Daniel

As more days passed the tightening in my chest got more intense. The whole weekend Ev had kept to himself, mostly drawing in his sketchbook. He had let me use his computer, as I had nothing else to do.

He hadn't asked me anything. Well, he hadn't asked me any personal questions. Nothing about who I was. Nothing about my bruises and wounds. Nothing about why I wanted to kill myself. Nothing about why I couldn't sleep at night.

Part of me didn't want to stay here. Staying here meant I owed something to Ev. And I didn't want to owe anything to anyone anymore. But I couldn't leave. I couldn't bring myself to leave. If I stepped out of that front door I was out there again. And I didn't want to be out there.

Ev had to go to work Monday morning, so when I woke up -a little before noon- I was alone. The apartment building that Ev lived in, I had come to realise, was mostly empty. Another girl was living one floor above him, but the apartments on the first floor as well as the rest from the other floors were vacant. Ev's upstairs neighbour, a young lady in her early thirties, was rather loud. Especially at night.

I hadn't met her, but Ev seemed to know her well, as on Sunday morning when she was being loud again, he had started hitting the ceiling to make her stop. I had also heard in on their conversation that same afternoon when he had bumped into her while taking out the trash. Her tone had been rather sweet and not at all hoarse as I had expected.

I was still sitting on the bed when I heard her Monday morning. She started moaning and soon the moans turned to screams. I could easily make out the rhythmic thumps of her bed against the wall. A shiver went down my spine.

My eyes focused on the droplets of rain on the window next to my side of the bed. Most were still, but I followed the ones that would run down the glass. I followed them until my eyes stopped moving. I heard knocks on a door. Not this door. The girl from upstairs screamed out in pleasure.

In my mind, I heard someone open a door and shut it close behind them. My hand moved to my forearm and I started scratching my skin. Another shiver went down my spine. I felt arms go around my waist and settle on my thighs.

"Come on let's have some fun."

A tear travelled down my cheek and my stomach twisted. This can't be happening. I heard another scream, but this one was distant. I wasn't sure whether it came from the girl upstairs or my mind. One of the bite marks on my back started throbbing and immediately I shot out of bed.

When I reached the toilet, I doubled over it, but my stomach was empty. I hadn't eaten anything. I was hungry, but I couldn't eat. I kept on heaving until a violent sob made me pull back. I was crying again.

"Fuck," I said under my breath as I sat down on the small olive bathroom mat and set my head against the tiled wall.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and hid my face in my arms. Panic washed over me again and again and I could feel my fingers turn cold. I started uncontrollably shaking, while screams echoed in my mind.

"Shut up... shut up... shut up," I muttered under my breath, crying in my sleeves.

I tried to take a few deep breaths; tried to calm myself down, but I couldn't. I couldn't focus. I couldn't... I couldn't...

I didn't know how much time passed until I heard someone push a key in the front door and open it. Ev spoke up to make his arrival known. I was sitting on the bed, feeling mostly numb while was watching a video on the internet. One of my favourite online creators playing one of the many video games I used to play. It was gory and intense, and it made me feel something now and then.

"How was your day?" Ev asked as he took off his shoes and jacket and stretched his arms upward.

I shrugged and then paused the video I was watching to look up at him. He had smudgy black eyeshadow on his eyes and his hair looked moist. I shed a glance out the window and noticed that it was raining again.

"How was work?" I asked him.

He seemed a little surprised by how hoarse my voice sounded but didn't comment on it. Instead, he shrugged and fell on the bed with a huff. He cracked his knuckles and turned to look at me.

"I'm thinking of getting a new tattoo," he said.

"Really? What do you want to get?" I asked him.

"You see, I've always wanted to get a chest piece, but I wasn't sure about the design. And this weekend I worked on it and ended up with this..." he answered and went to get his sketchbook from the table. He flipped through the pages and then he turned it so I could see.

It was a drawing of the galaxy, with different shades of dark blue, black, purple and green and millions of stars. My eyes went over it as I examined it. It had a cool effect that made it seem as if it came out of the paper through a rip.

"It will look as if you ripped my chest open and the galaxy was within me," he went on. I looked up at him and noticed his dark blue eyes were focused solemnly on me. It made me uneasy and I broke eye contact.

"What do your other tattoos mean?" I asked and watched as he set down his sketchbook on the bed.

