Foreword: Firstly to those who are just discovering my work, unfortunately this isn’t fully explanatory as one section, here is the original, “The New Girl at School”, I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

Secondly, to my friends and fans, I greatly appreciate your interest in my work, without you I’d keep my work in a folder under my bed where it used to remain. Thank you.

* * *

The sound of her name is becoming ironic to me, Belle, in french it means beauty (now that I can’t deny), yet for me her name has become my funeral bell, slowly tolling, mocking the life I used to live.

Once again I find myself lying in bed, my very own insomniac coffin, scribbling feverishly in my dad’s old physics folder, browsing occasionally over the sprawling conversations between him and his first girlfriend. A solitary tear escapes from my eye, rolling away onto my pillow. Soon that solitary drop had turned into a torrent gushing from deep within as emotions broke from within me. I mourned in silence the passing of a perfect existence.

* * *

It was my first day in court; I was to testify against Jason, Belle’s ‘boy friend.’ I felt an electrifying thrill extend down my back, dissipating finally at the tips of my extremities as I walked into the courtroom.  I was met by two other boys and a girl, all three of them had been treated similarly by Jason, but there wasn’t sufficient evidence to have him prosecuted on their own. The Judge and Jury entered and the court was put into session. It began slowly with speeches from both the defence and prosecution teams.

During the lunch break Jason was taken back to his cell. Belle came over to me; to say she was distraught would be an understatement. She’d never known about his past, knowing the truth was killing her. She gave me a hug and left. I could tell by the way she had looked deep into my eyes that I wasn’t to follow.

* * *

Getting up in the morning was hard now, the thought of each new day filled me with dismay. I had nothing to look forwards to, no goals, no ambitions, simply the zombie life of going from lesson to lesson, enduring the required tasks and moving on again. Living life has got to the point now where death and eternal nothingness seem pleasant in comparison. After much internal debate, I set a date, a time, a place. Her birthday, sundown, from the old oak tree where we first sat and watched the sun set over the rolling fields of Southern England less than a month before.