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So Cringe

Updated: 2 days ago

by Sarah R. New



Chloe’s Awesomely Amazing Blog!


New post – posted Saturday 8th June 2024


Can’t believe I’m back writing on here again. I haven’t opened this blog since year 8 when Miss Robins made us set it up as our ‘emotional diary’. I’d basically completely forgotten about it until I got my ‘your four year anniversary!’ email from the site – so cringe! – and looking back at my previous posts, I can’t believe anyone let me write anything on here! Ugh!


I did initially come back on here to delete everything a week ago, but…something weird’s been happening and I can’t tell my mum or any adult really, and none of the teachers at school can help, and I don’t really know what to do. But I feel like it’ll be better for me to get it out? so I’m gonna write it here, cause I don’t know what to do.


Should I write it all here? It just feels so …cringe. What if someone from school sees? Or someone like, actually important, like the police or an influencer? What if it comes after me?


It all started a couple of weeks ago when Imogen Reader came in with that stupid book. Imogen’s always been a bit weird, ever since primary school, when Isabelle Cowan tried to help her pick a book for her book report and then she said she’d curse her for picking a bad book? Anyway, Imogen came into form group with that stupid book she said she got from her grandmother Mary, who everyone knows killed her husband. The book was ancient and dusty, it left a lot of ‘debris’ on the desk, as Miss Sampson called it. And it had flowers on the front, we thought it was about poisons or something – which would make sense, knowing what that family is like – but Imogen said it was actually about curses and that the flowers are linked to one of the curses or something? It was actually kinda interesting, but Miss Sampson was being a total boomer and told us if we didn’t pay attention and if Imogen didn’t put the book away then she was going to put us all in detention. 


Well, at break a group of us – I mean like me, Lucy, Ruby, Caitlin, Olivia, and Mia – went to find Imogen cause the book actually looked kinda interesting? Like, all we wanted to do was read it, and why would she bring it in if she didn’t want anyone to read it? That’s, like, really counterproductive, isn’t it? So we met her in the toilets at break and after a little bit of convincing, Imogen agreed to lend it to us for a little bit to read, which was so nice of her! I mean, she was being so extra about it, wailing and wringing her hands and crying that if we weren’t careful, bad things would happen. So dramatic, she hasn’t changed. We all really wanted to read it, so we decided that Mia would take the book first to read it, and then Mia was like ‘why don’t you guys come over for a sleepover and we can do like a dramatic reading?’ which was such a good idea! 


So we all went to Mia’s that Saturday cause her parents were having a dirty weekend away in the Lake District, and we knew the house would be empty. And Caitlin’s older brother Luke had just turned 18, so he went to the shop and got us a load of cheap alcohol, and we all dressed up like we were going to a big event and took a load of pictures, and we ordered a load of pizza on Mia’s mum’s card, it was such a slay. We were setting up for this night to be lit, you know? Well, eventually after we had some food and some drinks we decided that Lucy should start the reading cause she picked drama for her GCSE options. Lucy slayed at the dramatic reading, because of course she did, queen, but the book was so much weirder than we thought it was. Like, it seemed almost like a recipe book? We didn’t really think much of it, until Lucy got to one of the pages around about the middle of the book.


Lucy had read nearly half of the book out now, and nothing weird had happened yet. I mean, we all already knew that Imogen was a fucking joke, but this just cemented it. To be honest, we had kinda stopped reading properly by that point and instead was just flicking through the book, just stopping on what looked interesting. Most of it was all just text, and it was written in some weird ye olde timey language that we didn’t even know if we were saying it right. It just got so boring, so we chucked the book aside and decided to watch the new Kardashian episode.


When we woke up Lucy was gone. No messages or note or anything, not even a message from her Discord, which was really rude, actually? So, we asked Mia’s older sister Megan if she had seen her, and she was well rude to us, saying that she could hear us banging around all night and that we’d kept her up when she had work in the morning, and then she sent us all home without even answering our question. Megan’s always been a right cow though, always jealous of us all. But she threatened to get their mum and dad home early, so we all went home and decided to video call that night. But the video call was… weird.


