Love Letters

Meredith was on her way to greatness. She had just finished college, had a nice apartment smack-dab in the middle of a good neighborhood, and a sturdy job. Her neighbors greeted her warmly, and she felt accepted into the area quite quickly.
One day, a few months after moving in, while checking her mail, she found a folded piece of paper, one someone had put there by hand. She unfolded it, revealing a love letter.
Dear Casey,
I've been noticing how beautiful you have been recently, your stunning radiance brightening up the neighborhood. I hope to talk to you again soon.
S.A.
Meredith blushed, even though this was obviously meant for someone else, it was flattering nonetheless. And despite the fact that the writer, named S.A., most likely standing for Secret Admirer, was not one for words, it was still a sweet gesture.
She attempted to find this "Casey" but to no avail. Apparently, she ran off years ago with a boy. But Meredith continued reading them since there was no way to find this Casey.
For the following months Meredith continued to get these love letters, it didn’t bother her much at first, due to the fact it seemed to only be a puppy-love kind of thing, but the letters quickly turned… obsessive sounding. Saying things like, “You’ll be mine one day, no matter what,” scared her after a while.
Eventually, she stopped reading the folded papers and just started throwing them out as soon as she saw them in her mailbox. And within a few weeks, they stopped appearing. Satisfied that her obsessive secret admirer had given up, she relaxed again, falling into the flow of things as they were before.
But one day, as Meredith stepped outside to retrieve her mail, a rock was on top of a folded piece of paper. She picked it up, and curiosity drew her to read it.
Dear Casey,
Why do you continue to not read my letters, I work very hard on them, and you just throw them out. Throwing my confessions of love out makes me angry. Getting me angry isn't a good Idea, Meredith, the last person who got me angry ended up very, very... badly.
Meredith dropped the letter right there, not even finishing it, and bolted back inside, fearful for what seemed like a threat. Everyone in the neighborhood was so nice as far as she knew, and as far as Meredith was concerned, they wouldn’t harm her. A memory reminded her of her ex-boyfriend and how obsessive he was over her. So she called him up and interrogated him about it, not accepting any answer until he admitted that he was saying those things.
Eventually, he sighed and admitted it quietly, and Meredith, quite happy with herself, hung up the phone and went back to her room and peacefully fell to sleep.
Meredith woke up, the sun shining in the early Saturday morning, reflecting off the white walls making an angelic effect. She sat up, taking her time to stretch. She swung her feet off of her bed and planted them on the floor. She grabbed the empty coffee mug she had brought back to her room a few days ago and brought it with her to the kitchen.
As soon as she turned the corner into the kitchen, she dropped the mug and it shattered spraying the shards everywhere.
There was a love letter carved into the wall, she couldn’t bring herself to read it at first, but eventually, curiosity led her to look up. It was carved in shallowly, but wide, it came to her then, the love letter was carved with someone’s nails.
As she read the letter, some of the words didn’t seem to be English, and at the end S.A. was replaced with Samuel-Alexander, a name quite commonly known in the area.
Samuel was a man who lived in the next town over, who went missing three years ago after his ex-lover had cheated on him and was eventually missing but presumed dead.
But there was no notice of Samuel even living here, even when she did research on the house.
She heard foot falls behind her, and she slowly turned around, not moving much, in fear of stepping on a piece of the mug. After noticing nothing was there, she turned back around, and right in front of her was a sickly white, thin man, in nothing but ripped shorts. Shards of the mug dug into his feet, but he didn’t seem to mind.
Meredith inhaled to let out a scream, but the man grabbed her and wrapped his hand around her mouth, spinning her so her back was against his chest. He was cold and smelled like a pond, Meredith didn’t dare try to bite him to let him go, his stench and temperature worried her to do that.
“It’s okay Casey, Samuel is here,” he said rocking her back and forth. “Now we can finally be together.”
Meredith shot her eyes around, trying to make sense of everything going on, but before she could even make a decision, something cold touched her neck, and pain soon followed it.
Samuel’s long, partially broken fingernails ripped through her neck as blood poured out, he pinched the major artery to her brain with her nails, piercing it and blood squirted out.
He wrapped his arms around her and rocked her back and forth again.
Meredith couldn’t scream through the blood that was clogging up her lungs, and the world was quickly becoming dark.
Then Samuel leaned in close and whispered, “Now we can be together, Casey.”
Category:Mental Illness