Effy’s POV
Dear reader, let me tell you a little story about myself, more importantly, what I’ve become in the last year or so, and who's been by my side the entire time, unwantedly. But first, let's live in the past with some of my favorite memories, well, now they're more like distant dreams, but whatever let's move on:
The bushes were scraping my pale knees with their prickly branches, as I heard him count to twenty with his face against the tree and his eyes closed. I giggled as he stumbled around oblivious to my obvious hiding spot. I remember my heart racing, fearing the the leaves crunching under my feet would give me away. I was seven years old.
I drove with my parents to the kennel where I picked out my dog, Mollie, her dark tail was waving at me. I had wanted a dog for so long, and after years and years of begging, finally my wish came true. I took her home and from that day on she was my best friend. I was nine years old.
It was after school while walking to Starbucks when my first crush asked me to be his girlfriend. The relationship was as juvenile as it could get, saying I love you over text the first day and barely talking in school, and LOTS of emojis. That was my first boyfriend ever. I was twelve years old.
The car was navy blue and the music was blaring from the speakers. It was packed with more people than it could hold but we were all laughing at some ridiculous immature joke but no one cared because we were all enjoying ourselves so much that the world around us seemed but a mere light in the distance. A typical Friday night hangout with my friends, they were great. I was fourteen years old.
These were some of my best memories, ones that now seem so remote it's almost as if they never even happened. The happiness I derived from times like these has been completely wiped away since The Night, March 8th, to be exact, the night that has since changed my life. It was horrific, every moment of the incident that night feels as painful now as it did back then. Now my days are as melancholy as ever, with the color stripped out of them like a 1950’s movie and they all seemingly blend together.
Does anyone know what happened on The Night? No. Will they ever? No. To think about it is hard enough, let alone physically talk about it with someone else.
Now I know what you’re thinking, The Night was the night where something completely awful happened to me. Well, yes, you would be correct, but that's not just it, ohhhh no, definitely not. But you couldn’t have possibly known that, could you? Because secrets are a blessing and a  curse to me, like a grave i've dug for myself, and who comes back from their grave blabbering about being 6 feet under? Thats right, no one. Why? Because their freaking dead, so it's impossible. I guess that's the best way to describe it to you.
But I need to make you feel what I felt, well at least explain how I felt, before I ended up here, in this nightmarish hell. I mean, i've always been a sadder person, but it's never stuck with me or paralyzed me, it was just the basic sadness of a teenager. So let’s reminisce on some of the terrible memories that were all boiling up to this night, and all came flooding at me, like a leak under a door, slowly but then all at once.
When I was 9 years old, I noticed my parents didn't kiss goodbye anymore. At night I started hearing shouts and bangs knocked against the wall. I would just lay there, unwilling to move, listening to the late-night chaos like miserable music. Then my Mom would make comments at me, like “Mom, can I go to the movies w-” She would stop me abruptly “Effy, I really don’t have the money for this right now.” And I just walked away dazed, by her stressed and seemingly cold tone. This is when I discovered my father was a cheater. He had been cheating on my Mom for about a year now and was secretly getting a divorce from her, and planned to move across the country with his new young, beautiful mistress, who was only about seven years older than I. I know, gross, right?
When I was about 7 to 11 I was bullied pretty mercilessly by my peers. I was a bit of an outsider throughout elementary school, due to the fact that I was an awkward and shy kid, who was socially inept and never stood up for herself. So, I basically had a “take your home-life frustrations out on me because I won’t fight back” sign taped to my forehead. It was extremely difficult to deal with, especially since during this time was when my parents relationship was demolished.
I guess I could go on with the pity-party insight of my life, but like I said previously, I like keeping secrets, and you're probably bored with it anyways.
Oh, and just as a warning, don’t mind me being kind of a brat, it comes with the territory of hating everything and everyone around me.
But let's move on, shall we?
How about to The Night, the night where everything came crashing down on me. I remember it so vividly, although I wish I could just forget it, but no, that'd be too easy then having to deal with it for the rest of my life.
