Sadie Serenade

I love songs. Not just listening to them, but also singing along to them. Mostly songs by Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and other songs by famous female singers.

However, around four years ago, something awful happened. And that something made my love for singing stop…permanently.

I was a student at Junction City High School (I’m now in K-State University) and during that time I had a friend. Her name was Sadie.

Sadie was a beautiful girl. She had long hair that was hip-length, her hair color was electric blond with black tips (but she dyed her hair blue tipped with black when she turned 13), her eyes were greenish-gray and her ears were sort of elf like.

Sadie was always very nice to me. We were friends since we meet in the 2nd grade. Sadie was an amazing singer and her dream was to become a pop superstar. Sadie and I were bullied by other kids a couple years after we meet, but we got accepted by them around the 7th grade.

She would also invite me to sleepovers, movies and other fun things for teenagers to do. Almost every time I’d come over, I’d always hear her singing “Applause” by Lady Gaga (which was her favorite song).

Sadie was the best friend I’ve ever had.

However, one day in school, Sadie was sick and had to stay home from school. When school was over, a group of mean, popular girls came over towards me.

Emily, the meanest and most popular girl in the school, talked to me and told me that tomorrow when Sadie comes back, they wanted me to embarrass Sadie in front of the entire school, and in exchange, they’ll give me answers to every test for the next month.

Obviously I refused to accept this horrible deal. But when I told Emily that, she threatened me a second later. She also showed me a picture, and I was scared instantly. That was a picture of me kissing my boyfriend Cameron! But it happened almost a week ago, and at my house! Were those girls spying on me?!

Emily told me that if I didn’t agree to this deal and embarrass Sadie, she would print this photo in the school paper (since she works for it) and have everyone read it! This would get me bullied, teased and Cameron said that if anyone found out about the kiss, he would break up with me!

Sighing and feeling regret dive into me, I agreed.

I planned that I would tell Sadie everything after the embarrassment and hope that she’ll understand.

The next day came quicker than I wanted it to, and I had the perfect plan to embarrass Sadie.

The school was having a meeting in the gym and Sadie was always the last to come into the gym. When she opened the door, the paint bucket that I had placed on top of the door crashed down on her, spilling permanent multicolored paint all over her body and hair (I tried to find easy washable paint, but I failed to do so). The teachers rushed over to help her, but the teenagers in the school were all laughing at her. I was laughing too, but it was a fake laugh; I only needed to fool Emily, who was sitting right next to me and watching me.

Sadie had never been more embarrassed in her entire life! She ran out of the school crying, which also embarrassed her.

I felt gutted, guilty and just awful for my crime. But in the end, Emily kept her promise: she shredded to photo of me and Cameron and then gave me a note that held answers to every test we had for the rest of the month. But I didn’t care at the moment; I was heartbroken for what I did to Sadie.

After the meeting in the gym, I went to my locker and got out my phone. I texted Sadie to meet in the usual place (which was a park in her neighborhood, seven miles from mine) after school. I waited for a few minutes until she texted me back saying “Okay”.

Once school ended, I rushed over to Sadie’s neighborhood and got to the park. When I got there, I saw that Sadie was already there. She was sitting on one of the swings, one hand holding the chains that held the swings up and the other hand in front of her.

“Sadie?” I called out to her, hoping that she would turn around. She didn’t turn at all. Sadie just sat there, still as a stone.

“Sadie?” I called again, this time a little louder. Still nothing.

“Sadie!” I yelled this time, but I got the same results: nothing.

I couldn’t wait any longer. I quietly walked over to her and grabbed her shoulder. I turned my head away and closed my eyes as I made her face me by swinging the swing around. Within a few seconds of hesitation, I finally found strength to open my eyes and turn my head around, but what I saw horrified me.

Dull, lifeless gray eyes met mine. Blood was dripping from Sadie’s barely open mouth. In her hand was a bloody, wet knife that was drizzling tiny drops of blood on to the group. There was a wound in Sadie’s chest where her heart was.

I couldn’t believe my own eyes. Sadie had stabbed herself in the chest!

I cried. I just stood there and cried for probably 10 minutes before finally looking up again. Instantly, I grabbed the knife from Sadie’s hand and threw it to the ground. In a blind rage and sorrow, I grabbed Sadie’s body by her shoulders and threw her to the ground.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Sadie!?” I was screaming at her. “You didn’t have to do this! But you did it anyways, you little-“

I cut myself off. My anger outburst had scared me a lot. Finally, after a few minutes of calming down, I started crying again. Despite my tears, I picked up Sadie’s body and hurried over to her parent’s house. Her entire family had a nervous breakdown the moment they say her. They asked me what happened and I just lied saying I found her like this; I didn’t tell them about the embarrassing prank, the knife or my outburst.

But overall, I felt completely guilty. The entire thing was my fault! I was the one who embarrassed Sadie in front of the whole school, and that’s the reason she killed herself.

It took me about a week to fully recover from it, but eventually I stopped crying and I was due to go back to school.

About 3 months after Sadie’s death, I was sitting at my desk in my room upstairs doing homework. I finished it around 11:30 pm. I would have went down stairs to put it away for school the next morning, but I was so tired that I fell asleep at my desk right after I finished.

Suddenly, around 2:50 am, I was awoken by a crunching and crackling sounds coming from down stairs. I got out of my desk and rushed down stairs to see what it was.

When I got down stairs, I was both scared and surprised.

There, lying on the floor was my pink MP3 player. Except, now it was split in half and a few chunks were broken away from both halves. But there was something else….blood.

Blood was oozing out of the broken pieces of my MP3 and there were a few spots of blood on the floor. But right in front of the broken pieces, was a double music note and above it was the word “Serenade” written in blood.

