Mister Rhapsody
At five in the evening on the thirtieth of April, I was heading back to my dorm when a disheveled woman in a mask passed me going the other way. Her eyes were sunken.
"It's your turn," I thought I heard her say, but her voice was so faint I thought I might have imagined it.
A second later, a deafening thump came from nearby.
"Ah!"
"Someone jumped off a building!"
"Someone's dead! Call an ambulance!"
The police arrived quickly and sealed off the scene.
The girl who had died was Rosa Harris, one of my dorm mates. The police interrogated each of us. All of us had the same impression of her.
She was poor, unsociable, withdrawn, and possibly mentally ill.
Her death was ruled a suicide before long.
The police left, but the campus stayed on lockdown. Everyone was forced to hand over their phones for inspection. Anything about Rosa's suicide was deleted to keep the news from getting out.
The lockdown would end at eight in the morning on the first of May, when we could leave for the break.
But I never made it off campus.
When my alarm rang at six in the morning, I groggily opened my eyes. Suddenly, a large hand clamped over my mouth and nose. I suffocated, dying in agony and despair.
When I opened my eyes again, it was five in the evening on the thirtieth of April. A voice spoke in my ear, so faint I could have imagined it.
"It's your turn."