Chapter Text
This story ends in death, as all stories eventually do.
I sat in the corner of the bustling chain café. My fingers drumming on the table, trying to come up with some vague suggestion of a second line. Mind buzzing, yet coming up with no viable results
Oh, God. That was a terrible opening line. It’s not even remotely plot relevant!
And this introduction! It’s so unnecessarily convoluted and fourth-wall break-y! (Maybe this is why it has taken me so long to finish writing this project… I’ve always got to be adding SOME gimmick or another…)
Well, I suppose I should start at the beginning; this introduction is probably leaving you with more questions than answers, isn’t it?
My role in this story sprawls out over a little too long for this to be condensed properly into the couple of hundred pages or so that’s deemed an “acceptable” amount for a book. And it’s really not like either of us have all day - so I suppose I really should cut to the chase a bit.
I am the one who writes these words you see in front of you. Anything you read within this story has been carefully thought through by none other than yours truly.
Keep this in mind, dear reader, as we make our way through together.
Alright, maybe this is a good place to start?
You’re in for a ride, my dear reader, as this is the part where things start to get good.
1.1 Well, That’s One Way To Leave A Party…
Disorder
Pandemonium
Anarchy.
All three of these are synonyms for what was going on in flat 5b of the block of flats on Abergeldie Street on that balmy July evening. However, this was no typical July evening – it was the 13th, the 2024 Euro finals were tomorrow, and anticipation was pulsing through England’s adrenaline-shot veins. Hopeful supporters were pregaming like it was the end of the world – and one final, lingering question lay on everyone’s lips…
…maybe 2024 would mark the end of “60 long years of hurt”?
Tara Stadtler could not give less of a shit about the England men’s team. She was too wasted to think, and too German to care. It was as if her own mind was the metal can she drank her sweet catharsis from. All possible thoughts being sludged and swirled together in some horrible, lukewarm liquid. Melted together, inseparably, horrifyingly.
This wasn’t helped by the sheer volume of the place – it was around midnight by this point, so people had started being too drunk to care about the whole “England” aspect of the party. In fact, a good quarter of the neighbours were only in attendance given the sheer volume of 5b’s residents meant you couldn’t do anything without hearing the dulcet tones of several grown adults screlting “SWEEEEEET CAAAROLINE” at the top of their lungs.
You get tired of quietly filling in the “bum, bum buuuuuuum” to yourself afterwards, and that’s when the FOMO starts getting just a tad too difficult to ignore.
Then one person comes in. Then another. Then Mark from 6b, Daria from 9a, that primary school teacher from 8c - even that pensioner from the flat opposite makes a rare appearance – and then half the building starts packing themselves into a single, rather boxy flat.
People are more like sheep than you realise, as, eventually, everyone in the building starts flooding in, including those who don’t even care about this sort of thing anyway. Maybe they just want company, something to soothe the ever-growing black hole inside of them, that only seems to grow with each passing minute…
…or they just liked the sound of free alcohol. Which is how Tara Stadtler and Ash O’Sullivan from 4b ended up in this situation to begin with.
It was a Friday night, neither of them were really that tired yet – and not to mention, this whole thing was happening right above them. Not that anyone in 5b was sober enough to consider that, of course. This is what happens when you have upstairs neighbours. They may always seem to forget that you’re there, but you certainly don’t forget about them. Not when they’re stomping on your ceiling at unholy hours of night.
But, after all is said and done, what is started must always end. As is the way of life.
Sometimes, you can be too stubborn to let nature run its course, and bring things to a natural conclusion. Every action has an equal, opposite reaction, and hence, there will always be pushback against any given situation.
Tara Stadtler is an incredibly disagreeable drunk – and quite a stubborn one too. That is a fact that anyone who has seen her intoxicated can easily verify – and this incident was no different.
In her left hand was her umpteenth beer for the night – judging by how many units she had drank today, it was a feat in itself that her liver hadn’t completely imploded by now. Meanwhile, her right hand unsteadily attempts to grasp the handrail on the side of the dark, dingy stairwell, littered with half-empty cans of alcohol. Seemingly, everyone was too wasted to tell or care that the place looked like a hurricane and a tornado had started duelling for vengeance in there.
“Welllll I’ll tell you what, Ash… methinks I’m... I’mmmmmmmgonnaheadtothecooooornnnnner shoppp… getme some beerrr… yeeeeeah…” she slurred, her voice dripping with cheap booze as she stomped floppily down the stairs. The aforementioned Ash was trying – and so far, failing – to make her stop.
