The Quiet Realm
by Bella Melardi
Content warning: Depiction of character self-harming
School hallways give me panic attacks. They are so uncomfortable. A rocky river of students' bodies crashing back and forth. Sometimes they get so full, the river is clogged, and you just have to stand there. School bathrooms are worse; a big bath of hormones and vape juice. The world is all so loud. It’s hard to tolerate sometimes. Or a lot of the time.
A brain can only handle so much. It can only hold on for so long. There’s only so much it can carry before it explodes across your skull like rotten fruit. I didn’t know how much time I had left. I needed to make it through the day, but that was becoming harder by the second. Voices. Eyes. Ears. Hands. Smiles. Stares. Screams.
I grimaced as I glanced over to my friends. They were all in the quiet corner by the door to the washroom. They huddled together like a cluster of cells. I drifted over to the group. Words hit my ears.
Wow. Talking about plans I’m not invited to. Acting like I don’t exist one second then hugging me the next. I am a placeholder. I am a ghost. My friends don’t care about me, but I’d rather hang around them than be alone.
I’ve been forced to play the role of the ghost. I haunt my friend group. I lurk in the background. I only speak when summoned. I don’t know how much more of it I can handle. Would being alone be any better?
“Anika!” Jamie moved out of the huddle. She grabbed my arm.
I smiled awkwardly. “Jamie!”
“Wanna be in my BeReal?”
“Uh..sure.”
I plastered a fake smile on my face. Jamie held up her phone to take a picture of us.
My mouth hurt. Ironic how BeReals aren’t very real. A social media app designed to be authentic has become inauthentic. Jamie turned back to the group within seconds.
Well, that was it, I guess. That’s all I’m useful for. A portable selfie friend.
I slipped into the bathroom. The sickly yellow lights spread across the dirty stone floor. My hands ripped open the pasty gray bathroom stall. My legs collapsed under my weight. I hit the school floor, kicking the stall door shut. Graffiti gazed down at me. I let the emotionless mask fall off.
Fuck this. Fucking. Fuck. Nothing’s getting better. Things would get better after covid, my ass.
Tears welled in my tired hazel eyes. My head got lighter. Sobs escaped through my mouth. My cheeks became hot. The web of graffiti warped around me. Swirling back and forth like a nest of snakes.
Loud loud loud. Give me quiet.
An object caught my eye. It lay in the corner of the stall, sparkling in the light. It’s some razorblade.
Who the hell leaves those just lying around? Ah, the joys of high school.
I was weirdly drawn to it. My eyes were sucked into its gravitational pull. I’d never thought of myself as a cutter. I’d heard kids make fun of emos and ask for wrist reveals. I’d heard parents whisper about the horrible mental state of youth who harm themselves. I always thought self-harm was an urban legend. A word whispered in hushed crowds but never confronted. I didn’t think it was possible for me to become a cutter. I was normal.
Well, until it happened.
Razor in hand. Pants pulled down. Metal dragged across my thigh. It ate at my skin. Stinging sprawled across my leg. Blood. Dizziness. My whole body tingled. Quiet.
Suddenly, a person jumped the stall wall. He landed by my feet with a thud. I gazed up at him. A tall man with shaggy dark hair and a bright smile. His warm welcoming eyes instantly attracted me. He brushed a hand against his white fuzzy coat.
“Anika.”
I nodded. In my delirious bloody haze, I didn’t question how he knew my name. Or the fact this was some random man I didn’t know who just jumped the bathroom stall…
“Would you like to visit the realm of quiet?”
“Yes.”
“Take my hand.”
Our hands met. The warm fuzzy feeling got more intense. The man snapped his fingers. The walls of the bathroom stall fell over like they had been hit by intense winds.
The world around me did not look like the school bathroom. We landed in a meadow. Blue lilies, lilacs, and roses met my eyes. The euphoric fuzzy feeling hit harder.
The man rested a hand on my shoulder. “I am quiet. This is the realm of quiet. It’s all yours for now. Go explore.”
I ran off. Trekking through the meadow. Grass grasped my ankles. Tall flowers tickled my cheeks. Butterflies traveled just below my eyes. Not a single sound. I was frozen in time. The meadow stretched on for as far as I could see.
I fell back onto the ground. Strands of grass brushed my unruly brown hair. My body was cushioned by the foliage. My eyes scanned the blue sky. I smiled widely. I let my head fall fully back. My hair merged with the grass. Flowers surfed down strands.
Pieces of the sky began to crumble like old bread. They hit the meadow. Slowly more of the sky began to chip off like broken pottery. Snap. Snap. More and more.
“Time’s up.” I heard the quiet man's voice.
I was back in the school bathroom. Suddenly reality hit.
Fuck. I had to clean all this up without anyone noticing. Act now. Fast.
I felt weird going into class and trying to pretend that didn’t just happen. My thigh ached with every step.
I can’t believe I just did that. How could I do something like that to myself? I’m terrible.
I grimaced as I sat down in English.
Guilt jabbed at my gut. Shame sizzled in my stomach. What have I done? This isn't fun anymore. I miss the meadow. I trudged through sticky thoughts and feelings for the rest of the day.
The next day as I was scrolling through Instagram, I noticed Jamie had just posted something. It was a photo of her, Sam, Elise, and Inaz. They were all drinking boba at Chatime. She captioned the post, “My favorite group of people.”
Favorite group huh? Well, guess I don’t make the cut then.
