I only laughed once.
I want you to understand that before anything else.
I hold nothing against her, i never bullied her, i didn't even hate her.
All i did was laugh.
Her name was Nancy Janet, the kind of person who always wore the wrong outfit, spoke in the wrong pitch and always stood like it was wrong for her to exist.
Just the type you could easily forget and laugh at.
That day, i remember it was raining hard.
I remember how full the cafeteria was with students, everyone was huddled inside during lunch, and for some reason, Nancy was standing near us.
She was alone, like she always did.
Then she slipped as she was looking for a place to sit.
Her tray flew and the soup went splattering across her uniform.
She fell hard on her knees and her palms skidded against the wet floor.
The whole cafeteria fell silent.
But i laughed.
It wasn't a malicious laugh, i didn't mean it, it just burst out of me.
She looked up at me, her eyes were wide and glassy like she was about to cry.
My laughter sealed it.
The crowd laughed after that.
My laughter had broken the silence and they followed me like wolves.
They started mocking her, and called her the 'soup monster'.
I saw her bit her lower lip as she picked up her tray with shaking hands and ran out of the cafeteria.
I didn't ran after her, i didn't even say sorry.
Why reason? I don't know.
I just turned my focus back to my food.
After school, the teachers found her behind the school building.
Hung up on an old tree with her shoelaces, her uniform soaked with the soup.
********
Her locker was left untouched after that.
Students and teachers left flowers, some even cried.
The school held assemblies teaching us about kindness.
We all listened, but no one said what we were all thinking.
That we all laughed at a victim to her death.
That i started it.
It started the night after the burial.
I woke up at mid night to a sound.
Not rain, not thunder.
But laughter.
It came from my closet.
The laughter was low, as if the person was holding back tears.
I froze.
My heart started pounding like it wanted to come out.
I told myself that it was just my imagination.
But then i heard it clearly
" hehehe.."
Like a child giggling under a blanket.
I was scared to make a sound so i just lay there, staring at the ceiling, my pillow soaked in sweat.
The next morning, i checked by closet.
There was nothing, just my clothes.
But it didn't stop, over the weeks, the laughing followed me , at school i would hear it echo from the empty stalls of the bathroom.
At home, i started hearing them outside my house, sometimes inside my closet.
My phone would buzz in the middle of the night with recordings- of my own voice, laughing ruthlessly.
One night, as i was sleeping, i had a dream.
I was walking through the school, but i found it empty, no one at sight.
Every light above me flickered as i walked pass.
I followed the sound of a girl crying inside the bathroom.
Inside, the mirrors were shattered, all except one.
In it, i didn't see myself. I saw Nancy.
Her eyes weren't angry, they were empty, broken .
She didn't speak, she just reached up to the mirror and wrote something on the fog.
" did you mean it? "
I woke up and found the mirror in my room cracked.
That's when i realised, she didn't want to harm me, instead, she wanted me to know, to feel what she felt.
The sense of drowning while people mocked and laughed at her.
And i was one of them.
No one believe me, not my parents, not even my friends.
They said i was " processing grief".
That am just overwhelmed.
But i knew, she was haunting me.
One day, i couldn't take it anymore.
I went to the woods behind our school, were she was found.
The school planted a tree there in her memory, were she ended her life, alone.
I dropped to my knees beneath that tree and cried, cried until my throat went dry.
And for the first time since this all began, the wind stopped, the air became still and....and i felt her.
She didn't say anything.
She didn't have to.
Because suddenly, i remembered everything.
Not just what i did, bu what i didn't.
I never asked her if she was okay.
I never reached out.
I never told the others to stop.
I remembered that one day she fell in the cafeteria, and how i turned away so i wouldn't have to be involve with her, how i laughed instead.
And here i said i never bullied her.
God.
That moment, that horrible moment- i could've done something.
But i didn't.
Instead i laughed.
" sob...I'm sorry, im so sorry " i whispered.
" i didn't mean to, i really wish i could go back.."
And that's when i felt the wind again.
Only this time, it wasn't cold, it was gentle,
A gentle touch.
.....a goodbye.
Since that day, the hauntings have stopped.
The dreams, the whispers, the recording- all gone.
But the guilt never left.
Because now i understand.
She wasn't trying to punish me, she was trying to show me, what cruelty feels like when its disguised as laughter.
What it means to be broken and mocked for bleeding.
I live my life differently now, i speak up, i reached out to does who are suffering in silent.
I carry Nancy's name like a promise.
And when people laugh at someone who is hurting, i don't join them.
Its been years now, i still remember her face, her voice, her pain.
And i do not laugh.
Not anymore.
Because i know what it costs.
And i will carry that price for the rest of my life.
[ Kia returns]
"People can't hear them".
Unless they wanted them to.
I heard Nancy the moment the shoelace tighten .
She didn't scream, she didn't cry.
She just breath.
Softly asking just one thing
'did she mean it?'
After that, the world around her changed.
The air began to listen.
*sighs*
It would've been easier if she had come back for revenge and burn them all.
But no.
She didn't want revenge, she wanted to be seen.
And that's what made it worse.
This girl begged for forgiveness, not because she was afraid.....but because, for the first time, she understood what she had done.
That laugh? That tiny moment of cruelty?
It was louder than a scream.
Heh, what a kind soul you have there, Nancy.
So here's a question for you;
Have you ever heard a voice inside you asking, ' did you mean it?'
You better have the right answer.
Because i too will be listening.