Chambly

It been a little over a week since IKEA, and still Sep hadn’t made his way back to the rainbow. Something about the darkness of the IKEA had made him believe that he was braver than he really was, that he could side step the fear of returning to the day when he had by accident slipped in the pool of blood, before everything had been perfect like it was now.  

He told himself that when he left the house that evening, that he was going to the rainbow, and yet, there he was, driving listlessly through the town, wondering why he couldn’t bring himself to return.

The sky grew dark, and his eyes strained to focus on the road ahead.

Just then his headlights illuminated something, no, someone as they crossed in front of his car. Sep skidded, and the someone seemed to skid with him, their body floating up as he screeched to a halt.

Frantically, he rushed out of the car, he keys still dangling and swaying in the ignition from the force of the stop.

There, just under the wide breadth of of white light from his car lay Chambly, the quiet girl from Winthrop Place.

His first thought: dead people don’t look like they’re sleeping. Her eyes were open and glassy and her face was smeared with the blood that ran–

The blood.

There it was: his second coherent thought. He was standing in a pool of blood. Just as afraid as he had been the first time over a year ago. Except this time, he was the murderer. The blood was smeared on the soles of his shoes, but it was on his hands too, because he had killed her.

He stood there numbly as other cars stopped and sirens came wailing. Only then, when he was surrounded by the onlookers and the police, could he think a third thought. He had barely known her. The girl in the muddy blood streaked pajama pants, was only a name to him. She was only Chambly, and yet he was sure that she was so much more. So much more than the body that lay at his feet, so much more than the 2 syllables he hiccuped when the police asked him her identity. So much more, he was sure.

IKEA...(again)

Sep was in IKEA. Big surprise there, Sep LOVED IKEA. The allure of the doorknob sale was too enticing to resist, and so he found himself wandering the aisles. Something, (although he would never admit it to Leek), he tended to do when he was anxious. So, a week after he had discovered the window to the past, Sep was in IKEA, looking at doorknobs, pathetically. 

Then, rather unexpectedly, the light faded from the room and a clear voice sounded from someplace in the rafters, echoing through aisles of diapers, canned food, and tomato sauces. It instructed Sep, and the other IKEA shoppers to make there way to the area by the cashiers. “There,” it said, “we will find out the true murderer.” Sep found himself heading there falling in line with cues of other shoppers, propelled by something that felt a lot like fear. Yes, that’s what is was, fear. It was fear that seized his body when he had recognized last year's scene scene last week through the rainbow, and it was fear now that was making his hands sweat and his feet itch, feeling slightly swollen in their sneakers as they moved him towards the group of people gathering by the registers.  

Sep recognized almost all of the tenants from the building. There were Chambly, Sail, Beck, and many others, and from the expressions of their faces, Sep could tell they were just as nervous as he was. Soon, the voice sounded again, accusing them all of being murders if they did not begin to investigate and search for the real one. “They are among us,” it claimed persistently. He gulped. Now that he knew about how to return to that day, Sep felt like he had this weird responsibility to find out who it was and clear all these innocent people’s names. 

Just then, the light blinked back on. Sep felt his pupils contracting painfully as he stared up at the ceiling. Those around him did the same, some cheering as the door burst open and the police swarmed in. 

Now Sep had to figure out if he could work up the courage to return to that time traveling rainbow. Because if he could, and if he could keep his fear at bay long enough, Sep was sure he could find the culprit.