Who am I?

Jazz music playing and an elegantly dressed crowd mingling and swaying on the dance floor, the dinner party was on. Upper class whose who’s came out to celebrate the birthday of one of the neighborhood’s elite, Mr. Darlton; his wealth enough to buy a small country and a house that should have its own zip code. Among the invited was Molly Gray wearing a flowing red dress, a thirty-five year old medium toned black woman; a lawyer and fiancée to Richard Samson, a forty year old Surgeon and a coveted member of the doctor’s association. They had been engaged two years and were looking to tie the knot at the end of the year. Swaying on the dance floor, the two held each other close and looked into each other’s eyes like they were the only ones in the room.

Nearing 10 O’clock Molly and Richard left the party and Richard drove Molly home. He pulled up in the front and parked, leaving the engine running.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come up?” Richard said.

“Yes I’m sure, you have that doctor’s association thing tomorrow and I need you well rested,” Molly replied.

“Yeah but I could come up even just for a bit. Ten minutes,” he said, stroking her thigh.

“You know I would love you to come up but no. And your sweet little gestures are not going to help either.”

“Oh are you sure not even if I kiss you here,” Richard leaned in and kissed her on her shoulder.

“No.”

“O.k. what about here,” he said and kissed her on her neck.

“Nope,” she said and smiled; she loved the feel of his kisses, his lips like a soft flower to her skin.

“Oh man, what about here,” Richard said and kissed her lips, awakening her insides like a storm. Almost getting completely enveloped Molly pulled away.

“Uh uh I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Is it working?”

“Yes,” she said grabbing her purse and opened the door as Richard just laughed. “Call me when you get home.”

“I will. I love you.”

“I love you,” Molly said and shut the door. She walked to the front door getting her keys out of her purse and got the door open. Safely inside, Richard then drove off and Molly after locking the door walked upstairs to her bedroom.

She lived by herself and her house had more space than she needed, Richard would occasionally come for sleepovers but most of the times it was just her.

In her room Molly hopped in and out of the shower and slipped into a night dress. She then turned the lights off and got into bed.

Outside the gentle wind blew and the crickets screeched and inside Molly was about to fall asleep when suddenly she heard the sound of something breaking downstairs. She raised her head; trying to get a better listen but it went cold. She threw the blankets off of her and rushed the get the door slightly open, hoping to hear more of what she heard before but nothing. Her heart began to race and a cold chill ran down her back, someone was in her house. She then ran into her walk in closest and walked out with a baseball bat in her hand. She got the door open and crept down the hallway; looking front, back and front again.

She reached the top of the stairs and looked down into the foyer but nothing was out of place. She turned the light on and went down the stairs; her eyes looking sharply at every corner they could touch, still nothing. She reached the living room door and turned the lights on and immediately her eyes shifted to the glass pieces on the floor; her vase that sat on one of the side tables was broken. But how? The door was still locked and no windows appeared to be broken. Starting to hyperventilate Molly raised the baseball bat higher and held it tighter walking closer to the broken vase.

A few steps away from it suddenly the living room light switched off. Molly like a hawk turned to where the living room switch was hoping to see someone but no; there was no one there. Her heart skipped a beat and she started to tremble; suddenly feeling a heaviness in the room she knew something was wrong. She attempted to run back upstairs and call for help but just upon doing so something leaped out of the shadows and attacked her; wrapping a thin wire around her neck and pulling it back hard.

Molly dropped the bat and struggled to get free but the wire was too thin to get a hold of. Her veins began to bulge, her breath shortened and her eyes reddened as the thing behind her, in all black, muscular and seven feet tall, continued to strangle her, tighter and tighter. Upstairs by the bedside, her phone started ringing. Richard had arrived home and was calling her let her know but there was no answer. On she struggled as the thing, known as The Chasen, continued to strangle her; her eyes blood red and her veins almost bursting out of her skin.

Just then it placed its hand, four times the size of her head, on her face and sucked her soul right out of her body; a bright white light leaving her body and entering its hand.

Her soul gone Molly's world went completely black and after removing its hand from her face her body then fell to the floor like a ragdoll. The Chasen then walked away, with its footsteps creaking the floor and disappeared into a dark portal that opened and closed behind it. Upstairs Richard continued to call but there was no response.

