Sylvie | Audrey Wang (11)

It was the middle of the game when it happened.

The fall air blew gently over the football field, the stadium lights illuminating the battle below.

The University, the Lions, are up against their rival, the Bears. The score is tied, the clock is ticking…3 minutes until the end of second quarter!

Along the track, the band waits anxiously for their halftime performance, whispering their quiet supports for their football team.

Suddenly, the ref blows the whistle, a shrill scream that splits the warm energy of the arena. The Away side lets out a cry of anguish. The Home, a cheer of victory. The Lion’s quarterback, Cliff Rogers, had just made a pass to teammate John Jackson, who had weaseled through the line of Bears, securing a victorious - 

“TOUCHDOWNNN!” The loudspeaker announcer crows. Cheers erupt all around me. The band plays a groovy beat, a celebration. It is truly an amazing moment. 3 seconds, 2 seconds, 1…halftime. If the Lions keep up their defense, they could surely beat the Bears, securing a spot to the semi finals against the Coyotes. 

Cliff, 6 feet of muscle and grit, is swarmed by his teammates as he comes off to the sidelines, grinning widely, his hazel eyes shining a brilliant green. He looks like a Greek god, even to me, all the way in the back of the stadium. He radiated joy as his teammates hoisted him and John up, chanting their names. 

But for a second, his eyes drifted from his ecstatic team, as if searching through the crowd for something. Or, someone. 

Foolish boy. Why would you look there, and not here? I rolled my eyes, blowing the bands out of my face. Why did I even agree to come? 

I was at the edge of the stadium, at the highest row. The shadows from the high walls engulfing the field draped their eerie bodies over me, choking me. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to down my nausea. Too much noise, too many people, too much darkness, too much pressure-

  Then, it happened.

BANG!

A sound similar to a party popper echoed across the stadium, reaching every person, every ear. The lively atmosphere immediately stopped breathing, a silence similar to how the machine’s line abruptly goes silent after you pull the plug. 

1 deathly second passes.

Then, chaos. A woman's shrill shriek fills the arena, as if on cue. The bodies around her instantly start moving and swarming, a living mass of panic with only one goal: get out. 

BANG!

Another one. This time, aimed at the other side of the stadium. By now the frenzy had engulfed the arena, making it impossible to tell if a reaction like the woman’s had been born on the Bear’s side. 

My heart pounded in my ears, the adrenaline rushing through my body. I could practically see the pulsing vibrations through my shirt.

My gaze goes back to Cliff. He’s left his spot on the sidelines, probably ushered into the safety of the locker room. 

My gut says otherwise. 

I start down the concrete stairs, passing the now empty rows at the tops of the stadium, their occupants still struggling to rush away. When I finally break the shadows, I breathe a quiet gasp of freedom. 

There’s a tidal wave of people, a large, alive and shapeless mass, moving with no direction, no agreement. The vibrant reds and blues of the team’s football goers almost merge together to form an ugly purple when I squint my eyes. 

I watch the mass like a hawk. I know that soon I will see a pair of hazel eyes, a mop of tussled blonde hair. Under the intensity of the lights, he will glow like a golden treasure. 

A glimmer catches my eye. 

Sure enough, there’s the salmon fighting against the river. 

I can’t hear him, I can only see him. His eyes are on me, his mouth open as if urging me to come. How cute…he stayed back to rescue me. I suppress the curl of my lip, swallowing carefully. For Slylvie. 

I walk down the concrete steps, my black boots clicking on each step, the sound echoing thunderbolts in my ears. Inaudible to the unaware passerby, every tap fills me with more and more power, the solid steps forcing an aura of false confidence around myself, making me taller and taller as I walk lower and lower.  

An entire length of the stadium chairs is empty by now. The mass had shrunk by a miniscule amount, the panicked chatter filling my every sense. 

He’s finally reached me by now, a calm in the chaos. “Monica…there you are…” his warm hand gingerly cups my face affectionately. His familiar eyes are filled with worry, his brows furrowed as he scans my face. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” His strong arm wraps around my shoulders, gently urging me to follow. I almost lose myself for a second, starting after him, following the safety, the familiarity… but then reality comes crashing down. I freeze, and he stops, inquisitively glancing back at me. 

“Funny how quickly things end, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah, you’re right. The game is definitely over now. Come on now, let’s go,” he tries to grab my hand. I pull it out of his reach, coldly acknowledging him.

His eyes fill with shock, then confusion and finally hurt as he meets mine.

“Her time was too short. Her life ended too early. The doctors said she could have recovered. But I guess someone didn’t want to wait and see.” 

