inconsequence. It is alleviating and terrifying to think about. Maybe that’s why I spend my time at these parties drinking to forget my unimportance and then sitting in these off limits dark walled rooms to remember that this unimportance fills each and every one of us and it is so unbelievably important that we understand that.
“So you’re just going to sit in this room forever?”
“Yes, or until I find something else to satisfy my insatiable appetite in this universe.”
The boy laughed but his profound brown eyes did not look away from my own greenish grey ones. He had amazing looking eyes. They weren’t like the normal boring manner of dark eyes, they were wide and far-reaching taking up most of the white in his eyes, so much that in them I could see my own pale white reflection. As he stared at me I could feel the intensity of his gaze build up as if the sun was coming closer and surrounding me, the heat waves pushing my skin until my head was forced to turn and look anywhere but his direction. In this case, to my fingers where I was scraping off the black nail polish which always covers them half way like an umbrella would look after a heavy hail storm.
It was strange that he was talking to me. Nobody has said a word to me for quite some time. Now that I think about it I don’t remember the last time I left this room. It must be all those pills I’ve been taking, I think I’m starting to lose my mind. There was an aching in the bottom of my stomach that broke me out of my confusion. When was the last time that I ate? It had to be a while for my insides felt empty.
I could hear people talking. So lightly that it merely sounded like a whisper coming from the back of my brain. Was someone knocking on the door? I got up to check. I opened the shiny metallic door knob abruptly to find no one standing on the other side. I closed it but before I could turn back around to face my company I paused with my hand of the door knob. I opened the door again this time slowly, sticking my head out into the empty hallway. I didn’t hear any noise. No music, no loud teenagers tumbling down the stairs. It was quiet apart from the light sounds of people being shushed that were unnecessary considering they were the only noises being made. The lights were off with only a dim glow of orange being produced down the hallway from what looked like many flickering candles. I turned confused and started to speak to the deep brown eyed boy behind me but before I could finish my sentence a new question popped into my mind and that was, where did that boy go?
I was once again alone in this dark walled room. Now I was really going crazy. Just a second ago he was right next to me sat up on the end of the twin sized bed. My eyes glanced around the room confirming my knowledge that there was only one door and no windows.

“Ok, wow really funny, you got me, you got everyone downstairs to be quiet so you could hide in here and scare me. Ok fair enough, I did for a second actually think you wanted to talk to me.”

I ripped open the sliding closet doors and braced myself for a surprising scream on the other side. Nothing. There wasn’t even anything in the closet. No clothes and no shoes. There was only some graffiti in the corner which I couldn’t quite make out. I walked swiftly to the bed and ripped the heavy comforter up revealing nothing but dust and some old books. The boy wasn’t in the room and now I felt very scared. I made my way back to the door and now the room looked very different. I was noticing things about it that before this strange experience I had not even seen. There was graffiti all over this room not just the closet. Mostly in red and black colors written in different languages and hand writing I did not understand. On one wall big letters read, “Thou shalt not kill” and the ceiling read, “Just a dead body, is all that they found.” Now that feeling inside my stomach was not just from hunger I felt physically sick with fright and I was so confused that I had not noticed all these markings on the walls before. I studied every inch of this room for what felt like years and these words never occurred to me. The paint of these walls was not at all recent and was mostly chipped off on the edges and some parts of the center. The quiet little record player in the corner looked as though it was smashed onto the floor multiple times and the bed was missing half its headboard. I ran for the door handle and it snapped off resulting in me falling back and smacking my head on the concrete floors I originally thought were wood. I crawled over to the bed with blood dripping down my face and pulled some papers out from under it. My hands were shaking but I was able to read out some of the top bolded words from the old sheets of paper.

“APRIL 7 1962, MS. CATHERINE LEON FOUND DEAD IN HER HOME OF ROLLA, MISSOURI AFTER COMMITTING THE MURDERS OF HER PARENTS AND THREE SIBLINGS.”
“CATHERINE LEON MURDERS HER FAMILY AND SHOOTS HERSELF IN THE HEAD AFTER BEING DIAGNOSED WITH MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER.”
“CATHERINE LEON MURDERS FAMILY AFTER YEARS OF SEVERE ABUSE.”

