Short Story - Time to Leave

It’s Monday. I open my eyes to a world which seems darker than it was the day before. Every day the sky bends down lower, until I'm sure one day it will just stoop down and swallow me up. My mum shouts after me as I leave for school, but I hear only sound, her words are wasted on me. 

Teachers used to try and involve me in lessons but they gave up long ago, now they let me sit here in a conscious, yet absent state.

It's Tuesday. Nothing's changed.

It's Wednesday.

It's Thursday.

It’s Friday, somebody’s slipped a note inside my locker. It says, “Follow the trail on the map, from someone who sees you every day and wants to help.” This hasn't ever happened before; no one’s tried to get through to me the whole time I've been at this school. Attached to the note is a map with an inky line leading to an ‘X’. I know the area, I can see my school marked on it, but I can’t work out where the trail leads to. So I follow it. Maybe it’s a stupid thing to do, who knows, there’s only one way to find out. 

I arrive in a meadow which I never knew was here and I see something stuck to a tree. It says, “The sun will shine on your life if you’ll only let it in. It’s time to leave the darkness and see the light walk in.” I lie down in the long grass, look up at the sky and hear the birds sing. I realise, when it takes someone else who you hardly know to open your eyes and show you the beauty of the world, you need to change your mind set and leave your dark past behind.