The Main Character

I have the bathtub running as I plug my shaver into the power point. The person in the mirror is a shadow hidden behind the faces of those facing death every moment of the day. They change and pass by me quickly in vivid blurs. I see and hear everything all at once and some murders overlap with others. Sometimes it becomes a numbing feeling of white noise of anticipating yet another dead person.

My phone starts vibrating on the edge of the sink. Guess my bath will have to wait for now. It’s a phone number I don’t recognise, but I can’t ignore my instinct to pick the phone up.

“Hello?”

“Are you Ms Jamie Redding?”

“Who is this? I’m extremely busy and I have the bath running water that I should get back to.”

“I was an old friend of Celeste, a good friend of yours. She has been found in a bad state in her own car. She has been found dead in an armed robbery while she was climbing back into her car after visiting her father in hospital. Gary, her ex-boyfriend is the prime suspect. Just thought you should know. I’m sorry to break this news to you and sorry for your loss.”

Click

The phone goes silent before I can utter a single word. Celeste was the closest friend I ever had and the only person I told the full extent of my cursed telepathy of murders. Somehow hers slipped through the cracks in my mind. I never saw her die. An armed robbery doesn’t feel like a familiar event I have witnessed recently.

The thoughts almost fade to nothingness as I am numb with pain of my own for a change. We grew up together and have always been a part of each other’s family gatherings. Christmas just gone, and every year for the last decade. She was planning a birthday gathering months in advance for my brother. He adored Celeste. She always tried to include him in our shenanigans. I put so much of my trust in her. She was all I had to confide in. I couldn’t take my unnatural abilities to the police with no physical evidence to support my claims. She always believed me and told great comedic stories to distract me as much as possible. Celeste was incredible like that.

I was so close to ending my own life that it hits too close to home with my best friend. The water is reaching my ankles and is flooding under the door into my bedroom. My heart aches with the news of my latest loss. Watching people die is already a cruel enough ability to be cursed by, but to continue breathing on this planet is a worse a fate when the world is dimmer without Celeste’s warm smile igniting a room.

I can’t take this anymore! I can’t witness another murder when I lost someone I knew personally, my confidant and best friend on this planet. She isn’t here anymore. Neither will I in a matter of moments.