My hands shook as anger bubbled up. I flung my phone across the room. I felt my ribcage rattle. My throat burned. My chest felt so tight I thought my ribs would snap like twigs.
Within seconds I was in my bathroom. Razor out. Pants down. Blood. Warm fuzzy feeling. Quiet. The beige walls spun around me like dust storms.
The quiet man materialized in my bathroom,
“Back so soon.”
He dropped his hand for me to take it. I grasped it. The warm fuzzy feeling burned brighter inside me. I felt weightless. We rose. Above my bathroom. He snapped his fingers and the meadow appeared around us.
Fuck friends. I got flowers.
I walked around this time. I smelt every flower I passed. My hand trailed against every blade of grass. My mouth swallowed every bit of air. My skin felt every bit of sunlight. The quiet man followed behind me. His bright blue eyes, swallowed by the sky.
My heart jumped when the sky began to crumble once more. I frantically ran to the quiet man. My eyes filled with tears.
I pulled on his coat. “Don’t make me go back! I wanna stay here forever!”
His blue eyes had faded to a dusty gray. “You can’t.”
The sky rained down around us, pieces plummeting towards the ground like meteors, chipping like teeth being cracked by hard candy. Crumbling. Crumbling. Collapsing.
“No! No! No! Please!” I begged him. I got on my knees.
“You can only have this for so long, Anika.” He flashed a smile.
I was back in my bathroom in seconds. Reality set in.
Fuck.
I slammed my fist against the floor. My head fell back against the wall. Why did I have to be here?
It’s funny how fast things can become a habit. I developed a routine pretty quickly. I had a system planned out. Anytime things got too loud, I visited the realm of quiet. Things got loud pretty often. I washed the floor. I had bandages stashed in my room. I had towels I cleaned quickly after.
The routine lasted for a couple of weeks before things started to change in the realm of quiet. At first, it was subtle. Colours fading. Grasses bowing their necks. Quivering flowers. The quiet man’s smile became less friendly.
But one day it all changed.
After school, I planned to visit the quiet realm in my bathroom as usual.
The quiet man appeared beside me. His eyes, more hollow. Giant eye bags. His face was withered and tired. He snarled. His slender frame leaned against my bathroom door.
“You’re here again.”
“Is that bad?”
“Take my hand.” He groaned, reaching out a palm. His hand felt icy to the touch.
The bathroom faded away and I was back in the quiet realm. The sky wasn’t blue anymore. The grass was withering away. It was a decaying brown color. Blades were jagged and spiky like rusty bent nails. As I walked through it, pieces of grass reached out to scratch my ankles. I hissed. That was sharp grass. Could’ve given me tetanus or something.
I passed a rose. It opened up to reveal a full mouth of teeth. The rose grinned maliciously. My eyes widened. I froze. The rose shot its head forward. Its mouth launched itself at my arm. I let out a scream as its teeth punctured my skin. I ripped the flower off my arm. My legs bolted away.
The quiet man continued to trail behind me. He chuckled. “This place isn’t as good as it seems.”
I continued to run. My lungs burned. My heart was hammering. I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. My breathing became sharper and sharper. I didn’t know where I was running. I just had to get away. Somewhere. Anywhere. Far from here.
I stopped in my tracks when I heard laughter above me. I looked directly up. The sky had split open like the ground during an earthquake. The cracks in the sky morphed into a mouth. The mouth was laughing. The sky was laughing at me. The sky spat. Water dove toward me. It hit the ground beside me.
The sky exclaimed, “You’re worthless.” It spat again.
I was back in my bathroom. Heart racing. Breathing out of control. I needed to go back. I couldn’t believe it. That wasn’t the quiet realm. Things weren’t actually like that.
I grabbed my razor again. I needed to be back in the happy place. The other quiet realm was a mistake. It had to be. I dragged my razor across my thigh again.
The quiet man appeared in my bathroom. He looked so different. His coat was now a tall black cloak. His dull black eyes peeked through the hood. His sharp white teeth were grimacing angrily. He carried a scythe in his hand. He tapped the scythe against the floor.
He shook his head, “You can’t go back.”
“Why not?”
“Not deep enough.”
“Fine, I'll go deeper!” I picked the razor off the floor. I dragged it harder against my thigh.
He groaned and grabbed my hand this time. We landed in the quiet realm with a thud.
The grass was completely gone. Black coal remained. The sky was a dull yellow as though it had been dipped in acid. The acid sky started to drip. It dripped down like pooling lemon juice. More and more sky started to melt. It was bleeding down around me. The black lifeless earth began to bleed as well. Everything around me was bleeding.
The quiet man stood in front of me. His lifeless eyes watched me closely. “You’re ruining yourself, Anika.”
I shook my head. My hands clenched into fists.
“I just wanna be in the quiet realm!”
“This isn’t the way.”
I clenched the fabric of my shirt. It was bunched between my palms. I scrunched it tighter and tighter. The world around me continued to melt.
“I just want peace and quiet,” I whimpered. “Quiet realm makes me feel okay.”
“Don’t ever come back.” The quiet man pushed me with his frozen hands. I shivered and fell backward.
The world morphed back into my bathroom. I landed on the floor with a thud. I cringed as I saw my razor beside me.
I think I should get rid of it.
If you are experiencing mental health struggles, or grappling with issues of self-harm, you can call KIDS HELP PHONE for support: 1-800-668-6868; or text 686868.