-continued from Wilted Rose-

There were two parts of the journey that stood out most to Julia as especially difficult.

Firstly, the plane journey itself. It was proving more and more difficult to ignore her peers, Julia awkwardly catching eye contact with glances here and there. The hospital room ...

Monday, January 3rd, 2022: Joint Branch Lewis-McChord, Tacoma, Washington 07:40AM




Her limited belongings had been bagged up, and Julia knew that it was time for her to leave the hospital ward. The night before, during her final interview session, the Interpol agents had finally made the ...

Thursday, December 30th 2021: Joint Branch Lewis-McChord, Tacoma, Washington 01:28PM




Grief famously plays silly tricks on your mind, so perhaps her avoidance of reality was just a spiralling knock-on effect of that.

Since her diagnosis, Julia had been undergoing cognitive behavioural therapy ...

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2021: Joint Branch Lewis-McChord, Tacoma, Washington 05:48PM




Another day in isolation had passed, her only company being the nurses and psychiatrists who came to poke and prod her throughout the day. Her bloods had been taken so many times that her veins throbbed, so ...

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2021: Joint Branch Lewis-McChord, Tacoma, Washington 11:19AM




"How are you feeling, Julia?"

The voice came from the corridor outside of her door, somewhat muffled but she recognised it as one of her surviving classmates. Julia hid under her duvet, using her hands to ...

Saturday, December 25th, 2021: Joint Branch Lewis-McChord, Tacoma, Washington 10:38AM




Christmas Day.

Historically, a day wrapped in celebration. Her family's long history of Catholic tradition would normally fill her heart with warmth, the promise from her Nonna that one day she would take ...

Wednesday, December 29th, 2021: Joint Branch Lewis-McChord, Tacoma, Washington 02:44PM




“And, remind me, that prize was for when you killed the boy in your class with the rock, right?”

A voiceless expression of hesitancy was all she could muster in response, met with a retaliatory cough from ...

[S119 - Julia Guercio - continued from hope is smashable, realism is not. ]

Each step felt a little more exhaustive than the last. Her lungs hurt as she panted desperately, her face blotchy and painted crimson not just from the blood of Salem. The ringing in her ears was unrelenting, the pain in ...

[S119 - Julia Guercio - continued from my september ]

Julia couldn't pretend that she was massively excited about the senior ski trip. The lockdowns and virtual classrooms had basically sapped what little social status, and capacity, she had. She no longer had a boyfriend, she was falling behind ...

Smile for the photograph, he said.

With the flash of a camera, one painfully loud bang, and it was all done.

A shower of blood, skin, flesh. All of it came crashing down her like a cascading waterfall, the beauty of the falls replaced by the gore of a half-destroyed face still standing tall before ...

Learning that California was allegedly dead was a painful punch in the stomach. Julia didn't know her very well, and had no idea whether Salem was even mouthing truths or just inciting falsehoods. She wasn't on any announcement, so had either died earlier today and Salem had been unfortunate enough ...

Physically, there was not much separating them in distance anymore, and, equally, the tune of the hunter-prey paradigm that they had spent all week masquerading around to was being distorted into nothing short of indifference. The dissonance was unyielding. The exasperation in his gaze countered the ...

Salem looked entranced, a sinister frustration slipping from his tongue as he lost control. The fear bubbling out from beneath his pores was tangible as his eyes widened with that visceral mixture of anger and despair. The hopelessness Julia had herself been intimidated by seemed to be erupting from ...

Salem waving his gun in Julia's face felt chillingly familiar. It was like an echo pounding once again, his little gun waving menacingly in her direction. Pointed right at her face, locked eye contact like an icy death stare.

The girl he had pointed his weapon at before wasn't the same girl ...

Julia wished she had an immediate answer to his question, but even she struggled to figure that one out. Weird attachment issues? A kink for rescuing the bad boys? A hero complex?

What was the real answer? Lily had taught her that valuable lesson a few days prior; hate the game, don't hate the ...