Too Late: Day 12

 Word Count: 72,034

Summary of Events:

Callan was able to get into contact with a counsellor who was willing to help Amarina, and wanted to be able to contact her directly; however, when Callan asked Amarina for her mobile number she viciously refused him. Amarina, stressed out by increased harassment from the monster and all kinds of other strange men, as well as frustrated by the residual trouble stemming from the tripping allegation at work, cut herself before penning the lyrics to the sixth verse. Having not heard anything from Amarina in a few days, Callan decided to go out and see if he could figure out where she lived, as he suspected it was reasonably nearby . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Callan kept walking northwards when a piece of rubbish caught his eye.

It was caught at the base of a shrub and fluttering with the wind, but it caught his eye not because it was caught as much as because it was a twice-folded piece of notebook paper, such as he’d seen five times before.

Bending down, he picked it up, distress swelling within him as he saw there were dark brown moisture stains on the paper, now crusty and dry.

Callan knew well what blood looked like, both when it was oozing out from flesh, bright and carmine, or oxidised and brown, having dripped onto a towel, a shirt, or, in this case, a piece of paper.

Unfolding the paper revealed the lyrics, which were equally as disheartening as the sight of the blood on the page, for the little ant actually wrote that she was being pummelled by faecal matter — using the common profane term in order for it to rhyme with six.

Did she count his ask of her mobile number as a part of that pummelling? He certainly hoped not, but, at the same time, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she did count it as that.

He didn’t want her to, he he wanted to help her, and he wanted her to know that he was helping her, not to view his efforts to help her as pummelling her with refuse along with everyone else she knew.

About the only good thing Callan could see about having found the paper was the fact that — since it was reasonably clean excepting the bloodstains — it proved to him the little ant had to still be alive.

Or, at least, that she’d been alive within the last twelve hours, as there’d been a light drizzle yesterday evening that would surely have inflicted a few drops on this piece of paper somewhere along the way.

Would this be the sort of message that she would leave behind if on her way to kill herself, though? Callan wasn’t altogether sure. He didn’t feel like it was as much a despairing message as it was a frustrated one, and that prompted Callan to have hope himself that the little ant was alive, but there was a niggling of doubt as to how much longer that would be the case.

He hated to have that doubt, if he was honest, but it was there, and he felt as if he were racing against time to find the little ant and some way, somehow, conclusively, give her proof that he was, in fact, out to help her, no matter what it took.

Pocketing the paper, Callan looked around. He was sure that the little ant wasn’t close by, he’d never suspected her to be near at hand when she’d left any of the other lyrics, after all, they’d all clearly been left behind, some of them accidentally dropped, like this latest set, some deliberately placed, but none of them were ever found when she was near at hand.