Melanis

There was a single black hair. Just one, among thousands of blonde strands. Melanie had always parted her hair this way. How could she have never noticed? She laid her brush down on the sink and ran her fingers through every inch of her scalp, searching for more.

But no. There was only one.

Melanie picked up her tweezer and plucked it from her head, letting out a, “Tch,” as the spot bled. She ruffled her hair once more and left her apartment to make for her morning classes.

On the walk to class, her scalp began to itch and tingle. Melanie attributed this to having plucked that hair. She rolled her eyes as she entered the hall and spotted a pair of girls next to her seat, two friends she’d gained since entering college last year.

Janelle and Ember waved at her and Melanie remembered to pair her wave with her biggest, fakest grin. Melanie took her seat beside the girls and peered around the hall, “Is Lauren not here?” She said and scratched at the spot by her ear where she’d plucked that hair.

“I haven’t seen her,” Janelle said and smirked, “Itchy?”

“No, I just…” Melanie lied, “Have a pimple behind my ear.”

“Hm,” Ember said.

“Has she said anything to you guys?” Melanie continued from where she left off.

“Who?” Ember said.

“Lauren,” Melanie was becoming impatient as she tapped her foot and scratched behind her ear again.

“Not a word,” Ember flipped open her notebook, unconcerned.

“That’s weird. She normally lets us know when she’ll be absent,” Janelle said and pursed her lips, “Oh, well. It’s not like we always need to know.”

Melanie nodded, but still she was uncomfortable. Her leg bounced, she chewed at the inside of her lip, and she scratched the spot behind her ear again.

“Itching it again?” Janelle said, her tone a prick too sharp, “Let me see. Must be a bad pimple,” She reached across the desk and brushed Melanie’s hair away.

And then Janelle snorted.

“Gee, do you miss that spot every time you dye your hair? I don’t see any pimples, though,” She said.

Melanie snatched her hair back, “Spot? What spot?”

“There’s this little patch of black hair right by your ear,” Janelle said and Melanie rushed from her seat.

“That’s weird,” Ember turned to Janelle, “Isn’t she a natural blonde?”

“I thought so.”

And that was the last of what Melanie caught as she ran her fingers through her hair, feeling desperately for any other differences. Leaving everything behind her, she rushed through the doors of the hall and into the bathrooms.

Melanie skidded to a stop in front of the first mirror and threw her hair behind her ear. Alas, there was a streak of black hair that ran down alongside her ear. It appeared almost methodically placed there. Who had done this?

No one has. Thought Melanie as reality entered the situation.

The fact was that the black hairs had not been there last night. They had not been there this morning when she’d plucked that single hair, and it had not been there even when she’d left for class.

She drew forward a section of hair to cover the spot, straightened her posture, and took a few deep breaths. It had to have just been something she’d never noticed before. It had to have always been there, she assured herself. It wasn’t possible that her hair was turning black. She’d heard of it turning white before, but never black.

So, she headed back to class where her uneasiness grew and the comments her friends made about it set her on edge. At the end of the session, she decided to cut the rest of the day, take a nap, and maybe set up an appointment with her doctor to confirm that nothing was wrong with her.

Once home, she drew up a bath, purposely avoiding the mirror, unlike herself. On a regular day, the mirror might’ve been her best friend in the world. Not even Lauren could compete with it. But today, the sight of it made her ill.

Lowering herself into her steaming-hot bath brought Melanie peace for only a short time. That was until she went to wash her hair.

Her hair pulled down by the weight of the water, melting into the tub, she found more black hair. And this was not like a few hours ago. No, this streak was on the opposite side of her head. She washed off quickly and exited the water, no choice but to find the mirror now. She hesitated only for a moment before wiping the steam away from the glass, and then she gasped.

It was everywhere. By her ear, in wet clumps near the back of her head, right at the part of her hair. There was no hiding it anymore. Again, Melanie wiped the mirror, clearing the whole surface as she got closer to her reflection.

She ran her fingers all through her tangles, leaving a layer of it on the floor. Her hands shook as she pulled them away and found black hairs wrapped around her fingers, the same that snaked through her mane.

She shook it from her hands and looked in the mirror once more, longer and harder. And as Melanie came closer to the mirror, she noticed a single black eyelash among her blonde ones. A few black eyebrow hairs sprinkled in among what she’d known to be her own.

And what was wrong with her eyes?

Melanie’s eyes, blue from birth until yesterday, had begun to morph. Specks of dark brown peeked through her irises. If she had not been physically holding this black hair in her hands, she might’ve thought she’d imagined it. She might’ve written it off as a trick of the light, might’ve pushed it to the back of her mind or even forgotten about it.

Melanie gripped the sink, enraged enough to scream, but instead, she gritted her teeth and began to cry. But do not be mistaken. She was not sad. Rather, Melanie was seeing red. Was fate making a fool of her? Lauren had always been so jealous of Melanie. Perhaps she was getting what she’d always wanted now.

