Italics- thoughts/ flashbacks/ dreams

Bold- author talking

Underline- narrator talking, known as the main character

Normal- normal story

2262 words

ꨄ❦ꨄ❦ꨄ➪

"Yes."

It's now Saturday and we're outside his house but inside the fence.

I'm sitting cris crossed on the dead grass. He's sitting on his knees about 5 feet in front of me.

He said I have to look around till I see them. I see shadows out the corners of my vision but who doesn't? It's also dark here.

Maybe he's just gone insane. This amount of night isn't healthy.

So I get ready to repeat this conversation for the 5th time now.

"What's the point of this?"

"To open your third eye."

"But it's been so long. Like 2 hours."

"For the final time, it's been 8 minutes."

"Too long."

"Not long enough."

I nose sigh before looking at the grass to count it. "How long?"

"A few hours."

"So all I'ma do is stare at the dark till I go crazy?"

"Exactly."

I pull the hood of my sweater over my head and tuck my hair in it before laying on the hard ground like a starfish.

I comb the grass with my fingers while watching stars dance in the sunless sky.

The only time I've seen this amount of stars is when I would go to my great aunt and uncle's house in Morris. The stars are beautiful.

"Are we still on earth if there's no sun in the sky?" I look past me at him.

"yes."

"Where?"

"A cave."

"Where though?"

"Under the Mariana trench."

I sit up and lean against my arms, "how?"

"Well hell is underground and underwater."

"But how?"

"The same way man was made from dirt and magical gardens, people and a place above the atmosphere. Things just happen."

"How is there a sky? How are we not drowning?"

"I don't know these things."

My brain refuses to accept this. Makes no damn sense, there's no logic. Well there hasn't been a lot of logic lately. I give up and lay back down.

I can't tell if this helps or hurts my back.

The air is perfect.

"Is there weather down here? Like snow and rain and all that good ol' stuff?"

"No."

"Not even wind?"

"There might be. I'm never here."

"But you're here right now and have been all week. You can't get mad at me for lying then lie."

Yesterday was crazy.

"This is the most I've been here besides the first few months in this life."

"How many lives have you had?"

"3."

I hum in response before rolling on my stomach and looking at the fence a lot of feet ahead of me.

He even has side yards. Probably has a back yard too. My room windows face the same side that I'm looking at, the right one.

I wanna see little shadows through the out of place white fence.

The fence is like me. I'm out of place.

Always have been.

Always will be.

Forever and always.

"Can you see how many lives other people had?" I ask still waiting to see through the fence.

"Yes."

"What am I on?"

"888."

"Why so many?"

"I don't know."

I could have been a famous person at some point.

Were they like this one? This emotional?

"Have you met me before?"

After a long lack of response I turned to face him.

He's looking past the fence somehow. "Do you see them yet?"

I look where he's looking, "no."

He gets up and opens the gate door and gestures for me to look out. I get up and stand right before it and look around.

"No."

He grabs the top of the door and pulls it close and pushes his hands up his face, effectively making his hair fluffier.

Fluffy wavy hair. Oh my fucking gawd.

He pauses and pokes my nose with his sharp nail.

Why is it sharp? Does he tear things apart? Built in chicken shredder.

I grab his hand and put mine against it. The size difference is stupid. His skin is so pretty too. And the black lines too. And the nails.

"Your hands are nice."

He takes his other one and traces the tips of his nails down my forehead, through my bangs and down my nose. "Why?"

"Well you have the perfect shade of skin and you don't have fat fingers like me and nails are hot and the black lines look like tattoos. Tattoos are hot."

He wraps his fingers between mine the second I stopped focusing. I squeak in my true fashion and look at the little of my hand that can still be seen. I close my fingers.

"Your fingers aren't fat." He kisses each finger print for both hands.

He kills me more and more with each touch. I'll be dead by next week.

I grab his fingers and do the exact same thing.

Only 3 times because I hate the sound of kissing.

And breathing and eating. Basically the sounds of living.

"So how am I supposed to see the little shadows?"

"Pray and concentrate and believe."

"That's all?"

He tilts his head to the side and half shrugs, "basically."

"Then why are we out here? Why did you make me wait for 2 hours?"

"It's only been 20 minutes and you look adorable waiting and determined."

I'm in disbelief. "Rude."

He picks me up. Ooo I can see past the fence. I'm so tall.

I wrap myself around him so I don't fall.

"See, adorable."

I stop looking at the ground and look at him, mainly those perfect eyes. Absolute perfectection.

"What does it mean to get lost in someone's eyes? Like it makes no sense. Do people get physic powers doing it? Is that why it happens so much in books?"

He smiles before somehow sitting on the floor while holding me. He would be a good parent with these skills.

"I think they mean they can't stop looking. They're mezmorized. Have you ever gotten mezmorized?"

I nod. I think.

"Who?"

"In 10th grade my English teacher was helping me with something and I couldn't stop staring cuz his eyes were the same as mine. That was the first and only time I saw someone else with the same color."

I don't know what his face says.

"And yours. They're the definition of perfection."

"Compared to what?"

"My thighs. Your eyes have the same perfection as my thighs."

He leans his forehead against mine, "all of you is perfectection."

Awe.

That's so sweet.

"Thank you but no."

"No?"

"No. I can't help change the world if I become part of the problem. Perfect standards are a disease that hurts everyone else. I don't want to help hurt people."

I know the feeling all too well.

"Then you're perfect to me."

Him and his damn words makes me want to do backflips while crying with happiness.

"You are so nice but also no."

"How come?"