I recognized the name in all of these front page newspaper titles. It was so familiar to me, it could almost be my own. I didn’t want to keep reading these papers, it was heart breaking to think of this family’s tragic end due to a poor girl’s mental illness and in my own town of Rolla! How strange and where could these papers could have come from? It was time to find that boy and hopefully get some answers. I made my way over to the door and the knob was exactly as it was when I first walked into this chilling room. It was as if the door knob was never broken off. Had I imagined the entire thing? I slowly reached my hand backwards and touched the back of my head. I winced as a sharp pain shook through me and as my hand recoiled my eyes widen at the amount of blood which soaked my arm. By the amount of blood built up, you’d think I had gotten shot not just hit my head. My head was spinning and I felt as if I was about to pass out from the sight. I swear the whole thing felt just like a dream and I would of just crawled into bed and waited to wake up if it weren’t for the voices filling my head again. I wish I just crawled into bed and waited to wake up.

But the voices are calling me downstairs. I can hear them promising some sort of release from this world.
“Is there anyone else here?” “Hello, is anyone there?”
I can hear them downstairs looking for someone, it must be me. I opened the door and so slowly walked down the hallway. There wasn’t a lot of light in this house and as I walked I ran my fingers lightly against the peeled off yellow wallpaper. I looked down and for the first time all night realized what I was wearing. A long white dress with lace sleeves and cotton socks. The dress was dirty and in most spots had a pink tint to it. I was not wearing shoes, wow this had to be the worst thing to show up in to one of these parties. I looked like I was wearing one of those weird long night gowns girls used to wear way back when. I don’t even remember changing into this. Why would I ever wear this in the first place? This whole night is confusing, maybe someone slipped something into my drink? My golden brown hair was messy and curly falling down beneath my shoulders. As I walked down the narrow staircase the faint orange candle lights were growing stronger. I heard distant chatter and slowly walked towards it. I took a breath and turned around the corner of this old house. What I saw next confused me even more than I already was.
These people were no longer dancing and there was much less of them, maybe 15. They all squeezed around each other to look at whatever was in the center of the circle they formed. Towards the middle six people were sitting around a wooden table with candles all over the table and around the room. I tried to find out what was going on. I tapped the shoulder of a thin blonde girl on the outside of the circle but she was so infatuated with what was going on she didn’t even notice me. I pushed my way through the bodies of mindless teenagers who looked just like me until I could see what they were doing.
In the center of the table was a light brown wooden board with some strange markings and letters on it. The teenagers around the table each had a hand on some sort of triangle figure. I think it’s called an Ouija board? It’s supposed to let you talk to the dead or something stupid like that. I needed to leave this place. I needed to go home, wherever that was. I tapped the arm of one of the boys playing the game. He had spiky black hair that looked as if he dyed it to hide its natural brown color. He wore all black and black nail polish as well as heavy black eyeliner. How peculiar he looked, but who am I to judge right?

“Excuse me, can you help me?”
Everyone seemed to be looking at this boy so I figured maybe he knew where I was. Suddenly everyone except me in the room gasped. The ouija board apparently was spelling something out, I heard some girl in the crowd say.

“H…, E…, L…” Has the board moved from each letter to the next, the boy with spiky hair repeated them out loud.

“P…, M…, E…” I waited for the boy to realize I was awaiting his response to me but everyone was too absorbed with what the board was saying. What did it even spell out again?
Hel pme Help me? Wait isn’t that what I was asking for?

“Oh my god...oh my god. Guys shut up. Shut up ok? SH! Ok… who are we talking to? Is this the ghost of Catherine Leon?”
The spiky haired boy continued to ignore me but trying desperately to quiet the crowd so he could talk to this ghost Catherine. Catherine, isn’t that the name of the girl all those papers were about?

“Who’s Catherine Leon?” I heard a pretty girl with blue hair ask another girl this as I looked at the faces which surrounded me.
“She’s the girl who murdered her family here in the 60’s. Then she killed herself and left a note saying he made her do it.”
“Who’s he?”
“No one really knows. She had Multiple Personality Disorder so that could have something to do with it. She used to get in trouble in school a lot and blame it on “him”.They say the disease made her think this random guy was always with her and making her do terrible things, freaky right.”

This all sounded very familiar to me. It was like hearing the plot of a movie you saw many years ago. I turned around and asked the girls I was eavesdropping on if anyone had a picture of this girl Catherine?” They must not have heard me either because again the board was spelling something out.The spiky haired boy looked excited and a little worried as he repeated the letters,
“P…, I…, C…, T…, U…, R…, E…”
Everyone looked at each other and smiled slightly. The boy dug into his pocket and took out an old looking polaroid picture. He placed it in the middle of the board and my eyes widened.

It was.. It was a picture of me. In this moment. Standing with my messy hair, in a dirty white night gown standing in front of this wooden table. No, that couldn’t be me. That was Catherine a murderer, a dead girl.
Then it hit me. I was Catherine, a murderer, a dead girl.