Have you ever swatted a fly?

 I would imagine the answer is most likely yes. After all, they are annoying little things that seemingly only serve to invade our personal space and irritate us. But have you ever considered just for a moment, that you are ending the life of a seemingly innocent creature that’s only crime was to annoy you? Perhaps it was scared or hungry? Or perhaps, it was not even a fly at all?

Now, I imagine some of you reading this are probably raising your eyebrows in confusion. Rest assured, everything will become clear in time, but I must warn you that what you are about to read is disturbing, bizarre, darkly hilarious and completely true.

Let me start at the beginning. My name is Jessica Chambers. I am 18 years old, in my final year of high school and would what you consider to be just your normal average girl. I would like to consider myself attractive but not in a vain way like some of my classmates see themselves as. I have red hair, small breasts and about average height for someone my age. You might wonder why I am telling you all this, rest assured it will all become clear in time.

High School is nothing special. I work hard, spend time with my friends and that’s about it. I don’t have a massive friend group but I get on well with virtually all my classmates, even Christina and her posse of loyal followers (I’ll get to them later). I’m not the most social person but I make an effort to interact with everyone and try to help them if they need it. Unfortunately, this backfired on me in ways you cannot even imagine.

It all started a few years ago when I met Yuna. Her parents had just moved from Japan and understandably, she was very nervous starting school in a new country. She struggled to make friends and was subject to the usual teasing you can expect from students. Nothing overtly cruel but enough to make you uncomfortable and want to help her. So I approached her one lunchtime and struck up a conversation. She seemed very surprised that someone was willing to talk to her and was very shy at first, which I completely sympathised with given the circumstances. But after a few weeks, we began talking more, spent more time together and soon became friends. Everything was fine at first. Yuna became more confident in herself, interacted more with the other students and seemed a lot happier than she had been when she first started. But then, things began to change.

Having a crush on a friend, especially one you spend a lot of time with is a perfectly normal thing. I was attracted to a large number of my classmates, some of them were aware whilst others were not. At a time when your body is undergoing massive changes, it is only natural to express romantic, possibly sexual desires for others. What is important is that you recognise these desires and ensure they do not consume you. Sadly, Yuna was not one of these people. I had suspected for a while that she was attracted to me, she stumbled over her words when she complimented my hair or clothes, she sat very close to me at lunch (even when I had a cold) and she would text me at every opportunity. I was savvy enough to know that stringing along someone who is in love with you is cruel and can have terrible consequences. So I continued to be her friend but without expressively returning her affections and calmly explaining to her that whilst I loved her platonically as a friend, I was not romantically attracted to her. Okay, I was a bit romantically attracted to her but something told me admitting this was only going to exacerbate the situation.

A few months ago, Yuna’s behaviour became more extreme to put it mildly. She followed me everywhere around school, even when she wasn’t supposed to, and I became a little unnerved by it. She would hand me notes in class that went from cute to creepy incredibly quickly and her texts became more and more incessant. Poems and the odd photo were just about tolerable but then she started sending more explicit images and links to websites for wedding venues. I did inform my parents who immediately contacted Yuna’s mother (her father has recently walked out of them) who promised to put a stop to it. But this somehow only made things worse and Yuna became more aggressive. She would visibly scowl when I talked to my other friends and classmates, she sent me graphic drawings that seemed almost threatening and once tried to cut off some of my hair so she could keep it. Things were getting out of control.

I still hate myself for doing it but I had to break off my friendship with Yuna. I calmly confronted her and explained that things just could not continue the way they were. I had hoped that maybe I could snap her out of this obsession, bring her back to how she was before everything went off the rails. But that was wishful thinking. It became apparent that the Yuna I knew was lost forever, yet her reaction was not what I was expecting. I had expected her to get angry, apologise or burst into tears and had been devising responses to each of them. But she just stared at me, smiled and told me that she understood perfectly. Then she turned around and walked away. I was both confused and unnerved by her response but I took it as a sign things were finished and tried to move on. How wrong I was.

The first few weeks after my “breakup” with Yuna went without issue. I was incredibly relieved to see that she was still attending classes and hadn’t done anything dangerous following our conversation. She would smile if she saw me, but it was a perfectly innocent gesture and she seemed to bare no ill will towards me at all. I felt confident things were back to normal and planned to talk to her again after some more time had passed in the hope, we could remain friends.

Then one night, something happened…