The Miscreants of Xiphoid Camp [NOT UPDATING CURRENTLY]

» 2130 « Chapter 17 - Life goes on

The crisp, cold air cut straight through Avior's thin jacket and down to his very bones. It was absolutely freezing. He crossed his arms, uncrossed his arms, checked the time on his phone, crossed his arms again, and hopped from foot to foot in a fruitless effort to remain warm.

Where were his parents? They had called him nearly an hour ago to tell him which bus stop they would be picking him up at, and then thirty minutes after that they had called again and told him they were going to be a tiny bit late. He had been waiting for nearly an hour now, and still there was no sign of them.

His phone lit up with a new notification, and the smiley face next to the contact name indicated that Arin had just texted him. He had devised a strategy long ago to make his contacts recognizable—each person was associated with an emoji. Not that he had many people in his contacts, anyway. He turned off the phone, regretting giving Arin his number. It wasn't like he could text people, anyway. And what was the point in keeping in contact with someone you were never planning on seeing again?

A shiny black car made its way down the road, gravel crunching beneath impossibly clean tires.

"Took you long enough," Avior muttered under his breath as his father stopped the car and rolled down the window.

"Put your suitcase in the back and get in. Your mother wants to get home as soon as possible. She didn't even want to come in the first place,"

"That makes two of us," Avior said under his breath as he dragged the suitcase around to the car. The back was already open. avior could have laughed at the way his father expected him to be able to lift a suitcase twice his size into the car.

He didn't laugh. Instead he simply stared blankly at it and said, "I can't lift this,"

His father sighed heavily. "Fine. I'LL do all the hard labor, then,"

"You know your father has a bad back!" his stepmother tutted from the passenger seat. "Help him, for God's sake!"

It was nice to be home. It was nice to be home. He didn't like Xiphoid Camp anyway. That was what Avior repeated to himself all through the drive home, and all the way into the house, and up to his room, and onto his bed, where words finally betrayed him and he screamed into a plush, soft, non-camp-standard pillow until his voice was torn apart by a great claw and he simply could not scream anymore.

His parents didn't even ask about the bruises he had earned the night before. He decided right then and there that he hated Halloween. The bandages covering the deep cuts the rooster had carved into his ribs itched terribly and his head still throbbed. Xiphoid had done this to him. His parents had done this to him. It seemed like the whole world was out to get him.

Being at home with his parents without Archer to act as a buffer was absolute misery.

Avior liked arguing with people. It was fun, and his parents were easy to argue with. He had only been home for two days, and the previous day had been a mess. Avior did everything in his power to push his limits and be even more infuriating than he usually was, and it had gone spectacularly up in flames in the most glorious way.

He was now banished to his bedroom, which, from a logical standpoint, was not a bad punishment at all. He'd probably be in his room regardless of whether or not he was being punished. It was the only room in the house that he liked, and even then its only appeal was that it was his and his alone.

He was very proud of himself for getting into such deep trouble on his first day home. Beat THAT, Marcus.

Marcus probably couldn't beat that. He probably got along fine with his parents. They were probably all baking cookies and asking each other, "did you have a nice day, sweetie?" at that exact moment. How horrifying. What an upsetting image.