“W-what?” He cocks his head, his handsome face contorted into an expression of even deeper confusion than before. I continue. 

“Cliff, did you know that after you pull the plug,” I raise my hand, drawing an even up and down motion, “everything just…stops.” I sharply force my hand to a stop, and with a trembling palm slowly trace a horizontal line.  He blinks twice at me, cluelessly. “Monica, come on. It’s not safe right now, and you’re clearly in shock. Let’s go-”

I laugh bitterly, cutting his wellwishes to an early end. “You really don’t know what I’m talking about” I whisper. 

“You’ve hit your head. Come on. We can take cover in the locker room. We have an EMT down there who can take a look at you,” he once again tries to reach for me.

“Sylvia.”

That makes him freeze.

“W-what did you say?” His eyes gain a sudden lucidity, a clarity. As if he had just started to process my words.

“She tried to warn me about you.”

He’s stiffened very quickly. His jaw is clenched, eyes deadset on me. Is this what his opponents see on the field? 

I gulp, shifting my expression to match his. This is a battle I will not lose. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.” 

It’s a heavy silence, even with the monstrous noises coming from the crowd. 

I start off slowly. Easily. “She was on that machine for three days.” 

His face paled, and I knew I had hooked the fish. 

“Someone pulled the plug, Cliff. Pulled it and walked away. Lucky for them, security just so happened to be unconscious when this happened. A fractured skull. Obviously from the sick fall he took down the stairs, right Cliff? His body was right next to them…so surely he had tripped.” Cliff stares unnervingly at me, and I feel a tremor of fear. I continue: “but a fractured skull is also possible when a person of strength uses that power in the wrong ways. It’s also possible for them to rearrange the scene to hide their secrets.”

He has started to breathe quite loudly, each inhale’s interval getting shorter and crisper. He’s getting mad. He opens his mouth to speak - 

“She told me, you know. For the few seconds she was conscious when we found her. Don’t worry, ‘Cli-’ is all that she could get out.” His eyes are narrowed in on me. 

His dark, violent green eyes.

They dart around me nervously, scanning for exits? A loophole?

Fury floods my body. “Looking for a way out? She couldn’t find one either. Especially when she was pinned by a man twice her size.” 

“Why you little-” his face contorts again, into something dangerous and wild. He lunges, hands extended, aimed for my throat-

Click.

He halts. The feeling of cold metal against his bare skin must not feel nice.

His eyes slowly drift down to his bare neck, where the tip of my handgun is pressed as gently as a first kiss. 

He goes back to me, his eyes filled with mercy. Fear. 

His face is as beautiful as when I first laid eyes on him. The beautiful eyes. The beautiful hair. The beautiful nose, the lips, the skin. 

“Monica,” he breathed raggedly, “surely you’d understand. She was going to ruin everything. Everything between…us. I-I was scared. I heard what she said to you that night. I was mad. I got drunk. I…I wasn’t supposed to go that far-” 

I pressed harder, and he winced away from me. My heart clenches. I can’t do this. No, no, no. He’s Cliff. The Cliff that made me laugh. The Cliff that always held me when I cried. The Cliff that makes the best pancakes. But he’s also that Cliff. The Cliff that yelled. The Cliff that smashed the bottles when he was mad. The Cliff that hissed death threats when I talked to anyone asides from him. That was the Cliff that Sylvie saw, without the rose colored lenses. 

A shriek from the crowd erupts. We both whip our heads towards the sound. There’s a commotion in the middle, a school of fish against the current. Security.

My gaze turns back to Cliff, and I see the face of a man I once loved. Then he turns back, and the coldness of his eyes sends a chill down my spine. This was the angry Cliff. The dangerous Cliff. The Cliff that tricked Sylvie into getting into that car with him, stabbed her, threw her out for dead.

“I thought you were perfect, Cliff. The golden boy. They all think you’re like that.” I gestured my gun towards the rushing crowd. “They still do, probably always will. I used to be just like them. But now, I’m not. I can’t.” 

“Monica-”

“You treated me like trash. Every little word, every little sentence, everything you did was a facade to gain my trust. You knew that that would keep me at your heels, your precious little plaything. Yours, all yours. Not even allowed to see anyone else but you. But I’m not yours. I’m mine, Cliff. I’m my own person. I don’t belong to anyone. Clearly, you didn’t recognize that.” 

There’s tears rushing in my eyes now, the gun trembling in my hands.

His eyes are black. He knows what is going to happen. 

“Goodbye.”