Goodbye Mazy 

WARNING: The following text includes graphic descriptions, blood, animal death and death in general. If you’re squeamish or sensitive to some/all of the above, consider not reading. Enjoy.

Mazy and I had been best friends ever since 1st or 2nd grade, we were practically sisters. Our parents would even joke that they had a pair of daughters. She was always in sync with animals. She loved them, sometimes even more than people. She wasn’t polite at all and if it would've been up to me, she’d be a boy. She was loud, she joked around in class and talked back to teachers, she’d slack off on homework (I usually did it for her) and she always wondered what was in the forest surrounding our town. I didn’t mind about it, in fact, it scared me. She, however, kept gaining more and more curiosity towards the forest. 

We were 11 at the time, we were in 6th grade going into seven, I was more cautious yet curious about school more than the forest. In the summer she would whine and whine or pressure me about going to the forest with her. I always said no, as any reasonable person would, the treeline shifted and it seemed that no light got through the thick brambles and leaves that covered its interior. At the end of the summer I got sick of her trying to convince me all the time and to stop her I gave her a live camera and said: 

“You wanna go to the forest, right? Take this and get the hell out! Just know, I’m not coming!” “Fine!” she spat back. “I’ll do it by myself” I was worried for her and I started to take my words back as if you spit back water after gulping from a glass. “Wait! Wait, I'll come with you!” “Huh, that doesn't sound like you, last time I heard you, you were telling me to get the hell out and do whatever the heck I wanted to!” “Wait, no Mazy! Just don’t I’ll-” I forgot to mention, she cuts almost everyone off when she gets pissed “Whatever! Just-Ugh!!! I’m going!” She slammed the door behind her and left without a word. 

She didn’t tell her parents, she didn’t even tell my parents she was going somewhere alone. I sat there, guilt weighing me down like lead. I wondered what was in there, for once, and I felt genuine fear for her. I was scared. I ran upstairs, it wasn’t really running. They always say guilt stays with you. When I finally got up, my parents looked at me as if they’d seen a ghost. I poured out and told them everything, tears making their way out of my eyes. We went to search for her and told Mazy’s parents about it. She was not found. We took flashlights when it became dark. We called the police and they sent a search party to look for her. Apparently, they split up into groups of two, with five groups in total. Two of the groups  went missing. A couple days went by, patrol after patrol of police passed but no one ever found her. I was devastated and I wanted to go into the forest to look for her, however, my parents disagreed. They were sad too (note that they weren’t as sad as I was) but they didn’t want me missing. Not that I cared that much about it. I tried sneaking out, even at night, but my parents always caught me. 

One day, she appeared at the edge of the forest bruised, scratched, and her legs black from dirt and dry blood. It was midnight and one of the last group of patrollers spotted her, he took her back home and Mazy’s parents called us. I ran ahead of them rushing to hug Mazy, tripping over my pajamas. I reached in for a warm embrace. I hugged her but she was oddly cold, something else I noticed was that she didn’t hug back. I ignored this, as I hadn’t seen her in 3 days. She looked confused and scared, and she also had this strange look to her… I couldn’t really put my finger on it, it looked as if she was blank-faced, no feelings shown. She had never been like this before, it should’ve been the time I realized something was vitally wrong. 

They interviewed her and repeated the same question “What happened?” but she didn’t remember anything. She said everything was blurry and she couldn’t remember. Her voice quivered and she kept looking from side to side nervously. All the others just interpreted it as her being scared, but I knew what this meant. When me and Mazy were new friends, she’d lie a lot, I don’t know why though. One time in 1rst grade, I lent her a toy and told her to return it the next day, and she agreed. The next day she gave me the same quavery voice and uneasy stares, she said “I-I lost it, and-um I searched my house top to bottom.” I was angry at her and I didn’t speak to her all day, even if she cried. I told my parents about it and I said I thought she was lying. When they asked her parents they apologized for Mazy selfishly keeping the toy.  I gave her a new one for her birthday and kept the old one as a memory. She was lying now, and something was wrong. Eventually, the reporters and police stopped asking questions, they left, we left. I didn’t want to. 

At night I laid awake, even my parents were asleep. At some point around 2am I heard a clang, as if someone was dragging a heavy metal tool out of a hidden cramped space filled with other steel contraptions. It went silent… I waited, and 20 minutes later I started hearing footsteps around the back of our house. I was suddenly on edge and tense. However, no one came in, and no one knocked on the door. What happened wasn’t weird, it was disturbing. I heard hissing and a high pitched cry, screeches from a cat. I started to hyperventilate and to freak out. Who was it? What were they doing to that cat? Was it Ms. Rosen’s cat? Why were they doing that? At this time? I thought about the noise I heard earlier. The other things inside the compartment made their way into my head. Was that what they were using those tools for? Torturing animals? Mazy would kill that person, she’d use their own tools to-  now that I think of it… she-she probably would. I looked out the window, not daring to stick my face out. In the alleyway between my house and Ms. Rosen’s house, under her broken porch light was red splatter, and tiny pieces of… the cat… but the whole body wasn’t there. Only grinded pieces of flesh and bone lay there. I was filled with utter disbelief and genuine fear towards my safety and everyone else’s. I didn’t own a pet, I wanted to, mind you, but after that… I-I couldn’t bring myself to ask them to get me one. After restless tossing and turning I slept. I dreamt the scene playing out again and again, however, I was the cat. 

