Page 64 of Shattered Echoes

The room feels so empty of life. Maybe this feeling of something being off is just my normal paranoia and nothing is out of place. Shutting my eyes, I exhale, trying to let go of all that negative energy.

“Positivity, Colette. Think positive. Purge your mind of negativity. It's not healthy,” I whisper to myself. The more I try to convince myself that everything is fine, the more the feeling that everything isn't keeping attacking my mind.

I'm so confused and helpless because it's like my hands are tied, and there's nothing I can do at this point but wait. I get out of bed and pace around, chewing on my fingers. My phone chimes from the bedside table, turning itself on as it gets some charge in. I'm not expecting to see anything particular; the gesture is just a means of getting distracted by anything; relevant or irrelevant.

As I unlock it, my screen gets flooded with notifications.I open the first message I see, and my eyes widen in fear, my heart dropping into my stomach.

Images of Antonio’s deceased ex, Cassie, are splashed across social media, graphic and horrifying. Tweets range from calls to take the images down to those reposting them. Each image is a punch to my gut, triggering a chain reaction of panic.

Her lifeless body, bloodied and broken, is displayed for the world to see, and rather disturbing. With my knees quaking, unable to carry my weight, I reach for the bed and sit on it with a hand over my mouth. I'm breathing, knowing this is bad, this is terrible.

Looks like I wasn't just paranoid. It’s in times like this that I wish my gut feeling is wrong. He’d seen this, hadn’t he? Common sense tells me he saw it.

I do not know how he will react if he has indeed seen this, especially since he’s still volatile and not yet ready for such news. Now, I'm worried sick, and I don't even know where he is, nor can I reach him.

Where do I start?

My hands tremble as I scroll through the feed, each post more horrifying than the last, and I can't believe my eyes. I'm praying that it is a dream — a nightmare that I'll soon wake up from.

My mind is racing as I read through some comments of people, some of whom seem to be fans of Antonio.

“The bitch deserved to die after all she'd done to Antonio,” a user had commented.

“Yeah, it's her fault he turned to drugs.”

“I wish she rots in hell.”

“Someone took her own life and y'all are here trolling her. That's just sad.”

“Why is this still up?” one person tweets.

“This is sick. Take it down! Another tweet reads, RIP, Cassie. This is too much,” accompanied by the graphic image that makes my stomach churn.

“Who would do this to her?” asks another, while someone replies.

“No one did anything to her. She took her own life. The bitch abused him and sent him down on a path which almost led to his death.”

From what I can tell, both Cassie's fans and Antonio's seemed to have turned on her, blaming her for Antonio's addiction to drugs. The news says that she had taken her own life after the accusations started.

I can breathe as I continue to scroll, unable to stop reading, unable to look away from my screen. My eyes are burning, and I can feel the sting of my tear glands charging up as those images that I have tried to suppress come rushing back into my head.

My lips are trembling and my hands are shaking, but I'm still glued to the screen, feeding my eyes with those horrifying images of Cassie's dead body and the comments that follow it.

It seems like for every one that gets taken down, another appears. Some users are sympathetic, but others are heartless, reposting the photos with morbid comments and speculation.

“Why did Antonio stay with her for so long? She was clearly troubled,” one cruel comment says and my mind drifts to my case with Ricardo.

I used to ask myself the same question and now, seeing all of this just makes everything worse. My demons are resurfacing, stronger than before, triggered by the familiar images that my brain had registered.

I'm struggling to fight back the flashes in my head, but it is a losing battle. I've triggered my trauma by reading these posts, and now I have to deal with these relentless demons that are determined to drown me with depression.

“This happens when you don’t get help,” another person adds, as if they have any right to judge her or her struggles.

I rise to my feet in a state of discombobulation, both hands reach my head, combing my hair backwards as I pace around, with heavy breaths.

“No, no, no, no…” I murmur, almost shedding tears as the images of Ricardo's lifeless body flash in my head. “Not now, please, not now.”

It's official, I'm having a panic attack.

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