shinwritesiguess

[shinwritesiguess]

“We’re here.” Anna’s torch moves away from the path, and I blink, disoriented for a second. She swings the beam over the hillside in front of us, warm yellow light illuminating a narrow hole in the rough rock.

“…You can’t be serious.” I stare at her. “We’re going in there?”

“I swear it’ll be fun!” Anna retorts, torch beam sweeping back over us. “Besides, it’s my party. You can go home if you don’t like it.”

I glance back at the path, and suddenly I’m overwhelmingly aware of the darkness, and how many bends it has, and how easy it would be to get lost in miles upon miles of empty forest.

“Okay then.” Anna turns back to the others. “Anyone else going to chicken out?”

Nobody says anything.

“Right! We’re gonna play hide and seek in the cave.”

“Seriously, Anna?” Imogen interjects. “You dragged us the whole way out here to play some dumb kid’s game?”

“It’ll be fun! We’ll be in the pitch black, right? And one person has to find the rest of us. It’ll be, like, super scary. Plus, I’ve got this!”

She unzips her rucksack and pulls out a bottle.

“Is that vodka? How’d you even get that?”

Anna winks, shoving the bottle back into the bag. “A magician never reveals his secrets.”

“She probably just stole it from her parents.” Imogen folds her arms across her chest. “And we should drink that after we’ve gone in the cave. Being drunk in there could be dangerous.”

I look into the cave entrance, brushing overhanging roots away, but it’s too dark to see anything properly. My stomach does a backflip.

“Let’s go!” Anna grins, and my worries subside slightly. “Imogen, you count.”

“Fine.” Imogen sighs and turns to face the path.

Anna grabs my hand and pulls me into the cave, making a noise of disappointment as the torchlight reveals how small it is. There’s a ledge on the wall opposite, and two holes at the base of the other wall that look just tight enough to crawl through on my stomach.

Anna nudges me and points to the ledge. “When the torch is off, it’ll be too dark for her to see us. Probably.”

I nod, glad I don’t have to go into the crawlspace, and climb up, grazing the plams of my hands against the jagged stones. Shuddering, I wipe them off on my jeans. Blood seeps into the blue denim. Anna winces.

“20.” Imogen’s voice echoes through the cave.

Anna scrambles to switch the torch off, and I hear Imogen’s footsteps, echoing in a way that sounds like two people are walking. Spooky.

Anna and I shuffle closer together, trying not to disturb any stones or make any noise which could give away our position. The ceiling presses against the top of my head, and something is sticking into my back.

We listen with bated breath as Imogen walks over to the other side of the cave. She sighs. “Come on. You could have hidden better than that, you know.”

My stomach drops.

Imogen turns her torch on. Then she screams.

Anna grabs my hand and scrambles off the ledge, pulling me down through the crawlspace. Panic rushes through my body. There’s rock pressing down on my back and my sides and my stomach and I can barely even move my arms and-

And then we’re out of it, in another cave, and Anna’s still running, dragging me after her. For a second, my hand slips out of hers, and I’m alone and disoriented in the dark- but her clammy fingers thread back through mine, and we keep running, through tunnel after tunnel, until the noise of footsteps and laboured breathing has completely faded.

She stops, and I collapse against a rock, gasping. Worms are writhing in my stomach, any relief that whatever that was is gone overshadowed by the gnawing realization of how lost we are. I pull my phone out of my pocket, blinking in the sudden light, and gasp in relief as I see the line lit up in the signal bar, and the notifications for unread messages.

Anna’s fingers tighten around mine as I open the messages, and I start to turn to tell her we’ll be fine.

Anna <3: lucy?

I can feel her eyes on me, and I squeeze her hand.

Anna <3: where are you??

Anna <3: we’re back at the cave entrance

[shinwritesiguess]

the lines between

the person i am and

the person my mother wishes i was

are bold

drawn out in thick black marker

but sometimes tears

or earl grey tea in my grandparents' living room

spill over them

and they blur

and for a few fleeting moments

she looks at me with the same warm adoration

that i see on her face when she thinks about who i should be

and everything is okay

[shinwritesiguess]

it's not fair

because i try to be a good person

a good friend maybe, one day

but it's always there

crouching in the corner of my mind

wishing they would go away

stop doing better than me

stop being happier than me

a goblin gnawing holes into my consciousness

and it crouches there

and bites into my thoughts

until they're gone

so for now

please accept my toothmarked kindness.

[shinwritesiguess]

uh hi

this is a side blog for short stories and poems i write

main is @shin-tsucommunist

created because i found the emo poetry i wrote when i was 13