“Hey babe? I’m home,” his text said. “Sorry I took so long I had to stop by the supermarket. Looking forward to our dinner this weekend, I am going to cook you the most delicious mac and cheese you have ever had,” he texted on as downstairs his fiancée, the love of his life, had just been murdered.

The following day, in a diner, one of the waitresses on duty was in the back room taking a nap. She was in uniform and was lightly snoring looking to be miles into her sleep. Suddenly she burst out of her dreams heavily gasping like she had been starving of air. She even fell off her chair coughing and choking, fidgeting her hands on her neck like there was something around it she was trying to remove. She then crawled to the corner and looked around like she had no idea where she was, shaking and trying to scream but failing to due to the harshness in her throat as on her neck was a thin bruise like someone strangled her with something thin like a string, a rope or a wire. Still she coughed whilst at the same time trying to catch her breath and scream, sounding like a zombie. Just then someone walked in, she was a waitress too and she had a name tag on that said ‘Becka’.

“Molly oh my gosh Molly are you o.k.?” Becka said and ran to her side but the waitress backed away from her and pushed herself closer into the corner. She too had a name tag on her and it said ‘Molly’. “Hey hey Molly it’s o.k. it’s me o.k. it’s me Becka you’re o.k.,” she then said placing her hands on her.

“He was choking me, he was trying to kill me,” Molly squealed but Becka couldn’t make out her words.

“Hey, hey calm down, it’s o.k. you were just having a bad dream, you’re o.k.,” Becka said and Molly continued; gasping on and trying to remove something from her neck that wasn’t even there.

“He was trying to kill me,” she squealed on. “He was in my house and he was choking me.” Her eyes jittery and shifting to every corner of the room, her skin crawling and her body shaking.

“It’s o.k. I’m here you’re o.k. just calm down you’re o.k.,” Becka said gently stroking her hair. Molly’s heart slowed down, still coughing and sounding like a zombie. “It’s o.k. just breathe slowly and take deep breaths, come on breathe with me.” Becka breathed in and out slowly and Molly breathed along with her. Her heart stopped racing and slowly she caught her breath. “There you go, that’s a good girl.” Becka hugged her and her heart though finding its quiet, her eyes were empty as to where she was and what was happening.

Hours later, Molly was in hers and Becka’s two bedroomed flat apartment. She was from having a shower and with a towel wrapped under her arms she went and stood in front of the mirror. A vastness in her eyes she stood there looking at her stranger of a reflection looking back at her. She softly ran her fingers across her face leaning closer to the mirror to try and find some truth in her eyes but there was none, she had no idea who the woman looking back at her was. Moving her fingers lower to her neck she saw the thin bruise and gave it a tender touch, getting a brief flash and feel of the woman who was choked to death the previous night, her eyes widened. All this time she was thinking it was probably just a bad dream but the realness of the bruise led her to think otherwise. Something then came to her and immediately she raced out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

On the other side of town there was a crime scene at one of the houses in a high class neighborhood. A woman was strangled to death and the front yard of her house had police cars and an ambulance parked, a few neighbors gathered to look and yellow tape securing the area. Manning the entire operation was Det. Eric Brighton, a forty-five year old dashing man who had been on the force twenty years. He was standing by the door when the coroners came out pulling the stretcher with Molly’s body on it in a black body bag. The body was put in the back of the ambulance and it drove off as Det. Brighton then walked to his squad car where Richard was sitting in the back seat drenched in tears; his eyes swollen and his nose red.

“I dropped her off and we agreed that when I got home I’d call her but when I did there was no answer. I called her almost ten times and left eight messages but she got back to none of them . . . . She always gets back to me. That’s when I knew that something was wrong. I drove back and used my spare key to come in . . . And that’s when I found her lying on the floor. I rushed to her side to check her pulse but . . . She was gone. My baby was gone,” Richard said and couldn’t contain himself.

“I am really sorry about what happened. No one should have to find out something this heavy like that,” Det. Brighton said. “Do you know of anyone who would want to do this to her?”

“No. Molly was loved by everyone. You can even ask her neighbors she was the sweetest anywhere you met her so this . . . This doesn’t make any sense. Who would do something so evil? That was someone’s daughter . . . That was the love of my life and now she’s gone.”

