Complete darkness with her eyes open or closed.

She blinked a few times to see if she was missing the difference. She wasn’t.

God, she was drunk.

The invisible world was spinning. Or rather, it was tilting under her feet and then somehow switching back to where it was a moment before. It was like being trapped in a GIF, the same moment endlessly repeated.

She’d never drunk alcohol before tonight but she’d only had a beer. Had they spiked her drink?

She planted her feet in the soil to keep herself upright. Her ankles were scratched raw by the stubble of the recently harvested crop. Her eyes were sore from crying. Snot ran from her nose. Her tinnitus rang like the endless echo of a doorbell held down for too long, demanding attention. Too many hours with her headphones on and the music turned up loud. Music to drown out her mum and dad’s endless fighting. To block out the other kids at school jeering and laughing at her. Until they found her behind the science block where the janitor stored his tools and bits of wood, corrugated metal and bricks. Some of those bricks had been there when she started at that school. She wondered if they’d seen other kids like her over the years trying to hide. Trying to convince themselves they wanted to be alone. That it was a choice to spend breaks and lunchtimes there until the bell rang.

When they found her, she’d been surprised when instead of the usual comments, insults, spitting and punches, they’d invited her to the cinema that weekend. She’d agreed but then not gone. She wasn’t that stupid.

The following Monday they asked her where she’d been. They’d waited for her. She still didn’t trust them. Why should she? Helen had agreed – they were up to something.

One lunchtime she walked past their table and they told her to join them. She couldn’t think fast enough to make an excuse so she’d sat at the one free seat that looked like it had been waiting for her. They didn’t talk to her much but she wasn’t being ignored. It was like she’d always been a part of their clique. As if she was simply The Quiet One.

The same thing happened the next day.

* * *

When she was eight years old, she’d seen a film in the middle of the night while her parents had left her alone to go to a party. The final scene freaked her out so much she’d gone to bed with every light on in the house. Her mum had given her the belt for that when she came home at 3am pissed out of her skull, her dad passed out on the sofa.

The film was about a bullied teenager who is tricked into thinking everyone at school likes her before they pour a bucket of pig’s blood over her. But the girl has the power to move things with her mind and she kills them all. Her crazy mother had warned her they weren’t to be trusted and she’d been right. Helen said the same thing about her new friends. But Helen wasn’t her mother. Helen was her friend. She wasn’t trying to control her – she was looking out for her.

She’d met Helen when she’d lost the blue scarf her nan had given her for Christmas. Her mother had screamed at her, calling her a stupid, ungrateful idiot before telling her to go outside in the dark and not come back till she’d found it. She wasn’t allowed a phone so she had to take a torch and search all round the farm, the yard, inside the barn and out onto the fields through the growing barley. The torch had flickered out and she was lost in darkness except for what little illumination came from the stars and waning fingernail-slim moon.

She began to cry, knowing she would never find the scarf and dreading what her mum would do to her. She hated God for making her live this life and for knowing it was wrong to pray for anything for herself so she couldn’t even ask that she would find the scarf. Instead, she cried and prayed that He would just leave her alone so she could escape the world and the unfair rules that everyone but her seemed to understand, making her a freak that everybody happily tortured.

That was when she met Helen.

‘Are you alright?’

The surprise was enough to make her stop crying, like a tap had been turned off. All she could see was a silhouette darker than the world around her. There was the impression of someone wearing only a dress and with long hair reaching just below the shoulders. Yes, she was alright, thank you. Just looking for something.

‘What you looking for?’

She was too embarrassed to explain about the scarf. It would sound ridiculous when spoken out loud. Instead, she asked what they were doing there on private property.

‘Just out for a walk. Public right of way. Or something.’

The silhouette giggled.

‘I’m Helen.’

She’d introduced herself to Helen and said she should probably go cos public right of way or not, her dad would not take kindly to a stranger walking through his barley crop.

‘Let me help you.’

Eventually, she’d accepted the offer of help. Helen found the scarf. She didn’t know how Helen could have found it where she claimed – ‘Under the ash tree by the fence.’ – when she hadn’t been up that way since being gifted the scarf, but she was just happy to avoid her mum’s fury.

‘See ya, then.’