Welp, here goes nothing, it's not like i've got anything to lose anyways:
“Hey Tony, we doing anything tonight?” I asked,
“Lemme call Anwar and Matty and see if they planned anything.” Tony said,
“Mkay.” I mumbled back.
Turns out one of our friends, Cook, had a concert that night that he was playing in some random bar in some random nearby town. Naomi, Katie, Emily, Tony, Matty, and I packed into Tony’s two-door navy car with a soothing sound buzzing all around. Man, I could've fallen asleep to that hypnotic music. We headed off to the bar where Cook and his band, The Nightmen, were playing. We planned on meeting Anwar, Cassie, and Freddy at the bar. We arrived there at about 8 o'clock, Cook was scheduled to play at 8:15. We walked into the bar, and the attendant sent us into the underage section, where Cook was playing, and we got our hands stamped. It was basically a target for “Hey, i'm a teenage girl! Look at my awkwardness and fear for being in a bar full of drunkards who see me as an easy target!” Nothing more needed for pedos on the prowl.
I was standing in the “mosh pit”, if you could call it that, with a bunch of spazztic testosterone-seeping teenage boys all shoulder bumping and crowd surfing, when all of a sudden Tony scooped me up bridal style in his arms and attempted to crowd-surf me. Now, he's another little secret about me, I HATE being picked up, especially by a boy, and ESPECIALLY in public, screw that. It makes me extremely insecure and gives me panic attacks, but it's not like he knew that.
I fought my way down out of the arms of the strangers very quickly, and was able to wait till the end of the set to breakdown.
I crept my way out of the crowd and darted outside to have a full-blown anxiety attack in the open air (I am also a bit claustrophobic) and went around the corner to the back of the bar so that no one would see me. As I turned the corner, about ten feet away, a bunch of drunken twenty-something year old guys stumbled from the back exit all laughing and slurring stupid remarks towards one another. One of them turned his head and saw me standing there, already in a puffy-faced, weak state.
“Well, well, well, look at what we have here boys.” His eyes stared at me, up and down, menacingly, “A pretty little girl all by herself, how convenient.”
Then all his other disgusting, drunken buddies joined in, making sexist and disgusting remarks about my body, then, somehow one of the four guys slipped away and crept up behind me. They all started walking towards me, so I turned around and tried to take off, but he caught me and put his hand over my mouth.
“Shhh, shut up! You’re only making this worse on yourself, trust me, it’ll be fun.” He said through his frightening smile. I fought so hard, but against four well-built, drunken men, i stood not even the slightest chance of winning. I could feel their hot breath on my neck, as he held me there waiting for the torture to begin. He reeked of whiskey and disappointment.
“Pick her up and drag over to the wooded area, it's time to have some fun, boys.” Said the apparent ringleader, in his grunty, devilish voice.
Thats where im going to end, because quite frankly, i'm not sure how much more I can handle saying.
That’s the first night I saw it, the thing that never ceases to leave me, but it makes me feel even lonelier than if I were alone. At first it wasn’t bad, I would see it every couple of days, very faint, just in the corner, some days more than others, like in waves.
Before, it would stand in the corner, or somewhat away from me, whenever I saw it. No one else could see it, just me. It looked like a shadow far-off in the distance, dull and almost unreal.
It was terrifying. The more it came, the more I couldn't sleep. My insomnia was becoming increasingly worse, so I started using sleeping pills. It would take a bunch to get me to sleep, so many that I used an entire bottle in three days, and then puked for about two because my stomach couldn’t handle all of them.
During this time, everything around me was collapsing. My grades dropped from solid A’s and B’s to low C’s and D’s. I skipped school some days, and my appetite was pretty much gone, so I was losing weight fast.
Then I started to see it in school, when i was with people, without people, in my dreams, everywhere. Very seldom did I not see it. It was also darker. At first it looked like a shadow-wannabe, it was a grayish color, and now it was blacker than a cloudy night sky.
About two months after The Night, it spoke for the first time. It was an inhuman sound, petrifying and… sad. It was so sad. I crawled under my bed sheets, “What do you want!” I said, softly through my tears “please, go away, please PLEASE!”
