Chapter 3 You...

So that's what it feels like after death.

Perhaps someone's cry awakened my wandering soul and brought me back to reality. Everything before my eyes appeared realistically, the coffin, the wreath and the sad, lingering music.

I woke up in a tragic scene, surrounded by the sound of trumpets and plaintive cries from inside to outside.

The coffin lid was left half open so everyone could see the deceased one last time. Strangely enough, the person lying in that coffin was me. With my face swollen and my hands clasped together, I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

A white towel was placed over my face to cover part of my distorted face, perhaps to prevent others from shivering when they saw it. Crying and music mixed together to create a strangely painful atmosphere, and I'm not a person who likes bustling places like this. In addition, there were a few old men in the yard who took advantage of this opportunity to set out beer and wine to enjoy a meal. However, to keep the atmosphere somewhat solemn, people did not talk much, just leaned close to each other and muttered a few words that I could not hear clearly, the monks' chanting, the voices of people talking. musical instruments, everything repeats like a broken movie.

The crying never stops.

Day after day, people filled my belongings next to the coffin.

Actually, there's nothing precious, I have a childhood diary with a few gifts that people gave me, which I cherish in my hand. Oh, and the ballpoint pen my dad bought me when I was little but I never used it, just kept it in the closet considering it the most precious thing.

Everyone looked and started talking about old times.

They talked about my personality, the memories they had with me, and then they started talking about the reason I left. Everyone had their own opinion, but no one guessed anything correctly.

The air was so heavy that my soul couldn't bear it, and a gust of wind pushed me out of the house I had lived in for many years.

I just wandered around in familiar places, flying back and forth in the sad atmosphere many days after my death.

Then I stopped in front of my grave. For some reason, I suddenly started having difficulty breathing, like the time I committed suicide in the river.

I no longer have a physical body, but why does my soul feel this pain, as if I'm being squeezed by the trauma when I was still on earth?

I cried and fainted, the corner of my eyes blearily saw the surrounding scene and then it went completely dark.

Opening my eyes, I found myself standing in front of that girl's house. The wet, heavy backpack was still hanging on my back and the bouquet of sunflowers were gradually withering under the torrential rain, getting heavier and heavier, along with each passing cold wind, it was enough to make people lonely. I have to cringe.

The road surface only flickers with a few shadows falling from a few old lampposts, causing not many passersby in this countryside to move around at night, especially during rainy times like this. Sometimes we only see a few cars and trucks passing by, causing potholes and potholes to splash water.

The sky probably understood people's hearts so it covered the rain with a veil of sadness. Even the sewers on both sides of the road were noisily releasing water but could not keep up with the speed of today's rain.

It seems like time is like heavy raindrops, gradually passing away. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes have passed but the person I was waiting for still did not appear, only strangers quietly walked past me and looked at me curiously like a stranger who had just left the city. city ​​to hometown.

Standing in the rain, I thought to myself, she probably forgot about my appointment tonight, so I stopped waiting and drove home.

After parking the car, usually this time outside the alley is not crowded with people passing by, but today he did not see anyone. Unlike the city, people in the countryside often open their doors and mourn, and the TV still has the Tom & Jerry cartoon channel, which makes me feel strange and restless. I frowned, without thinking much, threw aside the heavy backpack on my shoulder, still clutching the bouquet of blue roses I bought earlier, and hurriedly rushed out the door.

Suddenly a stream of thoughts about something unfortunate about that girl ran through my mind.

I had to purse my lips, try to stop myself from thinking wildly, and quickly squeeze into the crowd of people in front.

Even though hundreds of voices were ringing in my ears, at this moment I no longer had the heart to hear everything around me clearly anymore. My vision gradually blurred, the noisy voices were replaced by a few flickering sounds that were sometimes clear and sometimes not.

"Kim..."

At this moment, I no longer had the mind to pay attention to anything when in front of me was the swollen body of the girl I loved.

Kim lay there, her eyes closed and body smelling bad. The Ba Ba shirt that she liked the most when I went to the market with her in Saigon, the shirt with a small sunflower pattern on the right corner that she cherished with all her heart and did not dare to wear when working in the fields is still there, but now she welcomes it. Coming home after stressful working hours is my cold death.

