02
ALEXA KING
-Present-

Levittown's commercial area
September 10, 2018
1:11 p.m.

THERE'S A DARKNESS IN Levittown.

It lives among us, a heavy weight that clings to the town's atmosphere, adhering to it like a second nature. Even as a little girl, I could sense a shifting in the ambience, a certain something that dictates how people should behave and how the town should be perceived. Its presence is palpable and comes in the form of glaring eyes, words of hate, and death.

Murder, if you want to retrieve the cloth of lies from it to reveal what horrors lie underneath.

The darkness isn't exclusive to the atmosphere, it's part of us too. It resides within us as the ultimate desire of the human being, our human nature - the boiling of the blood, the swelling of the veins, the closing of a fist, the palpitations of the heart. Aggression. Rage. Lust. It has a variety of names, but it can only be named as it is perceived.

If it comes to us, we don't know what to name it; we mostly just ignore this aching necessity to destroy, to cause chaos, watch the world burn with a smile on our faces as we invite the darkness to grow.

This darkness - it creates monsters.

Everyone knows about it, they can feel its presence as much as I do, but we don't let it consume us. At least, I don't let it consume me; they do whatever they want.

This town thrives on the intimidation of others. It's like a sick game that's only amusing to those who participate in it. Maybe today my hair is too curly, my skin too dark, my ass too big.

I never know. The comments usually come as a surprise.

This unknown entity could've blossomed out of the killings that took place ten years ago, in 2008. In the span of two months, W.S. raped and murdered twenty-five girls, all in their late teens. People often describe him as handsome but troubled: an angelic face, a twitch of insanity in his eyes, a devilish grin. It's disturbing how they focus on both his physical appearance and his notorious crime, instead of honoring the girls he so violently ripped from their own lives.

It's absurd to have our own serial killer, to treat the matter as our prized possession.

The thing about him is, as with all other serial killers, he had a fetish: teen girls with curly hair and dark skin. I could've been one of them, had I been older in 2008. The thought of it causes a rush of nausea to swirl inside my stomach, all of my insides freezing for as long as the possibility stays in my mind. This event is abhorrent, it reflects the darker side of Levittown. I don't know much about it, only what the rumors say, and what my father says, and what my friends say.

It's a he says, she says, they say, type of situation.

People are so mesmerized by psychotic serial killers, so determined to decipher how their strange minds work, but only if the murders happened thirty or so years ago and as far away from them as possible. We entertain ourselves by watching documentaries about them, their lives, their habits and the breaking point that led them to their inevitable, gruesome futures. We know the names Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, W.S., but we often forget the victims. We love reading mystery novels, the kinds in which we pretend to be detectives to catch a murderer. But when it happens in real life, it causes terror, panic, chaos. It's no longer entertaining, a thing of the past, something that can't reach us.

It's twisted. We're so fascinated with death, until death comes to us. This fascination demonstrates that there's something dark within us, something nasty and deathly and evil.

Levittown is a tight-knit community and there's a reason for that. Outsiders know about the darkness that hovers over the town, a strong grip that only tightens the more time passes. They are scared of it, terrified of the possibility of it corrupting their peaceful, suburban lives. For them, the town and its inhabitants are a disease they need to get rid of, something they can't afford to catch; disposable. Of course, they don't say it, but their actions are all the confirmation I need.

The town is populated by the same, boring people I've known since a young age. Nobody new comes to town, neither to form a life in it or as a destination spot for a vacation. From outside, it looks good, peaceful even, but inside there's a whole other story. With a heavy heart, I've come to the conclusion that our town, my hometown, is secluded, apart from the rest of the world.

Our fascination for Levittown's riverbank comes from that separation. My friends and I, filled with juvenile thoughts and dreams of a better world, rode our bikes until we were on the edge of the riverbank, its clear water glistening and twinkling from the sun's reflection. It's our only link to the outside world -a world that doesn't want us. Even now, with our vodka-filled breaths and lust in our minds, we drive there to form riots, parties loud enough to let everyone know we're alive and drunk.

But, then, Melody disappeared and nothing was the same. Nothing is, and it will never be again.

As all small towns are, everyone knows everyone, and everyone knows everything. Secrets can't be kept for too long. Well, secrets turn into rumors, and rumors turn into lies. I just have to cross my heart and hope it's true.

All I can do now is hope this town does right by her.

My secrets, though, they are mine to keep. I wouldn't bear the look of horror on everyone's faces if they know what I did last summer - the chain of catastrophic events after this one-time incident that ended with her death; her murder. The disgust in their eyes would be too toxic, too asphyxiating. Then my father, processing the information, his brown eyes glazed with the twinkle of disappointment.

It's already suffocating, having sleepless nights and nagging aches on the base of my chest. The nightmares never end, they grow more and more into my waking reality; a reality that keeps me prisoner alongside my guilt. This insufferable guilt pounds on my chest, it grows with each beat of the heart. It wakes me up at night, a low whisper to the ear, my dark skin bright with a fresh sheen of sweat, my lips chapped and quivering. No tears, though.