It started normal enough. We all logged on, still no sign of Lucy, and something was …weird about Mia. Her camera seemed to be glitching or something, and we couldn’t see her, but it sounded like she was whispering something, although none of us could make out what she was saying. At some point, it sounded like it was that ye oldey language Lucy had read out from the book, but no one could check as we’d forgotten it at Mia’s, and even so, she was too quiet for us to really tell. After like an hour of this we all got frustrated and decided that we’ll just chat about it all the next day at school. God, this is all so annoying.


New post – posted Tuesday 11th June 2024


My mum picked Olivia and Caitlin up on the way, like usual, even though she complained about going in early, even though she like always complains that I’m late, so I don’t see what her deal is? Anyway ,we got there and like Ruby was late which we thought was really strange, like, we expected Mia and Lucy to be slightly late because Ruby ruby's always so punctual? So that was a bit bizarre, and we sat there, and we sat and we sat and just none of them came along, which we found was really, really rude because you know we had set up this meeting and none of them decided to come? So, I sent a message in the group chat which none of them even read anyway and it was just so weird because it was like well do you guys even we are friends anymore? Like, people were staring at us for ages! Olivia swore that she saw Imogen lurking around as well, little freak. Eventually, Miss Sampson said we had to go to class, so we did but I didn't see Ruby in any of my classes. It all just seems well weird.


New post – posted Wednesday 12th June 2024


I don't know what's going on because, like, after that meeting, Caitlin and Olivia just seemed to blank me as well. And like, I know that I saw Caitlin at school later that day? She was acting really weird though? She was like walking backwards like a weirdo. I couldn't see who she was like walking away from, but she looked scared and I tried to get to her but the door to the art block was locked so I couldn't go through so by the time I made it all the way around she was gone and like no one's seen her since and then Olivia’s just dropped off the face of the earth as well.


New post – posted Thursday 13th June 2024


I have no idea why any of them are blanking me like, I had phoned, I'd even gone round to like Mia's house but Megan was being such a bitch to me, It just didn't seem necessary, you know? But then she said something weird. She said that later that night, after we’d all fallen asleep, she heard like a knock at the door and so she went to answer it and it was Imogen? And she was getting all pissy, like ‘I thought you'd invited all your friends round already and why did you invite Imogen so late when I had work’ and like, oh my God she's not our friend you know! I just feel so alone. I don’t know why they’re doing this. I don’t know why this is happening.


I don’t even know why I’m writing this here, this is stupid.


New post – posted Friday 14th June 2024


It's been a few days now since we read the book, and I’m the only one left. The others have all disappeared. I haven’t been able to get hold of any of them. Megan keeps going on the news, saying all this shit about satanic rituals and summoning demons and completely saying shit about what she thinks she heard that night, but I know that she’s wrong. This whole concept that the media’s pushing, that in reading that book, we brought this all on ourselves. that’s all wrong. Because everywhere I go, Imogen’s there. Around every corner at school, every other street, outside every time I look out of the window, she’s there, just watching, smiling at me, like she’s ready to pounce. 


She’s outside my house right now, just smiling as she walks closer.



 


Sarah R. New has been writing since the age of six and has finally decided to use her skills productively. Her travel memoir The Great European Escape was self published in July 2023, and her debut Gothic horror novella, Amissis Liberis, was published by Alien Buddha Press in May 2024. She has also published work in several lit mags, including The Hooghly Review, Litmora, Gastropoda and Genrepunk Magazine, and in multiple anthologies. Sarah is based in the U.K., although travels internationally often, and spends a lot of time complaining about her arthritic knees. She is a Eurovision fanatic whose favourite food is prinsesstarta. She can be found on Twitter/X, Instagram and Bluesky as @aldbera, and on her website sarahrnew.wordpress.com.

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