"Wow!! No blood on my nose nor my ears this time?" I exclaimed.
"I must be doing a good job in the cornfield," I muttered to myself, but before I could delve deeper into my thoughts, my mother's voice pierced through the veil of solitude.
"How do you feel, son? Do you feel better?" she inquired.
"I wasn't feeling bad, Mom," I replied, attempting to downplay the gravity of the situation. "I told you we didn't have actually to come here."
The nurse's arrival interrupted our conversation. As she checked on me, I felt a sense of relief wash over me when she confirmed that everything was stable. With my mother fussing over me, offering water and snacks, I couldn't shake off the feeling of being suffocated by their concern.
"Yes... thank you," I mumbled.
As we returned to the car, I yearned for solitude, for the solace of the early morning breeze that beckoned me. Excusing myself from my parents, I embarked on the journey home alone, leaving behind their watchful gazes that trailed me like lingering shadows. Arriving home, the flickering lights in my room betrayed their clandestine activities.
"Are they searching for something in my room?" I pondered, a seed of suspicion taking root in my mind.
The lights extinguished as soon as I rang the bell, but the air was tense as my mother greeted me at the door. Suppressing the urge to confront them, I retreated to my room, and as I lay in bed, my mind raced with unanswered questions, the events of the night casting long shadows of doubt. The return of ATAR loomed ominously in my thoughts, elusive yet ever-present. I sat on my bed trying to anticipate the return of ATAR and trying to tie the hints together to see if ATAR has a pattern on how, when, and where he shows up, but all my attempts were in vain.
Days stretched into weeks, and the absence of ATAR weighed heavily on my mind. Doubt gnawed at the edges of my sanity as I questioned the reality of our encounters.
"Was this all in my head?" I mused.
In moments of solitude, I found myself unraveling the tangled web of our connection, seeking patterns amidst the chaos.
"ATAR never shows up when I am feeling happy or okay," I realized, the pieces of the puzzle finally clicking into place."He only appears when I am alone, angry, sad, or in pain... when I am trying to hurt myself."
With each passing day, my patience waned, replaced by a burning desire for answers. The promise of ATAR's stories, of secrets and truths waiting to be unearthed, tantalized me like a forbidden fruit dangling just out of reach.
Driven by desperation, I resorted to drastic measures, confronting the darkness head-on in a bid to summon him. Armed with a knife and fueled by anger, I challenged ATAR's elusive presence, willing him to materialize before me.
I snuck into the kitchen, took one of the knives, and headed to the restroom. I turned the lights off and started to call for ATAR. " Hey, you!! If you don't bring your ass up here now, I swear I will proceed to cut myself" I said angrily.
" I will do it! I am not even joking ATAR" I added, but he's nowhere to be found or seen.
I' then with no hesitation nor fear started to run the head of the knife down my chest making highways of bloody scars on my skin. My chest took the color red while drops of blood were straying all over my body, but weirdly was feeling none of that.
But as the blade carved crimson pathways across my skin, staining my flesh with the evidence of my torment, ATAR remained elusive. Frustration boiled within me, mingling with the intoxicating allure of pain as I called out into the void, seeking solace in the shadows.
Then, in a flash of surreal clarity, I found myself transported once more to the edge of the cornfield, where ATAR awaited me in an altered guise. His form mirrored my own, a reflection of the darkness that lurked within.
"I see that you found a way to summon me, Malik," ATAR remarked.
"You were gone for almost a month," I retorted, "What do you expect me to do? I had to."
As ATAR beckoned me to lie down, the sky overhead darkened, a canvas for the stories that unfolded like threads of fate woven into the fabric of time.
"Do you recognize these faces, Malik?" ATAR said.
"Of course, those are my parents... but why are they fighting?" I questioned.
"It is not them who are fighting, but rather their families," ATAR explained, "For decades, your parents' families have been locked in a bitter feud, fueled by hatred and fueled by vengeance. Lives have been lost, blood has been spilled, all in the name of pride and legacy."
As the weight of his words settled over me like a shroud, I found myself poised to unravel the secrets that lay buried within the tangled roots of my own history.
"Okay, go on..." I urged.
YOU ARE READING
DOLOR
FantastikAfter a long day at school, Malik, a 22-year-old boy heads to his dark messy room to get some much-needed rest that night. A night that he will never forget.
