Not Sure How To Say This

My name's Lyndsay.  I'm...I was, Caspian's roommate.  He wrote about me a few times.

I'm...it's hard to write this.  It's hard because it's still hitting me pretty hard, and it's hard because I don't really know what happened.  I've been thinking it over for a day now and I'm still not really sure.

I didn't hate him for what he said.  None of us did.  He told us in person, after posting it.  We all understood why he did what he did, and he was so happy.  I don't think I've ever seen him so happy.

I've had this window up for a few hours now.  I just have to keep coming back to it.  I have to take breaks.  I've been crying a lot, these past couple of days.

It was the night after he told us about his sister, and he was just so happy going to bed, almost serene.  He was in his room for a couple hours before he called me there.

Sorry, needed to take another break.  I'm still...not really sure how to feel.  I don't understand what I saw, not completely.

He was standing there, in his room, next to this....well, I guess it was the Big Bad Wolf.  I guess that's the best way to describe it, this massive, black canine thing.  Caspian looked to me, and he smiled, and he told me he was going away.  Going away to be with his sister and his brother.  Forever.

The Wolf, it was like it, it tore a hole in the room, a hole to somewhere else, and it trotted inside, and he told me, don't be sad, because he's doing this because he has to.

He thanked me for being his friend, and he went through the hole.

It closed.  And now he's gone.

I don't know if I believed him before, but I do now.  I don't know what to do.

A part of me just wants to leave this place.  Get a new apartment, maybe go in on something with Justin and his girlfriend.

But what if he comes back?  I don't want to not be here for him.  He...deserves someone to be here for him.

But I guess that's not your concern.  But I thought you should know what happened.  I think he would have wanted it this way.

I hope you're at peace, wherever you are, Caspian.  You deserve it.  And if you ever come back...I'll be here for you.  I promise.

And wherever you are, Caspian's Mom?  I hope the Big Bad Wolf is eating you, one little piece at a time, until the end of time.

--Lyndsay

The Real Truth

It's closer tonight.  It moved two steps.  I don't know what to do.  I don't want to die.  But I don't want to lose everything I have.  I don't want to lose my friends.  They're all I have left.

I have to choose one or the other, though.  I have to, and they'll hate me for this.  Everyone will hate me.  They'll hate me for what I did.  They'll hate me for not saying anything sooner.  Maybe I could have stopped this, if I'd just stopped lying faster.  Maybe if I'd listened to Edmund, I could have saved his life, instead of acting like a complete and total coward.  Like usual.

Lucy was our little sister.  She was such a beautiful baby.  So innocent and fragile.  We couldn't let Mom do to her what she did to us.  We couldn't let her.

So we killed her.  Just gave her a bit too much of the stuff Mom was using to slow her growth.

It was mercy.  We wanted to be merciful.  We didn't want her to have to live like we were.  We didn't want her to live in hell.  We should have called someone, should have told someone what she was doing to us, by she convinced us they wouldn't care.  They'd never care.  Only Mommy would care for us.  And we believed her, because she was the only truth we knew.

And we killed Lucy, we killed her and Mom got so much sympathy, poor single mother, on her own.  She'd told everyone that Lucy had been the product of rape, and that she was having her anyway.  But Lucy wasn't the product of rape, she was the product of a drunken night with a man we never saw again.  But now her precious little angel was dead, and you know the rest, we knew she would kill one of us, so we killed her.

But we killed Lucy first.  We killed our innocent little sister.  That was our secret.  What no one knew.  That was it.

I'm sending this link.  I'm sending it to everyone I know.

Even if it kills me now.  Even then, it'll be good.  Feel good to die with this out.  No more hiding from the truth.  If this is the last thing I'm going to do,  then I'll go to death with this off my heart.

And if I'm going to die, then maybe Lucy and Edmund will be there, waiting for me.  Maybe she's forgiven me.  If the Big Bad Wolf is here for me tomorrow night...I'll just walk up to it.  Walk up to it and let it take me.  Better than waiting for it to get me.

Goodbye.  If anyone has been reading this, thank you for just being there and reading.

I hope I'll be able to update this again.

--Caspian Nod

Closer and Closer

Every time I go to sleep, I wake up suddenly, and there it is.  Its standing in my room, so dark I can only really see an outline.  And when I see it, when I see it it takes one step closer, and then vanishes.

It's halfway across the room.  I've tried sleeping elsewhere.  It just appears that much distance from me.  And takes one step closer.

I don't know how to stop it.

I already told you my secret.

I already said it.

Why won't it just leave me alone?

I don't want to die like my brother.  Not when I've made a life for myself.  Not when I've got so much to look forward to.

I don't know what to do.

I can't lose all my friends.  I can't lose the only family I have.

Don't make me.  Please, please don't make me.

What Happened

I still don't want to talk about it.  But I guess I should.  Maybe it'll help.  Somehow.

