Let's Play "Find the Symbolism"

Landon had always been a different boy. No one had known much of his life except for the few mumbles he would occasionally exchange with strangers who had asked. Ever since I had met him he had been a mysterious fellow, something that had attracted me more to him, to his care free way of living.

Months had passed and we became inseparable. Spending the days together and unraveling each other's personalities, one ribbon by one.
But for some reason I felt I wasn't discovering every piece, and that there were still some places left untouched for no one to see.
Over time I had noticed his friends had started to disappear. They were no longer connected to him in any way and when I asked about it, he would shrug and tell me they had grown apart. One time he even told me they had moved away to a better place. Somewhere near Southern California.
But one thing I noticed was ever since I had met the boy, an infuriatingly bothersome tapping would occur on my window at night. The same small red bird would show up at my window for months, tapping away at my window and depriving me of my sweet rest. Every night I would try to go to sleep, and every night the patter began again. But each time I had thought to shoo the bird away, to get it far from my sanctuary, the thought of Landon had come to my mind, and his soft words put me at ease and I simply fell asleep.
Over time I saw Landon less and less, his life had become more of a mystery to me than I had expected it to be. He was disappearing and reappearing in my life without notice. When I would ask him where he was he would shrug and mumble something I couldn’t hear. My hearing had worsened through the weeks and I could barely hear a word unless someone had spoken up. My mother said it was because of the loud music I would play when the bird would show up.
It was Friday night and Landon had called me to go out to eat somewhere. I debated on whether or not I should leave, whether I should spend my time with him, and there was that noise coming from the window once again. The bird was louder this time. I never understood why it bothered me so much, but because of the it’s incessant pounding, I had decided to leave while my migraine hadn’t formed yet.

Motionless.
My eyes shielded, my limbs shaking from the harsh cold hitting it. My arms and legs tied, with nothing under them but cold metal.
I heard the heavy door open. A loud noise followed as it shut and footsteps became more and more clear even through the only muffled sounds my ears could produce.
I felt ice. Buckets and buckets of ice hitting my already numbed body. They hurt, more and more with each throw, each toss filled with such hatred.
I began to shake, to feel the anger in me envelop due to the frustrating cold.
The cubes hitting me like pieces of glass, penetrating my tough skin.

The pelting had finally stopped. I was left dripping with water, shaking uncontrollably and clenching my hands together as if it would warm me up even a little.
It suddenly became warmer. I could feel the sun beating down on my frozen skin, my blue hands and feet, loosening the rope and blindfold that had prohibited me from identifying anyone or anything.
I slowly took off the blindfold and squinted. Everything was so blurry, as if I hadn't seen it before, as if where I was standing was completely unfamiliar to me. Where am I? I thought. This can’t be somewhere I’ve been to before. As hard as I tried I could not make out the place.
But my eyes finally adjusted slowly to see I was standing right inside of Landon’s room.

I scrambled to run, to find a way out of the dim cell, but held my breath when I found him filling up buckets of ice outside. I froze in my footsteps and felt a chill run down my spine. He was going to hurt me, and had hurt others. The man I had always seen as my compassionate everything was a monster. And before I could regain my thoughts to turn around and escape, I felt a hand on my shoulder. “It would probably be in your best interest not to move” the deep voice behind me said.
The voice that had once told me I was beautiful.
I remained immobilized as I felt a hard object brush against my neck. Too scared to see what it was, I shut my eyes hard.
“This is me, this is who I am." he chuckled. "What, you didn't know?" he smiled slyly. "That's no surprise, you’re stupid anyway."
He made his way to me, speaking so closely I could feel his breath on my neck. “This is how I do it. Freeze them until they’re so numb they can’t feel a thing”. His grip on my arm had become tighter, his hands no warmer than my body. I attempted to look for an escape, anything that would free me from this grip that seemed impossible to break away from. But there was not a thing; just an empty room with a knife to my neck, waiting to take me away from my life.

I awoke out of breath, as if what I was dreaming of had stolen my life from me the entire time I had been asleep. Panting, I noticed I could see everything around my room, sharper, clearer than I was used to. I sprouted up to get myself some water but could barely hold the cup in my shaking hands.
I had returned to my warm room and sat down onto my bed. I let out a deep exhale and shut my eyes, attempting to analyze what had possessed my dreams to be so frightful. When I had finally decided to stand up, I peeked outside and was astonished at what I found before me. There on my window sill was a small red bird, motionless and dead.