And now, now, I have something she left behind. The key to explore what happened; a key that might also get me killed. That is, if I speak. They say girls like me don't go to heaven, and I'm beginning to see some truth in that statement.

We don't know where the darkness comes from or if the town was born out of darkness. There's a saying that goes something like this: the devil resides in the details. This is the perfect description of Levittown, a town so filled with inconspicuous details - and a lurid, unknown past.

As I walk on the sidewalk of the town's commercial establishments, my shoes scraping the asphalt in the softest of ways, I clutch my bag closer to my body. The sun hangs above the traffic light on the main road, and its weak attempt at bringing warmth creates humidity in the air. Due to the rapid end of summer, the sky is a gray mass filled with even more gray clouds. It's a paradox - the beaming sun and the gray clouds uniting to create a depressive sight.

A soft sigh escapes my lips and I advance down the sidewalk to no particular destination. I just need some fresh air to clear my mind and rid myself from all negative thoughts. Faintly, the sound of the world as it moves forward, as it forgets that Melody Tryninki ever existed, overwhelms my senses. The ting of a bell from a coffee shop, the honk of a car as the light changes to green, the mundane conversations by those that pass by me.

Everything is happening despite her death, despite the fact that someone was killed less than a few days ago. Nobody cares until it happens to them. They forget she has a family, friends, people who love her; that she was a living, breathing human being a couple of days ago.

A cold breeze blows around my face and tickles the covered wound on my forehead. I flinch, the pain pounding inside my head and, despite the furious rushing of the wind, my lungs fail to receive air.

I lean on the wall of a small retail store, my head lying back on the humidity plastered all over the orange bricks. My breathing steadies with each inhale, a slow rise of my chest as it inflates with air, and then the satisfaction of letting it all out in an exhale. After repeating this pattern for a couple of minutes, I push my body off the wall and look through the store's window display. Behind it, pieces of jewelry lie on display, placed in white cushion-like material: diamond bracelets, ruby necklaces, sapphire rings. Melody used to love it here, just gawking at everything she couldn't afford.

I'm gawking at everything I will afford, she used to say in a determined whisper, her hands sprawled open against the glass, eyes glazed with a sheen of pride.

If I look closely, there's something shimmering against the glass, a blurred outline of a person. I realize that it's my reflection. My hair is a mess of wild curls ending on gentle shoulders, my eyes red-rimmed and puffy despite the absence of tears. The protruding swell of my breasts underneath the low-cut neckline lying over my sternum is distasteful, shameful. With the tips of my fingers, I tug on the neckline and push it up. Maybe like this, they won't look so big.

There's a burning sensation on my lips as I touch them, a tingle lingering on them with the promise of the past. I can't help the storm that begins to rage in my thighs as the images of skin against skin, lips against lips, mouths exploring each other's bodies, flash before me like a lighting bolt. Then blue eyes on me, twinkling and carrying mischief.

I shake my head and pull my fingers off my lips. This image is dangerous, it shouldn't be in my mind. But why does the thought of it makes my heart pump a little faster and my veins swell up with the rush of adrenaline, the euphoria of the moment, my guilty pleasure.

I close my eyes and, just as fast, an image so intangible that it hurts presents itself behind my closed eyelids. A pair of pale legs is surrounded by a pool of blood and, upon closer look, a limp body lies motionless, gray eyes opened and scared. The slash on Melody's neck is too deep. The blood splashes like a fountain, it moves like a river that ends in her agape mouth. I try to cover the slash with both hands, but the blood continues to pool between the cracks that separate my fingers. The feeling of soft, sticky matter -

My eyes snap open, while the world around me moves and moves and moves, never stopping. I rush to the nearest trashcan, holding to its sides for a speck of sanity. The acidic vomit finally pushes out of my throat, the putrid taste of it recoiling on my tongue. It all comes out, if only for a second: the guilt, the grief, my poisonous thoughts.

With a cracking sound, my neck cranes up. The rapid motion forms a tight warmness in the back of my neck and not even the pressure of my fingers against it can soothe this pulsating pain. As I steady my breathing, the acrid odor of the vomit engulfing my senses so much that I might begin to puke again, an old lady exits the store that's near the trashcan. Her beady eyes narrow as they focus on me and the round fat in both her cheeks deflates even more, like melting butter, when her lips stretch downwards to form a scowl.

She's probably thinking that I'm distasteful, disgusting, uncivilized. I roll my eyes and pass my hand on the side of my lips to clean the remains of my very distasteful incident. Now I have the distasteful incident on my hand, so I search for a piece of paper in my bag - a receipt, really - and clean my mess. I'd like to think that this makes me somewhat civilized.