“I’m really sorry,” Det. Hutchison said as Richard threw his forward and broke down. Across the street Molly, in a simple dress, showed up and looked on; her eyes widened looking at a place that felt oh too familiar. Crossing the road she began to hyperventilate and went to stand with the small crowd of neighbors looking on. She wanted to ask the woman standing beside her but she remembered she didn’t have a voice and so she just stood there looking around. Suddenly her heart sunk to her stomach, she saw Richard and immediately her eyes flooded with tears. Det. Brighton had moved away and Molly went and stood exactly where he did, looking at Richard with her heart reaching out. She placed her hand on his shoulder and Richard turned to her. He looked at her and there was no difference in his expression; he felt her care in her touch and that was it. He then turned away and continued crying. Molly gasped and her heart like a glass shattered into a thousand pieces. He looked right into her eyes and didn’t know who she was. In that moment like a bullet to the chest it sunk in that she had lost a part of her that would never again be hers. So much had changed and things would never be the same again.

Mid-afternoon, Det. Brighton was at the police station by his desk looking through the pictures taken by the forensic investigators of Molly Gray’s murder. The floor was busy with an officer on each desk working and others walking around. Just then Molly walked in and looked around for Det. Brighton. She spotted him on his desk in the corner and walked across the floor to him.

“Det. Brighton?” she said. Her voice still zombie-like but her words this time able to be heard.

“Yes,” Det. Brighton looked up at her and said. Her eyes were frozen on the pictures before him and a cold chill ran down her back. Looking at the pictures like a ghostly reflection of herself. She gasped. “Can I help you?” She pointed to the pictures eyes widened and looking back down at them Det. Brighton rounded them up and hid them in a file. “Can I help you?” Molly went stiff as her heart beat so loud she could hear it. “Miss can I help you?”

“That’s . . . That’s me,” Molly said.

“What?” Molly pulled the chair on the other side of the desk near to him and sat down on it.

“I need to tell you something.”

“What happened to your voice?”

“That’s what I need to tell you. Something happened to me . . . To her,” Molly said and pointed to the file in which dead Molly’s pictures were in. Det. Brighton shifted his eyes to the file and then back at her lost.

“O.k.”

“I know this is going to sound crazy but I need you to believe me. Something really, really weird is happening to me and I am scared,” Molly said with a slight shiver to her tone.

“Please miss just take a deep breath and relax,” Det. Brighton said and tears slowly started to fill Molly’s eyes. She took in a deep breath managing to compose herself slightly.

“I am Molly Gray. Last night someone was in my house and they killed me,” she said and he was taken aback.

“I’m sorry what was that?” he said leaning forward.

“I am Molly Gray and last night . . . I was killed and I died.”

“Listen miss there’s a family out there that is mourning the death of their loved one you coming in here and making jokes about it is very despicable.”

“Look at me, do I look like I’m joking?”

“No, you look like maybe you need to go and talk to someone.”

“I am not crazy. I’m telling you the truth. I heard something break down downstairs and when I went to check it I found a vase broken on the floor. Suddenly I felt this cold draft come over me and when I was about to run back upstairs to call the police, I got attacked. I didn’t see it but I felt it, I’d like to say it was a person but it was not. It was this big thing with a heavy breath that smelled like smoke and ash and he was so strong. He chocked me with this thin wire and it felt like it was cutting my neck in half. I couldn’t breathe and I was so scared. I tried to fight but I couldn’t. My vision started to fade until it was gone and I was gone,” Molly said drenched in her tears and Det. Brighton just sat there looking blankly at her; dumbstruck.

“Are you one of those crazy mediums?” he asked.

“No I’m not. I’m just me. Something attacked me last night and I died.”

“Then how are you here?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you died you shouldn’t be here.”

“I shouldn’t be but I am. I died but somehow I came back in this form. This is not me. I’m not Molly Shane I’m Molly Gray and last night I got murdered,” Molly said slightly raising her voice and crying. The surrounding officers by their desks and others walking around couldn’t hear what she was saying but heard her elevated squeals wondering to themselves what was going on. Det. Brighton noticed them and leaned in closer to Molly.

“Miss listen to me. You need help.”

“Yes I do that’s why I’m here.”

“No I don’t mean here, I mean professional help. I know a very good psychiatrist, I can give you one of her number and you can schedule a session with her.”