"Because if I become perfect I'll give up on improving myself. I came this far on the journey, I can't give up now. I don't put effort in a lot of things but myself is the only expectation. I can't become the best version of myself if I don't care anymore. And if I don't care I'll fall apart and bring everyone else down with me."

He leans against the fence and pulls me against him. He puts his hands under my shirt and sweater and explores the fat curves on my back.

"Then you're exquisite my crippled butterfly."

I lay my head in the crook of his neck with the biggest smile.

I love that name as much as the one my dad has for me. It's so unique.

I need a name for him.

"What should I call you?"

"My name?"

"No, like you have the butterfly name, what should I call you?"

"Any of your insults."

"What? Why?"

"Because you always pause before you say any of them like it's unnatural and I love it. And you always say it in an accent or weird way. I want to own one."

"Which one?"

"A new one."

He wraps his hands around my waist and squeezes, I squeak while he does the quiet hot soft laugh.

"I'ma call you a purple lesbian m&m for that."

"What the hell? No."

Now I do the laugh. It's not as hot as his though. I sound like I'm having a stroke without the stroke though.

Actually, strokes are too horrible to compare.

I fake gasp. "Are you lesbian m&m-phobic? That would be so horrible."

"I have no idea what lesbian m&ms are. Is it made up like the stupid fish thing you told Lucifer about?"

"No, sadly."

I think while he cracks my back. Why does he crack my back so much?

"Black fox?"

"That's not an insult."

"Stupid black fox?"

"You're more creative than that."

"Moldy cheese?"

"Mediocre."

How dare he insult my insult.

"Demon."

"No."

"Stupid bitch?"

"Not special."

"Creepy mystery guy."

"Thanks."

I ran out of ideas.

So I just say the ones I know.

"Mooncalf."

"I'm not foolish."

"Pillock."

"No."

"Milksop."

"No."

"You're fucking impossible."

He grins against my hair. I'll figure this out later.

I lean back and fight my fat leg before pulling it to the other one. I then cross my fingers on my lap and lean against him sideways.

I then pull out my phone and talk to my online friends. They're crazy too but a different type. They just don't know when to stop. But I have known them since forever. Longer than Athena.

They lie a lot though and are in a weird poly toxic relationship. First it was Lisa. I knew her when I downloaded the game and met her. Then Xavier once I got discord after my game broke. Then Nathan who joined last.

He's honestly the most real one even though I feel like he's a fake account from either Lisa or Xavier.

But I lost too many friends from that stage in life so I can't lose them either. No matter how much they lie or annoy me for attention.

It hurts but it's the price of keeping friends.

I frown at remembering the old us in the game. When it was just me, Lisa and other friends. Friends that I also lost.

It was my online home and I lost that too. My safe haven away from life and everyone and I lost it. Never got it back.

I still miss all my friends. I still miss all those one night friendships I would have with strangers. The perfect houses I spent years buying and working on. I almost maxed out on everything. I had the dream life for the game and lost it.

Just like so much else. I know life means losing things but it just becomes too much. All the little things pile up till it physically hurts.

It just worsens when you have no one to tell. It worsens when people leave your life and important people don't notice or listen.

Everything then falls apart into heavy pieces with no one to help put it back together. Then it just breaks more till the pieces can't be seen. Till they're hidden under the couch in places forced to call home.

I put my phone in my pocket before I throw it across the yard and lean all of me against death.

People use you for themselves. You learn to get on the ground and kiss their shoes just to avoid pain. You learn to hide any non perfect response to avoid a lecture.

Every little flaw and imperfections gets pointed out while needs are ignored. Escapes from reality get broken by people too close to the heart.

They tie strings around the lungs and stomach. They poison the brain with their problems. The stomach cries for food while the lungs want to breathe without pain.

Marks and discoloration appear on hairy skin. Hours are spent shaving it away so you're not called a guy by the people close to the heart.

You learn how to escape in dreams after everything else is stripped away. Yet they still take that away. They wake the pained and tired one up hours early for no reason. They throw water and whine when told no.

You escape online but that's the downfall. That's when the police and belt appear. That's when you lose all the progress made throughout the years.

That's when the truth appears and you lie to save yourself. That's when it's the same thread they hurt you with is the one holding you together. It's when you realize their fake concerns are the only safety.

Only one person cares because the same happens to them. They don't leave and y'all quickly depend on each other.

Then everything goes wrong again. But they come back. And they don't leave. No matter how many times it crumbles they don't leave.

They don't judge your bad habits. They help. They help more than the people that are supposed to.

The people that taught you ways that should never have been made. Ways that hurt others and you even more.

Then one day you wake up and nothing is wrong.

It's when you cry the most.

Cry because everyone just covers it up. Cry because that's all that's known. Cry because that's what they expect. Cry because it'll just repeat in a few months.

Cry because that one person is still there and crying with you 3 streets away.

I might have pulled one of the shorter sticks but it's still longers than everyone else's.

ꨄ❦ꨄ❦ꨄ➪

*Irina walks on stage yet again*

"Hello beautiful people! How are y'all?"

"Well today I have a joke for you."

*She awkwardly looks around thinking of the perfect way to execute this whole stage fright attacks her*

"So... why did the chicken cross the road....?

To get away from the KFC...

...Heheh.."

*She stands there thinking of what to do. Death appears next to her*

"What are you doing?"

"Making sure the audience is happy."

"That joke was as good as your balance skills."

"Fuckin cock sucker."

"No, that's you."

*Irina stops functioning before giving death a dirty look. He just picks her up, evilly smiles at the audience and disappears*