Without even the spirit to dry off, Melanie found her bedroom and ignored the various times her phone vibrated as she drifted off into a stressful sleep in the hopes that she would wake and find everything the way it had been.

Sadly for Melanie, she was mistaken.

She woke long after dark that same day, a headache breaking through the walls of her skull. And for a moment, she’d forgotten what she’d gone through that day. She was content as she reached for her phone.

Where are you? You left really early.

Have you spoken to Lauren? I haven’t been able to reach her either.

Ember.

Call me when you get out of class.

Mom

Three calls Melanie had missed from her mom.

One from Jeannette, Lauren’s mom.

And two more from an unlisted number. All about the whereabouts of Lauren.

Melanie huffed, annoyed at everyone’s concern. If Lauren disappeared for a few days, it would’ve done everyone good. What an eye sore, she was. Always hitting on all the boys Melanie liked, always pushing herself to the front of the conversation. She wasn’t even that pretty, with her boring brown eyes and stick-straight hair. Melanie hardly wanted to be her friend anymore.

So she ignored all the messages and calls and made for the aspirins in the medicine cabinet. But unfortunately for her, that was when she remembered her own situation, as she looked back at her bed and found that every blonde hair on her head had fallen. It laid in piles on her pillows, tangled in her sheets, knotted into her clothes.

She grappled with her hair and shot for the bathroom where he own reflection startled her.

Staring back at her in the mirror was not Melanie. Her hair had been replaced, black from the roots in her scalp to its ends. Her eyes were now a muddy brown, her eyebrows thicker, her lashes shorter. And that wasn’t all, but her nose had sharpened, her jaw rounded, and cheeks fattened.

Melanie slammed her fists on the counter, shaking with anger and confusion, and her headache intensifying.

She opened the medicine cabinet to find that she’d run out of aspirin and pulled on her coat to make a run to the nearest convenience store. Melanie made sure to pull up her hood before leaving, as she would allow no one to see her like this, but the pain of the headache would not have allowed her the decency of staying home.

On the way out the door, the wind mocked her, blowing her hair in front of her face, almost as though laughing at her.

Melanie reached the convenience store just a block from her apartment building, feeling like a stranger in her own body. She grabbed the nearest ibuprofen off the shelf and paced for the check-out counter. The sooner to be out of sight, the better.

But the moment the cashier turned around, she felt a tick sicker than before. It was a man around her own age with skinny arms and yellow teeth, “Lauren?” He said.

“What?” Melanie uttered.

“Isn’t that you? We went to high school together, remember?” He sniffed, “I asked you to Homecoming freshman year and you went with my best friend instead.”

“You have the wrong person,” Melanie said, fidgeting as she slid the ibuprofen closer to him on the countertop.

“Aww, c’mon. I know you remember me,” He smiled, his teeth rotting and his breath foul.

“Just scan it so I can leave,” Melanie found her boldest face and slid the bottle across the entire way.

“But, Lauren--” He said, using the name much too familiarly.

“Lauren is dead! Now let me pay for my damn ibuprofens!” Said Melanie. She’d really gone and done it now.

“Oh,” The man said as he finally scanned the bottle, “But I don’t think she is.”

Melanie paid and snatched the bottle from his hand. As she stormed down the block, she couldn’t help but look over her shoulder every few steps.

She had noticed something without realizing. That the man who’d mistaken her for Lauren had watched her walk, watched her enter her building, and he had waited.

But Melanie was not Lauren. Lauren didn’t even have a place on Earth anymore. As a matter of fact, Lauren had stopped living only the night before. Was it a coincidence that Melanie had happened to change in appearance since then? That she had grown Lauren’s black hair, that her nose had formed into the same point?

Even after death, after Melanie had watched the light leave her eyes, she was pestered by the presence of Lauren.

Poor Lauren. Dead on a bed of pine needles in the park, and had still found a way to torment Melanie. Melanie wasn’t just sure how, but Lauren had brought this upon her. One last cruel joke to end their friendship in the coldest cutting-of-ties possible.

And that night as she stared as the ceiling through her new eyes, she heard the door rattling.

Click, clack!

Screeee!

Clack!

Melanie bolted up in her bed. Someone was in her apartment. Heavy boots tromped through the hall. Her bathroom door opened and closed again. The pair of feet paced her hall, Melanie too frozen to reach for her phone.

There was nothing more she could do as her bedroom door creaked open, revealing none other than the convenience store clerk, of whom Melanie had not even acquired a name.

“I knew I’d find you again one day, Lauren,” He said before slamming into her with a force that was strong enough to knock her on her back. Too strong for her.

Much like Lauren, Melanie had not been able to slip the noose of an early death, but others would come only to know one girl.

The one for whom two bodies were found. A single girl having been found murdered in two ways on two consecutive days.

But Melanie?

She was no one.