The Cracking of Bones

A week after my thirteenth birthday, I am sitting on the couch in my house next to my best friend Ollie. He looks at me with an anxious expression.

"When will it happen?" he asks, "Soon? Should we go outside and wait?"

I roll my shoulders and feel a slight stiffness in my muscles that I know will only get worse throughout the evening. "No, we'll be fine for a bit," I say. He doesn't look like he believes me. "Listen, man, it's only 6:30. The sun won't set for another hour at least."

We both go silent for a moment. Although the sun is still up, it is still getting darker outside. It's too hot in my house, or maybe it's just me. I can feel the sweat forming on my upper lip.

"Melvin?" Ollie whispers, "I'm scared."

I look him in his eyes, glossy with pupils slightly dilated. "Don't be. It'll be fine, I just want you to see it, so you understand what I'm always complaining about." I say in response. Ollie is still twelve, he will be until next February, which is almost six whole months away. He's much more timid than I am, probably because he is younger. I do feel bad for what I am about to show him, but he is my best friend, and I have vowed to let him see every part of my life, no matter how gruesome it might be.

We sit in silence for what seems like forever. The sun gets lower in the sky. My muscles become more and more tense. Ollie looks slightly ill.

When I look at the clock on the wall, it reads 7:25. We should get going.

I look at my friend, "hey, man, we should get going" I say. He takes a deep shaky breath and nods.

We leave out my back door and make our way to the thick woods behind my house. My legs throb with every step I take, the sweat growing stickier on my face and body. I look at Ollie who doesn't seem uncomfortable in this awful humidity. Maybe it is just me. Eventually, we can't see my house anymore, but we keep going. I won't get lost; I know these woods like the back of my hand. We need to be far from civilization if we want this to be safe.

When we find a large oak tree, I tell Ollie to climb it and he obliges, no questions asked. He sits on a lower branch, still high enough that I can't reach him even if I were to jump.

"You sure this'll be safe enough?" he says with a higher pitch than I am used to.

"Yeah, man, I can't reach you from here," I assure him, "just don't jump down until tHE-" my voice cracks painfully. Ollie looks at me horrified.

"Is it happening? Are you okay, Mel?" he sounds rather frantic. I look at the sun, which is nearly under the horizon by now, making the sky a terrible sort of dull purple. My heart is hammering in my chest, and I can hear Ollie's doing the same.

My limbs feel like Jell-o, and I fall to the ground with an agonizing thud, my body crumpling into itself. I scream as I both feel and hear my spinal cord elongating. With my consciousness slipping away, I see poor, sweet Ollie staring down at me from his branch on the tree with a traumatized expression. I should never have brought him here. He's far too innocent to have to witness this. My bones crunch, my skin stretches and tears, my shrieking becomes an animalistic howl. My whole body is burning, I cannot move, I am stuck in this unbearable torment.

Behind the sound of blood rushing in my ears, I hear Ollie wailing in his own misery, having to watch all of this. As my body continues to contort under the light of the full moon, I watch him scoot closer to the trunk of the tree. He cries loudly as he tries to grip the bark which rips, sending him plummeting to the earth.

"NOUHGGH-" I try to shout for him, but both my vision and voice are warping, and my perception of everything is becoming clouded with a powerful desire to ravage and maim anything and everything that breathes. The last thing I hear before I am completely consumed by these monstrous impulses is a dreadful crunch and a guttural scream.

I wake naked. My joints hurt. My head throbs. My throat is raw, my stomach churns, and my eyes sting. My skin still feels sticky, and I pray to every god that it is still only sweat and tears. Trying not to move for fear of vomiting, I look to the gloomy sky, the full moon having finally passed. I hold my arm up to see it littered with lacerations and bruises, and I suspect my whole body is like that.

Eventually, I gain enough strength to stand. I see the remains of my torn-up clothing laying in various places on the forest floor. A shudder runs through me, and I find myself retching uncomfortably. I want this to end. A metallic stench stings my nostrils, and I am filled with vague memories of what I did last night. No. I didn't do anything. This isn't real, this can't be real. I turn, my eyesight hazy with dread.

Ollie is looking at me. Ollie is okay. He must be. The ground around him is layered with a thick blanket of crimson. My stomach lurches when I notice his lack of a right arm. His right leg is torn at the knee, the rest of it a few feet away. It's all right, the doctors can sew it back on. He's still okay. He's still looking at me. He's still scared. I can help him.

"It'll be fine, Ollie, don't worry, man." I say, my voice hoars.

He doesn't answer. He's just scared, he's okay.

"Ollie, I'm sorry, man, I thought you'd be safe in the tree." I say, "Ollie."

He just looks at me. Why won't he answer?

"OLLIE, ANSWER ME, I'M SORRY, OKAY!?" he doesn't even flinch when I yell. He doesn't even blink. What is wrong with him?

I'm tired of looking at his frozen face, his stupid sunken in torso. I walk past him and head home. I suppose my mother will offer me some breakfast, but I'm not very hungry.

When I arrive back at my house and step inside, my mother turns around the corner and takes a sharp inhale when she sees me.

"Melvin! What happened? Are you hurt? Why weren't you in your bed this morning? Is that blood? Where is Ollie?" she grabs my face in her hands and looks at my bruised body.

"I'm alright, mom," I say, frustrated by all her questions. My head still hurts, and I am exhausted. I want to yell at her to leave me alone, but I know that wouldn't be rational; I am always short tempered the morning after, and I don't want to take it out on my mother. "Ollie's fine, he's in the woods."

"What? Melvin, what is going on, where are your clothes?" she has the same expression Ollie had last night. "Mel, if you don't give me an answer, I'm going to call someone. Whose blood is that? Is Ollie okay? Bring me to him." her voice is shaky. I don't know what to tell her.

After a moment of her anxiously staring me down, she grabs a long jacket from a hanger on my left and wraps it around me.

"Take me to Ollie." she says with uneasy finality. She pushes me out the door and I lead her back through the woods. When I look at her again, her face looks like it has aged ten years, her brows furrowed, her jaw clenched. Silvery tears are falling delicately down her cheeks.

I can see Ollie up ahead, the stench of his blood still fresh in my nostrils. "There." I say, pointing. My mom looks to where my finger is indicating and her mouth falls open, yet another shriek pierces my ears, and I wince.

Birds fly from the trees in the pale light of the morning.