The night that changed everything

It’s over, he could have killed me, instead he took her away from me, she is still missing, and I am still living with this burden. I’ve been to countless therapists, taken thousands of antidepressants, and I have emptied my heart and soul of anything important, I can't risk losing anything else that I have any emotional connection too. The only thing that I believe that will silence my heart wrenching guilt is to end it all. End the hope of tomorrow, destroy the belief that someone will bring forward new information, and terminate the sorrow I have brought upon any citizen that dares to look at the scars I drag around with me everyday and night.

She wasn't supposed to be following me that night, I should have made sure I wasn't being followed, if someone followed me I knew there would be consequences but I also knew better than to be involved with someone like Sam. He had a darkness that clung to him like the smell of bonfire smoke, clutching to anything that gets within its cloudy grasp. He hung on to the lighter fluid bottle with a air tight grip, and squeezed the small metal case of matches like it was the key to the worlds hopes and secrets. He met me one night when I was locked out of my apartment, I was roaming the streets like the hopeless drunk I was. He had a wide smile stretched across his dirt stained skin, he said I reminded him of his younger brother, he called me Burnout, and he called himself Lighter, we were a team in his eyes.

Bonnie Carter was my sixteen year old sister, she had been staying at my apartment since my parents kicked her out for stealing a bottle of Nyquil from our local department store a couple months after I met Sam, my sister had a history of sticky fingers. She looked like an innocent little girl that could do no wrong, and she resented it. She had bleach blonde hair with ice blue eyes, in the winter she could be as pale as a fresh snowflake but in the summer her complexion would transform from a snowflake into a person that could be from the Dominican. She had a voice like glass, smooth yet effortlessly flawless but sharp and to a point, she could sing like the birds on a bright spring morning, yet could alter her voice to make a small threat sound like a death sentence. People looked at my sister with big eyes like a deer's in the headlights, people compared my sister to a lamb, small and delicate, unable to bring harm to anyone, not on purpose at least.

Sam knew about Bonnie, she disgusted him while intrigued him at the same time, and he would say to me “Anything that purified, needs to get a hit of reality, and taste the real world. My world”. He would use her against me as leverage by telling me the things he would do to her if I ever told anyone about him and if I dared to go against him he would threaten my life and hers, forcing me to get my hands dirty and light the match that would destroy a helpless persons house to the ground.

It was three years ago today, the night that ruined me, destroyed my life, and snatched my sister out from behind me. It was a hot and muggy summer night, the phone that Sam gave me eight months before started to ring, playing the song Burning up by the Jonas Brothers, cliché right? I quickly silenced it and read the text message he sent me, telling me the address of our next crime, I snatch my bag off of my closets floor, and swiftly check on my snoozing sister. I kiss her cheek and make my escape, humming along with the elevator music as it descended from the twenty eighth floor. I run in the shadows, avoiding any main roads, clinging to the darkness and snaking my way through alley’s and small side roads until finally arriving at the small farmhouse a few miles away from my apartment. I find Sam leaning against an old oak tree, wearing a beat up black tank top, an oversized pair of black cargo shorts and large black crocs. He looks like he rolled around in a puddle of oil and showered in dirt, I have asked him in the past if he was homeless, but he always brushes my questions off, I don't dare ignore his questions.

He doesn't say anything to me as he takes my bag and strides towards the vacant looking farmhouse.

“Does anyone live here?” I asked him as we approach the house, I take note of the broken windows and peeling paint.

“I did, this was the place that ruined me and my family, and now I am going to burn it to the ground,” Sam responds, the hatred in his voice clear as the night sky. He crouches down next to a broken window that looks into possible living room, he drops the bag as he tries to break the rest of the glass. “How’s that little roommate of yours, is she still as pure as she looks,” he growls at me with a hint of amusement cracking through a layer of disgust. I hand him the lighter fluid as a chill shoots through me, I get the feeling that someone is watching us.

“Why don't you ask his ‘roommate’ yourself,” I crumple to my knees as the feminine voice cuts through the thick air like a knife slicing through a piece of tough meat. I crank my head around and stare dumbfounded at my sister, wearing all black, with a mean grimace on her pretty face, the dark clothes makes her bright hair look like a nightlight in a lightproof room.