Edmund...that's Gatsby's real name.  Edmund Nod.   When I got there, with Lyndsay, he was so relieved to see me.  He said he'd though the Wolf had gotten me.  He wanted to talk to me, wanted to tell me everything, but the doctors said he needed to rest, and that I could see him more the next day.  Apparently, he'd spent the day yelling and screaming that he needed to see me, he needed to see me because the Wolf was coming for me.

The next day he was substantially more lucid...but much more distressing.  He wanted to spend the whole day talking about Mother.  And Lucy.  Lucy, our sister that...that we never really knew.  He said the Wolf was coming for us, the Big Bad Wolf was on his way, because of our secret.  He kept saying that, that it was after us because of our secret.

I wish I'd believed him.  I think I did, but something wouldn't let me admit it.  He said he didn't know what to do, that maybe telling people would help somehow.

And then he said something strange.  He told me that I should post about it on my blog.

I'd never told him about my blog.  It's not something you talk to your asylum-bound brother about.

He said that the Wolf had told him about it.  Shown it to him.  He's told me that the Wolf is on my blog.  That it's leaving those notes for me.  He told me that the Wolf is all around us, always watching.  Always scratching at our doors, our windows, and staring in, breathing in our secrets, our shames and fears and all the little lies we tell ourselves.  He says it has many names, but that for him it will always be the Big Bad Wolf.  I guess it makes sense, because it huffs and it puffs and it gets in your head, breaks through your brick house and it exposes everything you thought was so safely guarded, so deeply protected.

He spoke about this to me every day, every day for a week, because I kept going back to him, kept listening to him talk, and I ignored how uneasy I felt.  I ignored how more and more I was starting to realize he was right.  Because I'm a coward.  A total, complete coward.  I never faced what she did to us, or what we did to her.  I never tried to get help, not beyond the most minor problem I had.

And now he's dead.  The braver of the two of us.  The stronger of the two of us, the one who actually faced his problems.  Trying to get better, to understand and come to terms with what we did rather than filing it away and refusing to talk about it.  He's gone and it's my fault.

On the last day, I came to the front desk, and asked to meet my brother.  Things started as normal, orderlies came and went, one of the nurses went to see if he was feeling up to it.

Then, panic.  It was like hitting a bee hive with a baseball bat.  Nurses and doctors and orderlies were everywhere, and I saw a stretcher being rushed up the hall, and I asked the secretary what was going on, and she gave me a weak, forced smile and said she was trying to find that out, but I could tell they just didn't want to tell me.

But I found out.  I got to watch as they performed emergency surgery on him.  He looked at me, watched me the entire time.

Something had savaged him.  Like a wild animal attack.  They said his room was full of muddy pawprints and black fur, but there was no sign of entry.  No holes that could admit an animal this large.

I posted, then, about our mother.  I hope it would magically save him.

But it didn't.  Less than a day after I posted that, he died in his sleep.  I was too late.  Too lave to save him, if I could.  Too late to save myself.

The scratching at my window is back.  If I'm quick enough, I can almost see it looking in.

I don't know what to do.  I don't know what this is, or if I can outrun it.

Lyndsay knows.  She's  been trying to look things up.  I didn't want to get her involved.  She's my best friend.  What if it goes after her, too?  Even if she doesn't have skeletons in her closet...what if she's guilty by association?  I don't know how this works.

I wish I knew how this worked.

it's been a while

he's dead.  edmund is dead.

my name is caspian nod.

my brother and i killed my mother.

and now my brother is dead.

DO YOU THINK THIS SAVES YOU?  DO YOU THINK THAT SAYING IT ABSOLVES YOU?

do you think you've said everything there is to say

YOU HAVEN'T

WE HAVEN'T

YOU'RE STILL A WOLF.  YOU'RE STILL A WOLF.

TAKE OFF YOUR FUCKING WOOL AND ADMIT IT.

Mother's Day

I was lying to you.

I'm sorry.  I lie to everyone when I have to.  I have to a lot.  It takes too much explaining.

Have you heard of Munchhausen syndrome by proxy?

Our mother kept us sick.  She hurt and poisoned us.  She convinced us we were ill just so she could get the pity and attention.  When she tried it on our baby sister she died.

But that didn't stop her.  Because all the pity and love she got from that was so much more than she could get by just keeping us ill.

It was us or her.  We could tell because we saw the wheels turning.  We saw them turning and we didn't want to be next.  We didn't want to be the spare kid that she could ruin just for a little attention.

So we killed her.

We didn't have a choice.  She would have killed one of us so we had to get her first.

We didn't have a choice.  We poisoned her before she poisoned us.

This isn't news or anything.  The cops know all about it.  We both spent some time in the asylum,  but they decided I was well enough to leave.  It was justifiable homicide, and we weren't even sixteen then.

I'm saying this because I think this is what this is all about.

I think this is about us killing our mother.

Something happened.  Something happened and I don't know what it means.

I don't know what anything means anymore.