The Perfect Shade of Red [OLD]

CHAPTER 3

The weekend hits and Helen starts to shove a bunch of loose papers and a few sketchbooks into his bag. The cool crisp air left a light fog on his window. He rubbed his eyes hard in frustration as he heard his mom head to work, slamming the door hard. The loud slam hurt Helen's ears as he grunted and scrunched his face in disgust. He waited a few minutes until he was sure his mother left.

Opening and closing his bedroom door behind him, Helen left the house and walked down the street towards the woods at side of the road. He avoided making eye contact with any of the cars passing by as he began his trek in the woods. The last leaves from fall crunching and crumbling under his feet, Helen went as far as he could until he couldn't see the road anymore.

Falling to his knees gently, Helen opened his satchel bag and brought out the first sketchbook. He proceeded to skim through and rip out any sketch pages that had Olivia on it, even if there were other sketches on the page. Then he went through the next two sketchbooks and did the same thing, placing the loose pages in his satchel to prevent to wind from taking them.

Helen took all of the loose sketchbook papers and regular paper out, putting his sketchbooks back in. He grabbed the lighter and flicked it on, bringing it up to the edges of the paper. A smile spread across his face as his eyes widened, the flames engulfing the paper quickly as he threw it on the ground.

The ground started to slowly catch fire but he quickly stomped on the small flames with his boots, only wanting the papers to burn.

The fire licked and ate the papers up, sketches of Olivia burned and ran with it. Miscellaneous doodles of Olivia on school papers started to pollute the air with a thick grey smoke. Letters from Olivia sang a sad song of brimstone as it too was inhaled by the growing flames.

Once Helen saw they were no more, he stomped the fire out. The ground was now painted a pitch black and the smoke started to clear. Now that he was done with his burden, Helen got up and started to walk back towards the road. The wind picking up the ashes and taking it with it.

His knuckles turned white as he gripped the handle to his satchel bag. Remembering how he got cornered earlier that week. He wasn't the pathetic one though, no. They were pathetic. They beat up on a boy minding his business, pathetic pathetic pathetic.

All he's gonna achieve in life is dating a hot chick in highschool and then what? No college is recruiting anyone from here. He's a pathetic bitch. Couldn't even wait until the teachers weren't around. He wanted to get caught, to gloat that he could've done more.

Helen crossed the road without looking, getting to the other side safely even though a car passed and the driver yelled at him. He continued his walk home.

I'll show him. I'll show him how much I could've done.

He opened his door as a car drove past, a familiar female voice yelling hi to him.

"Hi Helen!!"

He walked right inside and closed the door, not acknowledging the sound of Olivia's voice. Now, to him at least, she was just another person. Another person stuck in this world whose sole purpose was to fuck with him. No one loved him and he knew that. He didn't know love, just pain.

In his room, he set his easel up and eyed it with his thumb. He struggled with inspiration before remembering the supposed cult and disappearances. Searching up the cult, he came across images of a tall black creature with horns.

Putting some Christmas music on, he got to work painting this supposed deity. Humming "rockin' around the Christmas tree" he swayed a bit as he painted long black strokes across the canvas. He stopped to take a break and stepped back, the Christmas music pausing as the CD finished.

"...that red...it's not fit...no no no". He looked at the Google images and his painting and tugged at his hair, annoyed. "It's okay...let's try this one!" He grabbed another brand of red, opening it and wetting a brush.

After a few more attempts with different brands of red, Helen huffed in frustration.

"This won't work. Is it even red? Am I becoming colourblind?" He racked his brain trying to remember if he saw the shade of red in his local art store. A ruffle outside peaked his attention, right outside his window a rabbit sniffed around, peaking it's head up every once in a while.

A sinister grin spread across Helen's face before the front door slamming knocked him out of the trance. The rabbit running off and under his backyard fence while he was distracted.

PUBLISHED; APRIL 21ST, 2021 12:36 AM
EDITED; ???