Help! Help...
Eric Forman woke with a start. Moisture covered his brow and his breaths were shallow and labored.
Screams and cries echoed in his ears. Every night now. Every night they haunted him. Dead eyes staring unblinkingly at him. Dead accusing eyes. The eyes of the innocent.
He pulled his sweat-soaked shirt over his head and tossed it aside. The room was dark, and as his eyes adjusted, he pulled himself up to get a glass of water and a smoke. The sound of a clock ticking filled the silence of the room, and a quick glance at the digital display of his watch showed him the time. 3 A.M.. He rubbed his temples with his fingers.
The voices came at him with a vengeance.
MURDERERS! Murderer…
In one violent motion, he flung his glass of water across the room.
Eight thousand miles away in Point Place, Wisconsin, Jackie Burkhart found herself unable to sleep too. It was 11 P.M. and she was sick with a cold. Already weak and shivering, there was also a mercilessly pounding in the region behind her left eye. She supposed that choosing to take a walk home in the rain wasn't exactly the best of ideas, but she had done so and she was now suffering the consequences. But when she called to ask her boss if she could perhaps take a day off, she had nearly gotten her head bitten off. Her boss had snarled at her and reminded her that she was already on probation because of the Kat Peterson incident, and that she was looking for a reason, any reason to get Jackie off her payroll.
Jackie had never felt so belittled in her life.
She had no money and she desperately needed the job. She was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. Her demeaning job at the salon had seen to one and Steven had seen to the latter. Mentally, she was drained as well, the endless torrent of insults and snide comments on her character, her appearance, her abilities and everything else that defined her as a person that seemed to be coming at her from every direction imaginable, had sent her sense of self-worth spiraling down the toilet.
Her nails were a mess. Her hair was a mess. Lank and lifeless, and no amount of hot rolling seemed to bring any bounce back to it. Her skin, once glowing and radiant, was pale and sallow. She was a mess.
And it wasn't just because she was sick. It had happened over a long period of time. She felt like all the bits that were who she was were coming apart, falling off, piece by piece. She was disappearing, dissipating, disintegrating into a wisp of herself, drowning in a black hole of hopelessness, still stubbornly clinging on to something that had long ago melted away into nothingness.
There used to be a time when Steven would be there with her, with a bowl of chicken noodle soup hot in one hand and the other arm tucked around her. Led Zeppelin would be playing softly in the background and he would be lying in bed with her, to keep her warm. The memory vanished and tears she had sworn she could no longer cry splashed on her lap.
She missed it. She missed it and she wanted it back so much. She took a shuddering breath and swiped at her eyes, reaching into her drawer for a bottle of aspirin.
She twisted the cap open and swallowed two pills. But when she was about to screw the cap back on she found herself staring at the bottle fisted tightly in her hand.
She saw herself shaking out two more and swallowed those too. Then, before she could stop herself, she had shaken out the entire bottle and brought the lot shakily to her mouth.
Tears swimming in her eyes, she tried to swallow them all, and ended up choking violently. A strangled cry tore from the very core of her and she stumbled her way to the toilet to spit them out and curled onto the floor.
Gut-wrenching sobs that rocked her tiny frame filled the room.
Eric sat unmoving with his head in his hands and stared at the water stain, lost in images that only he could see. When his brain finally registered that the water had dried up, he found himself reaching for a roll of well-fingered papers tied together with string. The sweet clean scent of flowers and sunshine wafted lightly up from them.
Jackie.
He clutched them like a lifeline and grabbing a torch, stumbled back to the mattress on the floor, willing himself to focus on the words instead. Gradually, as he lost himself in the feminine loopy hand that he had begun to know as well as his own, the vestiges of his nightmare receded and thirty minutes later, he was fast asleep.
Jackie sat on the floor next to the toilet with her head on the edge of the tub. She had cried herself out. She rolled over sluggishly and stared up at the ceiling of the bathroom. She was exhausted.
She dragged herself up, back towards the bedroom, reaching for a pretty silver cardboard box. She gently fingered the doodled rainbow on it before pulling the top off. She drew out a stack of letters and held it to her chest for a minute before putting them gently aside on the bed next to her. She reached into the box again and this time her fist closed tightly around a small object, which had arrived in the mail a couple of days ago.
Her breathing evened out as she fell asleep clutching a little wooden unicorn close to her heart.