A red car passes through the main street next to me at the same time I walk next to the old lady, a whiff of the acrid odor from the vomit probably circulating around her. My lips stretch into a smile, head rolling to my left side so my curls can catch a glimpse of the vanishing sunlight, hand firmly grasping the bag's strap as I leave her behind.

But, soon enough, the smile gets knocked out of my face.

Right in front of me, there's a board filled with 'Have you seen me?' flyers. Among all the smiling faces, Melody's one is plastered in the middle. The picture they used for her flyer is one I took several months back, in one of our riverbank parties. Nobody knows that she's drunk in that photo, completely intoxicated with vodka and the rummaging hands of a certain boy. Her back is to the camera, head craned to her left side to show the majority of her face. Her gray eyes are glazed with a tinge of alcohol, a flower tugged on her ear, straight hair moving with the wind as her bangs tickle her eyelids. She's caught mid laughter, giggling at her own stupid joke: why does Melody fucking Tryniski get drunk? Because she loves to party! A blabbered mess; a stupid joke.

An ache blooms deep in my chest, dispersing to the rest of my body until I can't take more of it. The memories are too painful, too real. I yank her flyer off the board and stuff it inside my bag, the rage swelling in my veins, pulsating in my head, pumping in my heart. She doesn't belong there anymore. Every picture in here is drenched in opaque colors, black and white, as if the possibility of finding them is null from the start. As if their destinies are predetermined, kids that might already be dead. It's depressing.

Beside this wall of horror, there's a newspaper stand. I try to walk pass it, try hard not to look at the headlines because they're all probably about her, but fail miserably. I pick an issue of Levittown Today, its header reading: FOUR DAYS SINCE THE MURDER OF THE BELOVED MELODY TRYNISKI - NO RESPONSIBLE YET.

A new wave of nausea swirls in my stomach, the sight of my picture as I sit emotionless in the back of the ambulance taking me by surprise. My eyes roam through the piece as I give the man that's supervising the stand some dollars and continue to walk to nowhere in particular.

LEVITTOWN TODAY

FOUR DAYS SINCE THE MURDER OF THE BELOVED MELODY TRYNISKI-NO RESPONSIBLE YET

September 10, 2018

Written by Ann Lee

LEVITTOWN, Utah. - On September five of this year, seventeen-year-old Melody Tryniski was found brutally murdered in her room. Prior to her death, she had been missing for two months in what is presumed to be a runaway case.

Levittown has been in a frenzy after Alexa King, alleged friend of the deceased, found her dead in a pool of her own blood. The witness is yet to be interrogated. Her death is the first in ten years, with others being executed by serial killer W. S. back in 2008.

The town, along with the press, is limited when it comes to official information. Police don't want to share crucial details as of yet. Detective Ellis, official in charged in this case, commented on the matter, saying, "Nothing is certain. We're still investigating and searching for anything that can link us to a murder case. For now, we will just have to wait for forensic results."

For this lack of knowledge, we've created a timeline that leads up to Melody's murder.

2008: killings of more than twenty girls

In 2008, serial killer W-

The sound of rushed voices talking at the same time, forming commotion, snaps me out of the report. My body is walking to where it all began without my consent, a shock of electricity coursing through my body, filling me with horror. Sebastián's river house is close by, just a few more blocks and I would have unconsciously been there. But what is even more bizarre is the amount of people walking about the commercial center of town. I haven't seen this amount in years, maybe ever.

Some of them are coming out of white vans that have words imprinted on the sliding doors and hoods: LEVITTOWN TODAY, SALT LAKE CITY WEEKLY, SANDY JOURNAL, STANDARD-EXAMINER, EL MUNDO. They look around, a crowd of fancy suits with gelled back hair and tight dresses with bright red lipstick, searching for the next story on Melody's case. Some tourists loiter around too, with their flower-printed shirts and the snapping of their cameras in every corner. I take this as my opportunity to leave, walking slowly backwards, trying to be as -

"Alexa, Alexa!"

My eyes grow wide as I see them running toward me, an ambush of questions spitting from their hungry mouths. With the newspaper, I cover my face and try to walk to the other direction, but they catch me on time. All I can see now is white flashes, crazed eyes, big smiles, money from every word that comes out of their lips.

"Over here."

"Is it true that you were the first one to arrive to the crime scene?"

"You were Melody's best friend and, yet, you don't appear to be sad."

At the end of it all, there's my guilt.

•Word count: 3,056•

As you all know, Wattys season is coming to an end. I really want to submit this story for the competition, so expect two more chapters in the span of a week!

I know it's a long shot, but if it doesn't work out this year, I'll submit it to Wattys 2019, since this story is just starting.

Oh, also, I received my featured date. My #WattpadBlockParty post will be live on August 11 of this year. Hope to see you guys there ♡

Feel free to correct any grammatical errors, but be kind about it. Tell me what you think of this chapter.

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