"Well, this one," he started his fingers tracing the tattooed letters on the base of his neck, "it reads 'Non est ad astra mollis e terries via'. It's Latin and it means 'There's no easy way from the earth to the stars'."

He seemed to hesitate for a second, but then he removed the thin black sweater he was wearing, so I could see the rest of his tattoos. His left arm had visibly less ink than his right arm. He followed my eyes to his left arm and brought his right hand up to touch the tattoo on his shoulder. It was a creature I couldn't identify that looked a lot like what people called demons. It had piercing eyes and big, pointy teeth and its skin seemed to be burned. Four horns were growing out of its skull and they were intertwined.

"I got this one first. I was..." he squinted and looked away, trying to remember, "I was almost eighteen I think," he said. "Marcie, the girl who owns the tattoo shop I work for, designed it. Then I have..."

His voice faded as he turned around his forearm and I saw the inside of his wrist. An almost identical scar to the one from his other arm lied there, under a beautifully detailed rose. One thumb went over the rose and then he turned his arm around again without commenting anything about that tattoo.

Next, he showed the symbols on his fingers. I had made out that they were from a deck of cards the night I met him. On his pinky finger there was the symbol for clubs, then came diamonds, hearts and spades. And on his thumb, there was a black star in a circle, the Joker. He didn't say anything much about that tattoo either.

"Then I have this cat," he said and turned so I could see his right bicep. There was a zombified black cat coming out of what looked like smoke. "Teo, the other artist that works at the tattoo shop, did that one. He loves cats in general and he has drawn and tattooed about a thousand at this point. The only tattoos on him are actually felines".

My eyes went over the forest on his forearm and he traced it with his fingers, but he didn't turn his arm around to show the tattooed scar. Instead, his attention moved to his fingers.

"So, this is the rook," he started showing the piece that was tattooed on his thumb. "Then, there's the knight, bishop, the queen and the king," he went on, finishing with his pinky this time.

Ev went ahead and placed his hands behind him in order to stretch and show me the tattoo on his abs. It was yet another creature that looked an awful lot like an octopus but with batwings.

"It's the Cthulhu," he said as if that was supposed to clear things up for me. "From 'The Call of Cthulhu'... the short story," he went on explaining. I shrugged. "The writer was a racist bastard, but that story got me into the horror genre so yeah".

"I've never heard of it," I muttered. A hint of a smile broke his face and he looked down at the left side of his waist.

"And that's The Flying Dutchman. The legendary ghost ship..."

"I know of it," I cut him off. He bit the inside of his cheek and then chuckled.

"Good to know the youth isn't completely ruined," he noted.

"I'm not that much younger than you," I said back. He looked at me through half-lidded eyes and shook his head.

"Anyway, I got it cause I'm really into legends and ghost stories and it's basically both," he said. "I have a tattoo of a Chinese dragon on my thigh, but I'm not taking my pants off right now and finally I have this one..." he started and turned around so I could see the tattoo that was on his back.

"Wow," I muttered out of breath. I heard him chuckle and he turned his head to look at me over his shoulder.

Reaching out, I brought my hand up and lightly traced the design. It was a Grim Reaper holding onto a scythe and looking upward. There were black tears falling down from its eye sockets. A chill went down my spine the more I looked at it.

Slowly, Ev turned back around and put on his shirt again. He looked at me with an emotion I couldn't place. Worry? Affection? I wasn't sure. I hadn't seen it before. Not like that. He brought one hand up and wiped away a tear I hadn't realised had escaped my eye.

"Have you ever thought about getting a tattoo?" he asked me, sitting cross-legged opposite of me.

I shook my head. "I wasn't allowed". The words left my lips before I could stop them. He blinked and then turned his head to the side.

"By whom?"

My hand went up to my forearm and started scratching it over the sweater. I could barely feel it. I looked down at the black and white plaid duvet. Focused on the lines and colours. Ev took a deep breath and then quickly let it out.

"Well, no one is stopping you now. So, if you wanted one, what would you get?" he asked probably realising I wasn't about to give another answer.

I frowned at the thought and then looked back up at Ev. His hair was dry now and it didn't look as vibrant as when I had met him a few days ago. The very short stubble he had, had grown a little more, giving him just a hint of a beard. Was he going to grow it out?

"A roaring tiger," I said with a gulp.

"You like tigers?" he asked me with a small smile.

"They're strong..." And I'm not.