“I don’t want to see a psychiatrist I need you to help me.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“But I’m not crazy. Something is going on with me and I am scared. I keep feeling the same heavy feeling I felt last night when I died, like something is watching me and following me. Please you have to help me, I just lost my life and everything in it. I’m alone and I am scared, please help me. Please,” Molly said and Det. Brighton had a heavy heart. He wanted to help her but two and two just weren’t being put together. He was a detective and worked with evidence and she had presented not a smidge of it.

“I’m sorry miss but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“So you are not going to help me?” she asked and Det. Brighton took a moment; caught at the intersection of doing his job and being human.

“No.” Molly threw her head forward and slowly stood up.

“I’m not crazy. And by the time you realize I was right . . . . . It will be too late,” she said and left as Det. Brighton remained in his thoughts wondering whether he made the right call or not.

Evening came and in their apartment, Molly sat on her bed crying. Everything about the life she knew was no longer hers and she was having a hard time processing it all. It was all too much and happening too fast. The door slowly opened and in walked Becka with a cup of herbal tea in her hands.

“Hey? I brought you some herbal tea. I figured it might calm you down and help with the voice,” Becka said and sat down next to Molly. Her nose was pink and her face was mushy.

“Thank you,” Molly took a sip of it and said, putting the cup on the bedside.

“I have never seen you like this. What’s going on?”

“You and I we’re friends right?”

“Yes.”

“Who am I?”

“What?”

“Who am I?”

“You’re Molly . . . Molly Shane.”

“No I’m not. I’m Molly Gray. I don’t know who Molly Shane is, I don’t know who this is and it is freaking me out.”

“Hey calm down it’s o.k.”

“No it’s not. I don’t know what is going on with me and I am freaking out,” Molly cried. “I just . . . I just want things to go back to the way they were. I want my life back, I want my family back and I want my Richard back. I have never seen him so sad in my entire life. He really loved me and now I’m gone.” She fell apart and Becka just sat there staring at her; lost for what to say she just placed her hand on her thigh as Molly cried on. A moment later she stood up. “I need some air, I’m going to go outside and get some air.”

“O.k. you want me to come with you?”

“You don’t mind?”

“Of course not. Let me just take our rent money to Barry and I’ll join you, you know how he gets when rent is even just a day late,” Becka said and chuckled.

“Sure.”

“I’ll find you in the garden.”

“O.k.” Molly walked out of the room and walked down the stairs to the back where the garden was. It was a small but cozy space with four benches spread out and facing each other, a flat rich lawn, bushy trees, colourful flowers and a street light in each corner. Molly reached and sat down on one of the benches underneath a tree. There was a quiet in the air and a gentle breeze blowing. She sat there taking in deep breaths and wiping away tear after tear; her eyes couldn’t stop pouring.

Just then she heard the sound of a small branch snapping within the tree above her. She looked up into the tree trying to see what it could be but it was too dark. She then just brushed it aside but immediately she did so the very same heaviness that came to her the previous night and had been coming to her in pockets throughout the entire day came over her again. And like before by the time she wanted to do something about it, it was too late. The same thing that attacked her before extended its hand from within the tree and pulled her up. Molly screamed her lungs out as in the tree the thing did as it did before, it placed its massive hand on her face and sucked her soul out.

Lifeless, Molly's body then fell out of the tree, onto the bench and then onto the ground where it lay still and pale like a corpse that had been dead for hours.

Becka walked down the stairs and into the garden to meet with Molly but upon reaching was greeted by a sight that sent cold chills down her spine; it was Molly on the ground not moving at all. Becka gasped and ran to her side to check on her.

"Molly," she said and turned her onto her back. She was pale and wasn't breathing, and when she placed two fingers on her neck to feel for a pulse and there was none, she took in a deep breath and screamed. Molly was dead.

01 in the morning the place was a crime scene. The forensic investigators had already swept the scene and Becka was sitting by the stairs crying; in the arms of two women who lived on the same floor as them. Det. Brighton showed up and was led by one of the officers to the murder victim. Under a white sheet the officer uncovered half of her and immediately Det. Brighton’s heart sunk to his stomach; it was the woman who came to see him the day before.

“And by the time you realize I was right . . . It will be too late,” her words echoed in his mind and he felt like a ton of bricks had just collapsed on him.

"Oh my gosh," he said, looking down at her crying shame; wishing he could turn back time and change how everything played out because Det. Brighton made the wrong call and it led to the death of an innocent woman.