Absolute Zero

Chapter Three

3

Home wasn't much of a relief from the torture and harassment, but it was paradise considered to school. The first thing he did when he had closed and locked the door was to head to his room and take off his bloody clothes. After spraying them with stain remover, he tossed them in the dirty clothes. Once done, he walked to the bathroom in a pair of shorts and an undershirt to stitch his wounds.

Stitching wounds was not as difficult as it sounded; Mordecaii had all the supplies required, and he could take the pain. He set to work with his sterilized needle and surgical thread, closing the washed gash on his chest. When he was finished with that one, he started on the one on his abdomen, but he barely made it halfway through when the front door opened and a voice announced, "I'M HOME! SOMEONE (Mordecaii) GET MY LUGGAGE!"

Mordecaii rolled his eyes and dropped his shirt, walking out of the bathroom and down the hallway to his stepdad. The tall, jerkish man ruffled his stepson's hair and pushed him along to his bedroom that he shared with Mordecaii's mom. "Ol' ball-'n-chain not home yet?" He asked, proceeding to change into fresh clothes as Mordecaii did the same with his suitcases.

"She works the graveyard shift tonight," our cat-like friend answered. He moved swiftly, like a well-oiled machine, and was soon finished with the cases.

"Dinner done?" Out to the dining room went the elder man.

"I'll heat it up," To the kitchen went the younger. Dinner wasn't in fact done, as Mordecaii hadn't gotten a chance to do it, but stepdad wouldn't mind leftover enchiladas from last night, being as he hadn't been home at the time. Into the microwave went the enchiladas, whilst he got the lettuce and sour cream out. When it was done, he prepared it, stuck a fork in it, and served it. "You'll make a good wife someday, Mordecaii," laughed stepdad. Thinking, Mordecaii rolled his eyes as we went back to the bathroom, 'Yeah, I know.'

There, he finished his stitching.

~

Nighttime was almost as bad as school; his dreams were always nightmares, he always went to sleep and woke up crying, and he never got a restful sleep. In fact, since he never got full rest, his mind had adapted to working with no sleep, with one downside; he had hallucinations. Really, really bad hallucinations. Bedtime was horrible.

That night was no different; as a matter of fact, it was even worse. When he woke up the next morning, his entire pillow was soaked through with tears, and he was still crying. God, he was a wreck.

'Yay, school,' Mordecaii thought with sarcasm. Second period was where the entire school had silent reading and announcements; Mordecaii never seemed to have a book, so he read off of his phone (without the teacher's knowledge, of course). When that was over, the pledge of allegiance, and then announcements. Just when the guy was about to say "good morning", a video began to play on the TV. Mordecaii didn't know they were gonna have a video today, and apparently, neither did the teacher or the announcer, for the first frowned and the second kept going. The video intro was quiet at first, but then slowly became louder, and as it did the words became coherent. "It's tiiiime fooor; the Burn with Emilio! This time, he's burning Mordecaii Malestoun!"

Mordecaii's heart dropped to the pit of his stomach, and then stopped. "Here is a never-before-seen photo of our blue-haired freak: aww, look at that, he's a little cat maid."

The photo was of a French maid with cat ears and a tail, with Mordecaii's school picture photoshopped onto the face. Loudly the class laughed; even the teacher snickered from behind her hand. It went on for fifteen minutes, and when it was over Mordecaii was in tears, in the midst of a breakdown. Grabbing his stuff, he ran out of the classroom and out of school, the whole damned place laughing as he went.

~

Once home, he tossed off his backpack, jacket, and shoes, bolting up the stairs whilst crying. When he was upstairs, he made for the bathroom and threw open the medicine cabinet, grabbing his sister's stomach meds and then running back downstairs to his mom and stepdad's bathroom, where he then proceeded to rifle through the bottles there until he found what he was looking for: his mom's pain pills from her surgery, maximum strength. Grabbing them, he almost flew back upstairs to his room, slamming the door shut.

He was still crying as he opened the bottles, which was rather difficult considering that his hands were badly shaking. But he managed to get them open, which only resulted in the pills flying everywhere. So, he dropped to the floor and scraped up what he could find in the carpet and pop them into his mouth. The same he did with the pain pills.

Almost immediately he could feel their effect; buzzing in his brain, rumbling in his stomach, ice through his veins. Blackness at the corner of his vision slowly moved inwards, and as he breathed his last breath he sighed and thought, "Peace..."