Casters

CHAPTER SIX

Shock

 

After two more pleasant days I was feeling more and more excited. Just the fact I knew I would see Robert each day seemed surreal, part of me was afraid that the entire time I’d known Robert was all one long and truly beautiful dream. He was just so impossibly perfect there was no way him and I could possibly live in the same world.

Robert and I hadn’t decided to make our relationship or whatever it was official so I wasn’t too sure if we were dating or not. I may sound like a overly-attached teenage girl smothering their crush but when I wasn’t with him I missed him more than I’d ever missed anyone. For the previous nights before that morning I’d been arguing with myself over my feelings for Robert. My heart was telling me I was irrevocably in love with him, but my head told me it was foolish and I was being pathetic. How could I be in love with someone I’d only known for two months?  

I couldn’t help but sigh deeply as I gazed out of the wide window at the end of my chunky bed. I don’t know how to describe it but I could feel myself changing inside. I was changing just as the weather was outside. Like the heavy snowflakes that fell from the grey clouds above, I could feel myself drifting away from what I once was and I honestly didn’t know whether that was a good or bad thing.

Not that I’d told anyone about how I’d been feeling over the past week or so, I didn’t want to worry them with something that was probably the flu or a cold.  Yet, I couldn’t help but feel it was something more serious than that. My body constantly felt freezing despite me turning up the heat and walking around in thick woollen jumpers, my head spun every time I moved too quickly and my eyes ached in the light. Abandoning my train of thought, I shook off the eerie feeling that slowly crept up my spine when I started to worry about my health and began to rearrange the books on my desk.

Driving my Jeep was getting more and more difficult with the weather and caused me to constantly be squinting my eyes. It took all my concentration to keep myself from crashing into the side of the road when I saw a lot of commotion on the corner near the library. I couldn’t make the three figures out at first so I slowed down completely. There were two men brutally kicking a teenage boy I didn’t recognise in the stomach repeatedly. I had no idea what to do in a situation like it but I definitely couldn’t leave the poor kid alone to get smacked around. Without thinking of the possible consequences of my actions I swerved my Jeep up the curb and jumped out.

“What are you doing to him?!” I shouted at the two hooded men, they didn’t even seem to flinch as I approached. They just kept sending blows towards the huddled boy on the snow-covered ground.

“It’s nothing to do with you!” The taller man shouted back to me over his shoulder. His voice didn’t sound as menacing as I’d expected it to be but I was still weary of getting too close.

“He’s just a kid for god’s sake, leave him alone!” I cried to them as I took two more cautious steps towards them. Splatters of blood surrounded the boy, every time they hit him more and more blood would escape from his pleading lips.  “Stop!” I screamed as I pushed the taller figure away from the young boy.

“Carmen?” He asked as his shocked eyes searched my face. How could he know my name? I stood there shaking, my eyes darting between the two men. The shorter man still stood over the boy with his back turned to me but the taller of the two continued to gawk at me. I’d never seen him before in my life. I surely would have remembered his mustardy coloured hair and those extremely blue eyes that seemed shark-like.

“How do you know my name?” I spat at him, trying to seem unfazed. I was so sick of all these mysteries. Everything was just so unbelievable lately.