I awoke, stranded in my bed. My head bursting from its shell in agony. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, it soon became apparent to me the drawer of my cabinet had been opened and not shut correctly.
Instantly alarmed and quickly losing composure, I reached into the drawer. To my dismay, my diary had vanished.
A sick guttural feeling overtook my whole body, within an instant I felt sick. Only one person would have been able to get into my room and take my diary. Daniel.
Throwing myself from my bed and leaping into my clothes, I scurried out of my room. Panic and sickness caused my whole body to violently shake.
Shifting my legs as fast as they could go, I rushed down the stairs and viciously ripped the door from the hinges which bound it. It was now abundantly evident to me now that the road I was now on had no positive outcome. Only negative ones.
Rain collapsed from the sky, as puddles formed and rose in both size and depth. Cars masked in a ripple of water coating them, my eyes blinded by a sheet of liquid and lights meant that traversing the streets was already a monumental task.
The difficulty only increased by the speed to which I was running. If I could locate my brother anywhere at this time it would be at home. It had to be. Surely.
After several turns and miles, I arrived at his house. The destination of truth, where only that fact could be discussed. The front door left at a crack from the lock; slightly ajar.
Left wondering, and highly concerned, my speed of acceleration did not slow – only quickened.
The lighting of his house was non-existent, all lights were off. Not a creak of the floorboards, not a murmur of the wind could be heard. Silence fell upon Daniels house.
Standing tensely and alert as I manoeuvred my way through his house, there began to be no sign of Daniel. Making my way toward the stairs, my eyes tracking every slight sound and movement of wind and curtain, I found myself gazing upon a picture of Daniel and myself.
A photo from five years previous. Smiles, or masked ones at least, upon both of our faces. We were at the very least contempt in this photo, which was unusual for us.
Breaking my connection to the photo, water running from a tap echoed throughout the upstairs, coiling its way round the banister, and slithering its way to my ears.
Making my way up the stairs, still cautious about my surroundings, I found myself standing at the opening of my brother's bedroom.
The door opened against the wall adjacent, and in the opening there it lay – my diary. The book lay face down, smothered by the rug underneath – suffocating.
Moving ever so slightly forward, I saw the only light throughout the house, turned on. The bathroom door, slightly cracked open allowed for a slither of light to escape and creep down the centre of the bedroom, illuminating the bedroom to a sort of dusk shade.
The door opening to the bathroom revealed water rushing toward the carpet, flooding the edges, and soaking the fibres. The reflection of my face distorted through the ripples of the water. What was an anxious terrified face, now reflected back at me as a crackled grin, eagerly patient and dormant. That is when I saw him.
My heart collapsed and tore into itself, sinking deeper and deeper into my stomach weighed down by guilt and shock. The tap still running.
The bathroom floor overflown with sangria-stained water. In the bath, he lay.
Drenched in his own blood. Frozen in time, I found it impossible to move. My final pillar of security demolished in front of me, ripped from this world too young.
Stumbling backward in complete shock and disgust, I slipped. Falling onto the blood-soaked flooring: covering myself in my brothers own blood, stretching from my trainers to my eyebrows.
I lay there, helplessly staring at my brother's pale corpse, brightened only by the blushes of blood smothering his torso and arms. Ruby colouring mounted the white tiles surrounding the bath, a contrast mirrored by my brothers' lifeless body and the crimson blood that layered him.
I slowly regained stability and ushered myself to my feet, assisted by the bathroom wall as a balance maintainer.
Each step I took, serenaded with deep splashes of water being edged out from the weight of my body. I checked his pulse. I was too late. As If the gallons of blood that coated bathroom floor and walls were not a clear indicator of this fact.
Facial expressions are complicated after death; some may give an insight into the individual's final emotions before their soul drained from their body, others are blank. Emotionless. As though even their darkest most primitive emotions were stripped from their body as they died – leaving nothing but a blank canvas.
Daniel's was not like this. His eyes still glossed over by the pain of reading those pages and tears he had felt unable to escape the grasp of death. His mouth in a frozen shiver, as if he could feel the cold brush of the abyss swallowing him whole.
Gormless, cold, and pale, his body lay half submerged within water and half exposed to the harsh elements entering the room via an open window.
A knife lay beside the bathtub – a 10-inch kitchen knife glazed with my brother's rouge blood was clearly his weapon of choice for his self-inflicted murder. Deep wounds were etched thoroughly through his veins.
The skin torn, allowing the blood to erupt from its prison and pollute the translucent water. Several cuts were made into each arm, suggesting that the first ones missed the vein, or did not allow him to bleed out fast enough.
As I sat, back straightened, only with the support of the wall - my jeans and shoes steeped in the blood of my brother; my head fell into the grace of my knees.
Posed into the vertical foetal position, for what seemed like hours but may have been minutes, I was awoken from my solace by a ringtone. I ignored it.
However, as the second call came in, I was soon informed of the possible necessity of it. By the time I managed to regain enough strength to pull myself to my feet, the ringing had stopped.
Daniels phone had now rung twice and had pinged several more times. Brushing away my tears, to clear my vision, I proceeded to unlock his phone – using my dead brothers thumb print.
The phone clicked unlocked. Providing me with an insight into his final moments and an uncensored peak into his life. Seconds after opening his phone, a 'PING' resonated from it, followed by a violent vibration.
A text emerged from the top of the screen as a drop-down reading –
"FROM SARAH
I have not heard from you for a while is everything okay. Just checking that we are still on for tonight. Love you Hun xx"