"Tell! Get out of the way!"

My mother came and grabbed my hand and pulled me back.

"Kim's body, mom! It's Kim's body!"

I trembled, tears welled up in my eyes. Despite the advice of everyone around me, I still couldn't believe that the girl lying in front of me was Kim.

"That girl is dead, why do you care!"

Mom's words were like a sharp knife stabbing into my wounds, making me turn around and look at her in shock. Kim was someone my parents were always proud to love like their own child in the family, but why was she now in my mother's mouth? Since when did I become a misfortune?

My whole body trembled coldly as if I had just picked it up from an ice cellar. I have never seen my family's love so fragile and disgusting.

"You're just too talkative!"

"She is my girlfriend!"

I shouted, forcefully pushed my mother's hand away, trying to hold back all my emotions at the moment to ask for a reason.

"What do you know if you've been gone all these years and just now come back? She went to work, seduced the boys there, had sex with her, then recorded a clip that everyone on social networks knew about. She can't even keep her family's face, so why do you still love that kind of girl?"

Every harsh word from the people around me kept hitting my ears, making it seem like I couldn't believe the words that were coming into my ears anymore.

I turned around and walked to her side, but my mother reached out to pull me back, but I didn't dare use too much force because I was afraid she would get hurt, so I could only watch helplessly as her body was placed on the mat and quickly rolled up. The gold was then taken to the empty lot behind the house and quickly buried.

Even now that I think back, I don't know how I got home when my despair reached its peak. I listlessly sat in a corner of her room, quietly looking at each of our souvenirs with tears streaming down my cheeks, then whispering sobs so small that I didn't even notice them. Since when have I cried?

Then I suddenly realized her small diary was tucked away in a corner of the room. The diary, only as small as my hand, was given to me on New Year's Eve in a hurry.

I gently picked up the cover of the notebook and caressed it, then flipped through the pages one by one, admiring the beautiful, soft handwriting that she had left on the paper when she was alive.

Suddenly I stopped, my whole body trembled, not because of sadness but because of anger when I read the words you wrote on it.

The corners of my eyes stung, I bit my lip so hard it bled, my cheeks started to get wet again then I cried bitterly.

Oh my god, you bastards!

Every sentence and every word you wrote in there was like sharp blades stabbing straight into my heart, scratching my heart and breaking it into pieces.

The truth is that I was drugged and raped by a group of bastards at a company party. I asked for help from my parents and reported to the police to punish those bastards, but in the end, everyone was left alone. On my side, on the contrary, everyone cursed and beat me severely for seducing someone else's son.

Those people used their naked bodies to touch my body, no matter how hard I tried to throw it away or find ways to escape, they still refused to let me go. That night seemed both long and humiliating to me. The lewd sounds of flesh touching each other made the crazy people's bodies excited as well. They are craving something from me, innocence.

In the room, the sound of debauchery echoed over the loud music, the smell of sweat from flesh, and the sounds of arguing over the men's share like wild animals that had been starving for a long time. To the point where I don't even know how many times those people did this to me, but it was truly disgusting, very disgusting, no words can describe it.

Furthermore, they recorded the clip and posted it on social networking sites. Even the neighbors recognized me as the girl in that black clip. But even those who knew the truth on that terrible night chose to silently watch me cry, and yell at me.

My emotions were like a rolling tsunami, I was so angry that I had to sit and cry helplessly. I can't imagine how desperate you were, when your whole body was full of wounds, when everyone turned their backs and didn't protect you, when you were devastated day and night by pain?

You passed away, the girl I love is no longer in this world.

That girl left, carrying all her wrongs with her, hoping that the water would wash her body clean.

But my dear, this place is so gloomy and dirty, will that water ever be clear?

Remember the time you said you wanted to go to the city to have a new life, a peaceful life. There is a small house with a porch, a backyard or a front yard, with children playing around catching butterflies under the canopy of fruit trees or some bright sunflowers.

But you passed away, on the day I came home, I thought would see you with a warm hug, but what I received was your bloated corpse that had just been picked up from the bottom of the river.

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