And she had. A few days later she went out in the middle of the night when she lost her hat – her mum hadn’t noticed yet – and Helen was there again, out walking, joined the search and found it. She said she’d invite Helen in for tea but her parents didn’t allow strangers in the house. Helen said she understood all too well what that was like and said they should meet again the next night.

It felt so natural meeting Helen at night. She was a freak so of course her only friend would be a freak too. The fact she never saw her was a bit weird but Helen said she had a birthmark on her face that she was self-conscious about and that was why she only went for walks at night.

They bonded quickly.

* * *

The girls had invited her to a house party. Everyone was going.

Helen had advised against it when she told her about it.

‘They’re not your friends. Not really.’

She told Helen she was wrong. They’d been nice to her, letting her walk round together during breaks, telling her the latest gossip around school and even one time calling her up at home to ask for help with homework. Why would they invite her to a party if she wasn’t their friend?

‘Don’t you think it’s a bit weird?’

What was weird, she asked.

‘They bully you for years and now want to be your friend. You don’t think that’s weird?’

It was true that the shift from being nobody to an (awkward) member of a popular group of girls was inexplicable. But like a banknote found on the street, her new found acceptance was not to be questioned or given up.

She went to the party.

There had been an electricity in the house when she got there. People were excited about something but she couldn’t tell what. She even asked what was going on but no would say. They carried on partying but the anticipation was undeniable.

She had a beer. It tasted disgusting but she drank the whole can. Drunkenness washed over her like a cloud passing across the sun, leaving her in the cold.

As she stumbled against the wall, her swimming vision taking in a wall-mounted deer head that seemed to be staring at her with its black eye, she became aware of a bright white light. She was being filmed by several phones as she was guided through the house and out the back into the yard. The cold air outside was like ice down her back and made her more aware of what was going on while still being unable to resist.

Hands were all over her. She thought they were supporting her body but then she found she was soon in just her pants. They took her to the end of the garden and she was thrown forward onto packed earth. The lights continued to blind her as they videoed her rolling on the earth amongst the squawking, flapping chickens, loose feathers and shit sticking to her skin.

She began crying, unable to find a way out from behind the chicken wire fencing. Eventually, someone must have opened the gate for her to get out and she ran, everyone laughing. She knew which way home was and she stumbled and fell her way through the dark, terrified they would chase and catch her for further humiliation.

Her trainers eventually crunched on fresh cut stalks, telling her she was in the barley field. Crying out Helen’s name, she found her leaning against the scarecrow.

‘What happened?’

She told her.

‘Hate to say I told you so…’

The night was pitch black, clouds blocking out the moon and stars, saving her from their witnessing her humiliation. She stood there, covering herself despite the dark hiding her nakedness.

‘You’re like me. I can tell.’

The clouds began to appear, tinted red by the first rays of dawn.

‘I didn’t have any friends either. None that didn’t end up hating me.’

She asked why they hated her.

‘I wasn’t always…a good friend.’ The dark outline of Helen’s head looked away to the horizon. ‘Eventually, they all gave up on me and cut me off.’

She didn’t know how to reply. She tried sorry, but it sounded weak.

Helen seemed to shake herself out of her reverie. She turned back to look at her and the light was just starting to show Helen’s face, like a developing Polaroid. The sight made her freeze.

‘But we could be friends. If you wanted.’

She was still staring at Helen’s face. Or what had been her face.

‘Why don’t you stay here? With me?’

The clouds seemed ripe with blood. Helen was pale and her hair hung lankly around her face, her eyes set in dark circles as if she’d wiped them with sooty hands. Her dress was damp and her wax raincoat was a body bag swallowing her plump frame.

She looked around as the world revealed itself in the morning light. It was her dad’s field but she didn’t recognise it. She could be anywhere.

‘Stay with me.’

She noticed Helen was holding something out to her. The blade was dull, the handle worn and black. She took it without thinking.

She looked at Helen who was smiling at her, eyes alive with excitement.

‘It won’t hurt. Promise.’

‘I don’t know…’

‘I can’t do it for you.’

‘I’m so cold.’

‘You won’t be. Not for long.’

She thought about her life. About being alone. About how stupid everything seemed, especially herself and her stupid life.

She looked at the razor in her hand. She raised her other arm and turned the inside of it up towards the blood-red sky like an offering.

It would be nice to have a friend.