I woke up screaming. My parents were there. Concern on their faces. My head and a portion of my upper-body were wet. I was still panting hard and I looked at them for an explanation. I saw a broken glass of water on the floor and it explained everything.

“You- What did you dream about?!? Are you okay?!?!?” they screamed. I was set aback by this. “What happened, I mean, did I have a night terror?” I asked in disbelief. I know about the term because I used to have them when I was a toddler. I’d have horrible dreams I couldn’t remember, screaming while I slept and no matter what my parents would do (throw water at me, shake me up, scream some more and other things) I would stay “asleep” in this horrible nightmare. This was different though, I remembered everything, all the details, the orange glow of the light in the alleyway, the frigid air hitting my body like a knife, the sounds, the metalic taste of blood, it was all there. I could remember. I would’ve said I told them about it, but I hate to admit that I didn’t say a word, I said I didn’t remember. 

“I think I’m having night terrors again.” I spat out stupidly. My parents were genuinely concerned about me, but this seemed to ease them. “Thank god you weren’t having a convulsion or something like that.” They sighed. It’s true, I have epilepsy. I get convulsions, some of them, however, can kill me. I usually have pretty low level convulsions but they’re abrupt and brief. One time though, in 4th grade in the gym where dodgeball was freaking me out, I got a horrible convulsion, and my parents had to take me to the E.R, I was in a coma for two weeks.

Two weeks, I was already two weeks into my school year. Mazy missed some days. Not enough to compare to my coma, but when someone goes missing in a small town like this it makes a big impact on the whole town overall. Today was special, everyone asked Mazy questions and hugged her and even the boy she liked had a talk with her. He was worried. I was the person that worried the most and I’d say he went in second place. Something was off again. The way her hands stayed to her sides, the way her stare didn’t move, the attention. The short mumbles she gave back as conversation weren’t how she usually talked to this boy, Leo, she would give back, yes, short responses but she’d pour out a sentence or two and then cut herself off. Now, she was struggling to even say a couple words. 

The thought of how her attitude changed chilled me. Anyway, the days passed and she gradually got better, her attitude came back, I was glad, one day she even invited me to a sleepover. I got there, sleeping bag and pillow in one hand. We had just gotten back from school. She laughed at me, I had walked all the way from my house to hers in pajamas. Part of me was happy, but I had this eerie feeling that something bad was going to happen. We talked and eventually she fell asleep, goosebumps prevented my eyes from closing. All of a sudden I remembered her cold skin, like a corpse, when I had first seen her since her disappearance. I reached over the warm blankets and lay my hand on her forehead, like mothers do to check if you're feverish. Cold. Cold. Cold. I yanked my hand away, my fingers hurt. I covered my hand and my face in the pillows, then I heard it. A low-pitched growl that came from a dog, from my right, then a yelp and a high-pitched cry. I started to hyperventilate. Mazy. Mazy. Where is she? I got up, it was pitch black. I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. Mouth ready to scream I looked behind me. It was Mazy. I started to cry. 

“What’s wrong?” she said. “I-I heard a dog, it sounded as if it were being killed.” I was shaking up to this point, but something made me stop. Her hand was firm and tense. “It was probably just a bad dream.” “Okay…” I managed to whisper. 

The next day I checked outside. Nothing. I looked closer, small pieces of bone that had looked like garbage pooped into my vision. Darkened spots I mistook as shadows were now apparent as dry blood or cleaning oil to cover up the massacre. I stepped back. Mazy’s eyes were trained upon me. It lasted about half a second, not enough for anyone to see her. I got downstairs with all my stuff. I said goodbye and went to the front door. There was a closet right next to it where I’d left my shoes. I took them out but then… I saw a medium-sized bag, I looked inside it. Fingers. Noses. Ears. Claws. Tails. All of it stuffed and stained with dark dry liquid, amputated crude sawed cuts. The putrid smell made its way into my lungs.

I ran outside. I left my things in front of their house. I ran to the back of the school. I climbed the fence. I got into the forest. Run. Run. Run. Something stuck out. Shiny black plastic. Camera. I. Gave. Mazy. I picked it up and looked at the recording. She was walking through the woods, flashlight in hand. A branch snapped behind her. She turned. The camera fell. There was footage of her- being killed and tortured by the creature that was covered in black. Eventually, the black thing started to change. It looked incredibly painful. It began to gain color. It-It had turned into Mazy, a perfect resemblance. Then the camera went to static. Crack. I looked behind me. Mazy. 

“Hey, Mazy, what are you doing here…?” I shakily asked her. She dropped the tote bag and the contents splattered out. She lay one hand on them and she started morphing into the black thing. My throat closed up. I started to scream. Then, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck and then, blackness.

By Matilde Diaz Goya