This was creepy. Blood NEVER oozed out a broken MP3 player! When I went to clean up the mess, just before I was able to pick up the broken MP3 player, it suddenly turned on.

On?! Why was it on?! It was all broken up into pieces; how could it have turned on by itself?! But the song that was playing caught my attention quickly.

The song that was playing on my now broken and bloodstained MP3 player was the song that struck me like a knife and made my heart beat faster than ever before.

Applause by Lady Gaga.

I was seriously scared now. I threw the broken MP3 player away, cleaned up the blood and went back to bed.

The next few weeks were a little….odd. I didn’t see Emily at school anymore, or any of the other popular girls. Even their parents had no idea where they were.

Finally, summer break came. It was Friday and everyone was rushing out of school. I finally got home and instantly texted one of my friends, Jenna. But before I had the chance to send the text to her, the screen turned white and a message appeared. But instead of normal black letters, the words in this message were all blocky and sharp. They were also blood red and dripping blood on to the screen.

The message was: “The usual place; meet me there tonight at midnight.”

My eyes widened at the message. The usual place? The place where Sadie and I used to hang out at all the time?! I was starting to panic; alarm bells were going off in my head. Instantly, I shut off my phone and put it away into the drawers of my computer desk.

A few hours later, around 11:00 pm, I was staying up late reading Crookedstar’s Promise by Erin Hunter (my favorite book) when suddenly my alarm clock went off. I was startled by it and jumped for a second. I never turned my alarm on! Then, without warning, the same blocky, sharp and blood red words appeared on my clock.

“Remember; meet me at the usual place in an hour….” After I read that, I was seriously freaked out. But something inside me was telling me that I had to go to the park in an hour. I put my book up and left for the park early.

It took me a while to get there (usually I run to get to the park, but this time I only walked slowly), but I got there around 11:58, just two minutes to midnight.

Once I got to the park, I was terrified by what I saw.

There, lying on the ground were the bodies of teenage girls. I instantly recognized these girls.

They were Emily, Sarah, Grace, Katrina, Jordan, Amanda and Sammy. They were all of the popular girls from my school! But there was something else on them. It took me a few seconds to realize it, but it frightened me.

There was blood and a few internal organs on the ground. On every girl’s arms were the words “Sadie” on the left arm and “Serenade” on the right arm, which were made up of bloody cuts. There were also bloody wounds all over their bodies.

I started crying. I wasn’t sure why I was crying; I didn’t care for these girls at all!

Suddenly, I heard a whisper behind me: “Well, well…Look who decided to show up.”

That voice was so familiar that I recognized it instantly.

Sadie….

Turned to see a transparent girl just inches from my back. She had greenish-gray eyes, blue hair that was tipped with black, a gray and black tank-top with two scratches on it near the hip, tight jeans, a wooden green diamond attached to the pants, furry brown shoes, elf ears that were drizzling blood and on one of her cheeks was a double music note that was broken in half and that was also drizzling blood.

I screamed once I saw her and fell on my back. She smiled at me, baring her bloody, sharp teeth. Her voice sounded like a vocaloid as she spoke.

“You ruined me, Jessica. You ruined my life. Now I’ll let you know how that truly feels.”

“N-no!” I cried out at her as I got back up to my feet and backed away from her. “Sadie, please! Don’t do this to me! I’ll do anything else! Just, please, don’t!”

It was too late. Sadie took a deep breath for a moment, before she looked at me and gave me a sick grin.

Then she started singing….

I stand here waiting for you to bang the gong

To crash the critic saying “is it right or is it wrong?”

If only fame had an I.V., baby could I bear

Being away from you, I found the vein, put it in here

As Sadie sang, I started to feel pain scrape my arms. I looked at them, and to my horror, the words “Sadie” and “Serenade” were being scratched on my arms by thin air! It was there was an invisible knife right in front of me!

Still, Sadie continued to sing.

I live for the applause, applause, applause

I live for the applause-plause

Live for the applause-plause

Live for the way that you cheer and scream for me

The applause, applause, applause

Suddenly, I felt a horrible agony in my stomach. I looked down to see blood oozing through my clothes from a gaping wound. At the same time, I felt pain in the back of my head. I reached my hand back there and felt something wet. I pulled my hand back to see that it was coated with blood.

I could barely hear Sadie sing now. My head was aching and both my hearing and my eyesight were getting fuzzy.

But about 5 seconds later, the most agonizing thing I ever felt came to me. My chest started to tighten and it became hard for me to breathe. Just one breath took several massive gasps of air!

There was horrible agony all over my body!

I couldn’t take another second of this. I took as many gasps of air as possible and screamed my head off.

“Sadie! Please stop! I am sorry for what I did to you! Please don’t do this to me! PLEASE STOP!!!” I didn’t see what happened next. A collapsed to the ground and passed out do to the lack of air and the pain.

I woke in a hospital bed around four in the morning. My arms, stomach and head were all bandaged up. My chest was no longer tight and I could breathe again.

My parents were sitting in a couple of chairs next to the bed and they were happy to see me alive and awake. I asked them what had happened and they responded telling me that someone had sent them a text saying “Your daughter is at the park and needs medical attention right now!”

I was a little shocked as to who would send the text; there was no one around when I met Sadie in the park. But then I realized who had sent them that text.

Sadie….

The nurse asked my parents to leave the room a few minutes later and told me to get some sleep. But once they all left the room, I felt a bit of pain in the palms of my hands. I looked at both of them to see words being cut into them, just like what happened to my arms!

On my left palm, there was: “See you around, Jessica.”

And finally, on my right palm, was something that struck me one again.

After I read both of them, the words on my hand vanished into thin air.

I will never forget what happened to me. And I’ll never forget the name that was written on the palm of my right hand….

Sadie Serenade