“Okay, no, no, we are not getting more booze.” Ash said, in the same instructional yet calm way you would try to tell a five-year-old to not try to eat their own hand. There isn’t much difference between a drunk and a toddler, when they’re at the point of completely throwing any inhibitions out the window. “Also, nobody uses methinks like that-“
“-LANGUAGE POLICE!”
“Jesus Christ, you’re hammered - you know what we’re gonna do? We’re going to get out of here, go home, an-“
“-GET WAstedddddd!!!” Tara interrupted, blissfully unaware of how loud she was.
“No-! No, no, nonononono we’re leaving. I need to get you out of here, Tar, you’re going to pass out-”
“WHY NOT?!?!??! I’M the frEAKIN’ QUEEEN OF ENGLANDDDDDDD BABEYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!! I’m bAsicaLLY iMMortaLLLLLL moTHErFu-”
“No - you’re not immortal - you’re drunk, and we’re going home-” Ash corrected, as they tried to pull an extremely drunk Tara (whom in no way bears any resemblance to Queen Elizabeth II) up the stairs.
Of course, Ash’s efforts to restrain Tara were in vain, as she wriggled herself out of their relatively firm grasp with a defiant smirk, one typically accompanied by a slight chuckle when a person makes a terrible decision that they perceive to be a great one. She raised one hand triumphantly, her right index finger waving in the sky, in a smug I told you so, as she stumbled back down that stairwell.
“A-ha! I betyou- bet you couldn’t see… that one-”
Tara was never granted the opportunity to finish her sentence, for she made a grave miscalculation in the placement of her left foot. You see, someone made the stupid decision to leave a completely full can of Carlsberg beer unattended on the stairs, which is not only a waste of perfectly good beer, but is also the perfect instrument for a person to make the tiniest of life altering missteps.
In some way or another.
And within a few seconds, four agitating seconds that seemed to pass by in slow motion, Tara flew to the bottom of the stairs, hitting her head on a cold, hard, metal baluster, and finally, painfully landing on her left wrist. Twisting it with an awful crunch.
“Tara?! TARA?!-”
Ash screamed - as one would after watching someone fall down the stairs – but, to the people inside, this was merely an addition to the already deafening screech of the awful, blaring sounds that came from inside of that flat. They rushed down to their currently unresponsive girlfriend, and frantically began to slam 999 into their phone’s touchscreen keypad. Blood drained from Tara’s forehead, flowing out of her like egg yolk.
“Oh, shit. Oh shitshitshitshit-“
And so, the chain of events was set in motion.
“999, what’s your emergency?” A calm, female voice came from the other end of the line.
Ash O’Sullivan was the only direct witness to this event. All other stories about that night were from the immediate aftermath – concerned neighbours, paramedics, confused takeaway delivery drivers…
“Uh – I-I’m on the fifth floor of Christie Tower? The flats? It’s on Abergeldie Street- in Elephant-”
The only two people in the corridor who were there when this incident actually happened were Ash, and of course, Tara herself (who, on account of being completely inebriated, wasn’t able to fully remember this event).
“Can you send an ambulance? She’s not responding.”
It was all down to Ash now. And, by God, were they terrified.
“She was really drunk before – it looks pretty bad…”
But of course. They were not truly alone.
Granted, they were the only witness currently alive. If we are to get into specifics.
“Oh God, there’s blood everywhere-”
Three eternally bored spirits lingered over the scene. Bored no longer, that having been replaced by – pity, somehow. Shock and pity.
“Okay – there’s a pulse. She’s also breathing but like really slowly, is that bad???? Should I be concerned??”
And for a moment, not one of them spoke.
Just a mutual silence. Nobody quite sure what to say. Nobody quite sure what move to make next.
“How long until you get here? Please don’t leave me here alone…”
The ones spectating this horrible scene looked on, as if watching a car crash take place. It's one of those things that are too visceral, too extreme to stop watching. None of them able to move, none of them able to look away. This perpetual silence ended after just over 40 seconds, when one of them made the suggestion to-
“All in favour of hitchhiking the ambulance?”
“Beats just standing here.”
“Sure, why not.”
And so, they remained there, quietly tailing Ash and Tara into the early hours of the morning, accompanied by a soundtrack of frantic 999 calls, paramedics arriving, and ambulance lights.
The ensuing events are as follows – and I assure you, reader…
…it only gets worse from here.
(Or better, I suppose. If you’re reading this, you probably experience some degree of schadenfreude anyway..)