Dance of the Death Prince

Chapter 2; Talk It Out

((I drew that! Omg! XD Josh and... You can probably see the name XD anyway- I wanted to draw something that showed the sheer size difference between the two so- yes. There is a big difference XD Happy reading, with your new cover!!!))

It took two days for Josh to wake up in the infirmary, and another two to remember his name. It took a while but then he was able to make up words and understand people again, yet nobody looked at him in the same way.

"My neck hurts," Josh slurred for fourth time. He was sitting up, crisscrossed in the now padded bed of his room. Kiley sat sadly next to Josh's bed, watching over him while his parents took a break. Josh had still yet to remember her name, but he remembered almost everyone else now. Kiley was stuck wondering why Josh had yet to even utter her name, and left to stare at the six fang wounds on his neck. They had been healing pretty quickly, for they didn't bleed anymore and the wounds had been slightly closing up over the course of four days, but the pain had never seemed to subside. That was all he ever really talked about, was the pain.

"Joshua," Kiley said gently, the male looking over with blurred eyes, "do you remember my name?"

Josh tilted his head, hissing in pain as his wounds stretched. "A-Are you Mazz?" He paused for a moment and thought, then shook his head. "No, the prince got her..."

Kiley paused. That was a new statement. "Prince?" she asked.

Josh nodded, putting his head in his hands. "The prince got her..." he mumbled, "it was all my fault. The prince got Pike too. Pike told me it was my fault before he was taken. It's all my fault!"

Josh froze when Kiley grabbed his shoulder, slowly turning to her with wide eyes. For a moment the female was afraid she would be smacked or something, but the one word that managed to push its way from Josh's mouth made her choke with tears.

"Kiley?.."

.:*:.

Josh stood at his window, arms crossed together over his chest. His coat did nothing to protect him from the cold that seeped in through the hole-for-a-window, but it didn't bother him at all. He had a semi-blocked view of the park from his room, and the way the torches surrounding it shown against the dark sky urged him to do something. Something stupid, that would probably get him killed, but it didn't matter. He wanted to know more about the "Prince", for that was the word that had always worked it's way into his mind whenever he thought back to that night, over a month ago now.

Josh's wounds were completely healed, but his neck was now so unbelievably sensitive, even the slightest brush of a jacket collar would cause a lot of itching and pain. It angered him that he could not cover the once wounds, because the big grey and white scars caused a lot of people to turn their heads away. To some he was praised like a god, like Kiley, because he wasn't killed. To everyone else though, he was an outcast, now like Pike and Mazz, because he had been left with so much of a burden. He couldn't even work for himself anymore because even sweat sliding down his neck caused so much discomfort. Being an outcast now came to some advantage, though.

Because no one even bothered to look for him when he slipped from his house and began his walk down the old gravel roads. He wasn't angry anymore, at least not once he stepped foot outside. Now he was terrified. The cold gravel crunched beneath his feet, and it took all he had not to turn and run at the sight of the park. No one had even dared come near it once two teenagers had been killed there.

"I-I hope this works," Josh said, hesitating before taking a step onto the park grounds. He slowly walked to the center of the park, and stood waiting, watching the tree line to the forest for any signs of movement.