“Hello Bonnie, I thought it was about time we finally meet, I have heard such pitiful things about you,” Sam's voice is loud and dominant, almost knocking me off of my feet.

“Funny, if I am pitiful, then I am dying to know what you are,” she snaps back at Sam, he laughs in a deep menacing tone, I shudder despite the hot, humid temperatures. He takes a step forward and looks down at me with almost black eyes, he turns his head and flicks his glance over to my sister and then back to me, before I can react Sam dumps the bottle of lighter fluid on me. The stinging starts immediately after, like a firework was set off on every inch of my skin, and I begin to roll around in the grass like a pig in mud.

“STOP, SAM WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” I manage to choke out, my lungs burn like my skin, with every breath it feels like a million little forks dragging down my throat and lungs.

“MASON!” I hear Bonnie scream at the top of her lungs, her feet hit the grass hard as she sprints towards me.

“Mason, I told you to not test me, now you both have to pay,” Sam growls at me, I can’t open my eyes, it feels like someone put hot coals on them.

“BONNIE RUN!” I screech, I try to crawl away from Sam, from this house, from my pain.

“SAM PUT THE LIGHTER DOWN!” I hear my sister shout from what sounds like a few feet away from me.

“Okay,” Sam tells my little sister in a sinister voice.

That was the last thing I remember.


I woke up six days later in the hospital, ¾ of my body was covered in bandages, my hair and eyebrows were burnt off, and my sister was missing. Apparently a car drove by and saw a house on fire, and immediately called the fire department, shortly after they arrived and put the fire out, they found my burnt body laying on the grass a few feet away from the house. Barely breathing, they sent me to Seattle general hospital and assessed the extent of my injuries and burns. 2/4 of my body was coated in second degree burns and ¼ was third degree, how I survived was a mystery to my doctors but they said it was a miracle. The police questioned me a few weeks later and I told them that Bonnie met Sam a few weeks before and he talked her into coming out to the farmhouse, and I followed her, enraging Sam, causing him to set me on fire, and take Bonnie. They said they will do whatever they can, and look for Bonnie, but there was no evidence left at the scene, it was all disintegrated just like my hope for a new tomorrow.

From that point on I distanced myself from everyone the only person I talked to was my aunt, she paid my rent and bills, and bought me groceries, other than that I didn't return anyone's phone calls, didn't leave my apartment, and I didn't look for Bonnie. I drove myself insane, I took pill after pill, trying to get rid of the guilt of burning down those houses and dragging Bonnie into Sam's grasp.

So here I am, three years later still no information on my sister, laying on my apartment floor contemplating if death is the better option than to continue to search with no lead and no information or to be free of all this guilt and misery. Death would be simpler, just to end all of this, to finally come to peace with the darkness and let it swallow me, but how should I end this three years of agony? Shall I take my pills all at once and wash them down with a vodka chaser? Or should I jump from my twenty eighth floor window? No! I shall do it from the roof, I will have a chance to be free as a bird, Bonnie would want that, she would want me to be free like a bird.

I step onto the elevator and let my thoughts consume me. Is this what excepting death feels like? Did Bonnie except death? Or did she fear it, like she feared the dark. Bonnie never understood what it was like to be surrounded by darkness, dad didn't hit her like he hit me, she didn't witness the darkness creep into his eyes at night unlike me, it was like a thick fog rolling in. I step out of the elevator onto the open rooftop, looking over the surrounding buildings. It is such a beautiful day out today, and from up here everything looks small and irrelevant, and it is quiet, I like the quiet. Did I lock my apartment door? Oh well not like there is anything important in there, the only important thing to me was Bonnie and she is gone now, so I guess I shall be gone as well, only seems fair.

“GOOD BYE WORLD,” I shout into the wind, I step up on to the ledge and look down at the gray cement. I step off, spreading my arms like they are the wings of an eagle taking flight. I look at the window of my building as I fall towards the hard unforgiving concrete, and I hear the ring of a phone as I near my apartment, the ringtone seems to be playing Burning up by the Jonas brothers. For a moment as I pass my apartment window I catch a glimpse of a girl in a red coat with bright blonde hair, and for a moment I regret not having hope.

“Bonnie,” I say to myself with a smile on my face as the ground draws closer and closer, and then nothing.

Silence.