Injustice

"Miss Kajiwara-"

"Please, Jasmine is fine."

"You say this package just arrived on your door mysteriously?"

"Correct. Out of nowhere. Just a recipient address."

"And the address on the package was yours, correct?"

"Correct, but my name wasn't on the package."

"Was there a name on the package?"

"No."

"So is it entirely true that the package was sent to you specifically?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"And is it true that a potential partner in crime may have sent you this package as to not pinpoint the murder on themselves?"

"Objection! No other suspect has been discussed."

"I'll allow it. Proceed."

"Jasmine?"

"It isn't true because I was not involved in any murder!"

"No further questions, your honor."

Yeah, I'm a murder suspect. At the ripe old age of 18 where, just as I begin my adulthood, I'm able to be charged as an adult and possibly go for the death penalty just for being wrongly accused of a crime I didn't commit. And since my house is just two short miles from the murder scene, apparently that gives them all the more reason to believe I did this somehow. Do I look capable of murder?

I'll start at the beginning, which is still fresh in my mind since it was the day before yesterday. I received what looked like a brand spanking new package in the mail delivered in a paper brown box. Inside, there was a human eyeball in a Ziploc. An eyeball. Do I look capable of killing someone and then proceeding to gouge out their eyeball?! Apparently! Who knew? I instantly called the police, and since my fingerprints were somehow at the scene of the crime and the eyeball's DNA could be traced back to the murder victim, I was going to court. That's gonna look good on college applications. "Murder suspect the week after graduation." Did I mention it was someone I had shared multiple classes with over the years? Yikes.

I'll admit, I never really liked Sahalia. She was always bragging about the college guys she slept with and the parties she went to. With her gorgeous green eyes and impeccable figure and lucious waist length black hair, she was what every guy dreamed of and apparently what any guy would leave for since he had won my boyfriend the previous year. I guess that's where you can say my hatred for her had started, but I could never kill someone!

I got bullied at my old school in Japan since I had blonde hair and blue eyes. My mother was German from the US and my father was Japanese from Okinawa. I still received occasional mockery from the idiots who roamed the halls here at Independence High, but I had actually received more compliments due to the fact that being mixed was popular. Who knew? I met my boyfriend Alex right away, but he quickly left the first time he shared a class with Sahalia. What kind of name is that, anyway? Not that I'm one to talk with a last name like Kajiwara, but that's besides the point.

I had expressed to my parents that I wanted to transfer schools, but I never knew we'd be coming back to mom's old hometown. They told me I had my therapist to thank for that, but immediately transferred me to a new one once the move was settled. They said my therapist had "noticed" me getting worse all school year. Which I thought was garbage since she never followed me around at school. But then I started to think, what if she did? That made the prickle of paranoia on the back of my neck stand on edge. But I was far from Miss Know It All. Now I'm with Miss Can Say No Wrong. I'll say she isn't as obnoxious as Know It All, but it's annoying how she assumes everything she says is correct no matter how much I try to rephrase my story.

Sure, sometimes I wake up and don't remember how I got to where I was, but mom always pinned that on sleepwalking. And maybe sometimes I had nightmares about doing heinous acts, but I talked to dad and he said everyone gets them. He tells me not to think about them and they'll go away. But these occurrences have been happening for over a year now, and sometimes the dreams felt verily real.

My parents had me go to my therapist once before I appeared in court donning orange apparel. She said she would speak on my behalf upon my hearing, and she would try her best for me. For whatever reason, that didn't assure me in the slightest.

But here I am, a convicted criminal. Terrific.

Today was supposed to be the verdict. I couldn't help but feel anxious. I felt guilty. But why? I hadn't done anything! Perhaps I just felt bad for Sahalia. No matter how much I hated her, I didn't want to see her dead!

"Will the expert witness please testify to the defendant's account?"

I saw my therapist stand and come forward. She didn't look at me at all. My eyes were completely on her. As of right now, what she declared could get me in or out of this sentence. My heart was racing, I was sure the mic was picking up every beat. That had to be why everyone was looking at me.

Except, when I looked up, no one was really looking at me and my therapist's throat clearing was the only noise in the room.

"Your honor, it has become clear to me that Jasmine Kajiwara has refused to come to recognize that she suffers from a dissociative disorder. As my client, it is my job to monitor said conditions. Jasmine will often explain vivid dreams to me that she refers to as nightmares where she does odious acts. It wasn't until this murder that I realized Jasmine was describing things she has actually done whilst being both unaware and out of her mind."

I blinked. What? What was she saying?

"I believe that Jasmine both committed this murder unaware of her actions and sent herself the package containing Sahalia Brenner's eyeball, and I am pleading that she is not guilty by reason of insanity."

"HA!"

All eyes were on me. Had I just laughed out loud? That was ridiculous!

"Is there something you would like to add?"

"Yeah," I said, losing all respect. "That's absurd! Do you really believe that?" I lost my steam as soon as I saw the look on Miss Can Say No Wrong's face. I looked at my parents, who were both crying. They looked both scared of me and sorry for me. They had known all this time...and never told me?

"Under this new information given by the expert witness, the verdict will be reviewed and revised to be presented in a court hearing tomorrow." The judge banged his gavel and people started yelling. I could see Justice4Sasha signs and hear people yelling her name. I...I killed Sahalia? I couldn't have! I had mailed myself that package? That was...

I remembered the day the murder came onto the news. I woke up covered in blood, but I assumed it was due to the fact that I had many scratches and marks on my back that I didn't remember obtaining. I just washed and put on clean clothes and joined my parents at the table for dinner like nothing. I remembered seeing messages to Sahalia's social media accounts saying vulgar things, but I texted her back apologizing that I was hacked. I wrote it off as such. There was so much evidence.

Authorities grabbed me by my handcuffs and dragged me away into a cop car, probably hauling me back to jail. I couldn't see straight and I felt queasy.

I had killed someone and I hadn't even known it. I was indeed a convicted criminal. And no colleges were going to accept that on my application that I would now never send.