I fell asleep crying, it didn't speak again till two days later. It was at night, again, and it was pretty much a repeat of the two nights before hand. Except, now, it continued to speak. I could hear words through the screeches, words of anger, frustration, sadness, words that- that sounded like mine, like my voice.
Now things were getting worse. I was 5’8 and 98 lbs, i looked like a walking stick. My insecurity was sky-high and my grades just continued to drop. Teachers began noticing something was wrong, and it was obvious that I wasn't getting enough sleep, due to the prominent, purple bags that hung below my eyes. I started isolating myself from all of my friends, and they began to go along with it.
“Your life sucks, it'd be better off ending.” It whispered to me.
“I agree.” I would say back. This was the basics of what it would whisper to me, just depressing things, and I agreed with it, I agreed with it so much. It would talk to me in school, at home, anywhere at anytime. I could hold conversations with it, and while I was always mad at it for putting these thoughts in my head, I almost always agreed with them, as though they were mine to begin with.
After a while, with my health and school-life still continually degrading, while I was laying in my bed, just crying for the sake of self-pity, it spoke again, but this time it was different. It was, angry, or just depressing, but mean. I mean, I guess everything it said was mean, but this time, it sounded terrifying.
“Why do you continue to live in this horrific, forsaken world? Just end it! End everything! You’re such a coward you don’t deserve to be living!” It screamed at me, from beside my bed. I was startled, yet anger erupted within me, I was sick of its presence, I had been for awhile.
“Why are you even here? I never asked for this, I never asked for you! Why can’t you just LEAVE ME ALONE!?” I screamed back at it. The fight continued to get more heated between me and this...this, grotesque thing. Then I just remember blackness, pure blackness.
Mother’s POV
“So, Mrs. Prager, why have you decided to enlist Effy in Danvers State Mental Institute?” Asked The nurse, in her white-washed room. I mean I don’t know what else to do. Oh God, Effy, please forgive me.
“Well, over the course of the past few months, she’s been going increasingly downhill. She started losing weight, getting bad grades, skipping school, and isolating herself from everyone. Then, last night, I woke up to the sound of her screaming in her room, saying things along the line of ‘Go away! Why are you even here!’ and so I rushed into her room, and she was just standing in the corner, looking at the wall, with her eyes wide open, but she wasn’t, like, awake. It was the last straw for me, so I brought her here in hopes you could help her.”
“Well, Mrs. Prager, from the results of our extensive psych watch, and by what you have just described to me, Effy seems to be struggling with schizophrenia. The symptoms can look a an episode of manic depression, but it seems her schizophrenia is withdrawing her from life, making her extremely depressed as well. She will have to stay in our inpatient unit for quite awhile, so we can help manage her symptoms, until she is stable again. Come with me, and we will talk over pricing and everything.”
“Okay.” I said as a tear dripped down my face. Poor Effy, my sweet girl! Why God, why?

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Effy’s POV
Ever since that night in my bedroom, i've been stuck here, in good ol’ Danvers Mental Institution (Note: That was sarcasm). That was a year ago. They say I have some form of schizophrenic depression, or some idiotic s*** like that. Do you think I’m crazy? Tell me the truth, it won’t hurt my feelings, although I may just have to come and kill you if you think I am (Note: That was a joke, I'm not some deranged animal, maybe).
Anyways, my little friend is still here with me, it never left, it just got stronger. Here, let's go to the mirror (It's made out of reflexive plastic, because they would NEVER give the crazy people glass, even I, the crazy girl, knows that would be incredibly stupid) Do you see that? Oh, wait sorry you can’t see what I see, since i'm crazy, so i’ll explain it to you. The blackness, it now covers half of my face, more like half of my body, because I let it consume me. I hear its words in my head, no longer through my ears like before. And today, I am going to get away from It and this damned hospital, no matter what I have to do .
Have a nice life, whoever hears this, well, a better one than mine anyways.
Regrets,
Effy and IT