deathly love

Ch 2. Who Is This Boy That's Haunting My Thoughts?

I sat down at the table in the back of the art room. I gathered all of my art supplies (paint, brushes, blank canvas, pencils, etc.) and set up my station. For some reason, I really felt into painting today. I took a long, deep breath and let my brush put the first stroke of paint on the paper. I didn't really think about what I was doing. I was just letting my hand go, like it had a mind of its own. It seemed like hours had passed when finally Mrs. Brookes, my art teacher, said that we needed to pack up and get ready for our next class. Mrs. Brookes walked over to my art station and looked at my now finished drawing. I was always her favorite in class (which was surprising because all the other teachers hated me) and she was my favorite teacher. "What do we have here, Mr. Asher?" She looked down at my drawing and gasped. “That is a beautiful picture, Mr. Gracen.” I stared at her with a blank expression. What could be so special about my picture? I asked myself. I turned and looked at the painting myself and my stomach dropped. On my canvas was a very accurate, beautiful picture of the boy from my dreams. Who is this boy that’s haunting my thoughts?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I was running through the woods, trying to get away from something. There were old willlow trees all around me, blocking me from seeing anything beyond them. I could almost hear the thing behind me. "Leave me alone!" I kept shouting at the unknown. "Go away!" But it wouldn't listen. I could feel it getting closer and closer with every step that I took. Then it happened; the worst thing that could possibly happen did. As I was running, I paid no attention to the large willow tree roots sticking up out of the ground like arms beckoning for me in the darkness. I had tripped over one of them and fell flat on my face into a group of thick, calling roots. "Asher, Asher, Asher! We want you, Asher. We loooove you. Let us consume you Asher. Let us love you," they called in unison to me. I knew what they wanted and to love me was not it. They were hungry for their next meal and I did not want to be it. I fought with all of my strength to get free, but it didn't work. The roots tightened their grip on me and, finally, after giving everything that I had in me, I gave in to their pleading. I looked in the direction that I had been running from and noticed something that I hadn't before. There was a figure in the distance. I couldn't quite make it out, but it looked like a man in the shadows. As the roots consumed my body and pulled me into their underground fortress, I heard a whisper in the air. It was the same one that I had heard the night before. "I am closer than you think. Be ready for the flood." I didn't know what the whisper meant, and at this point I didn't care. I was tired from all of the struggling. I fell into a deep slumber, wrapped in the roots of the old willow trees, but not before I saw the eyes of the mysterious figure glow an iridescent yellow. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That day at school I was distracted. I couldn’t seem to pay attention in class. The teachers kept yelling at me (even more than usual) and a few of them sent me to the office. But I didn’t care. I was so occupied thinking about the figure in my dream last night and the roots consuming me that I really didn’t care what they did to me. By lunch time I was so preoccupied that I didn’t even realize that my hand was lying in my mashed potatoes. “What’s wrong with you today?” I could hear the concern in Gregory’s voice and I felt bad instantly for not paying more attention to him. I put on my best fake smile and said, “What are you talking about?” I pretended like I had no idea what he meant and it must have worked because he smiled too and turned away to eat again. I wiped the food off of my hand and looked down at my potatoes. Suddenly they were not appealing at all. I pushed them to the side and went back to my thoughts. I couldn’t get this boy, whoever he was, out of my head. I kept going over those words from the dream in my head. “I am closer than you think. Be ready for the flood.” It was really killing me that I had no clue what he meant by that. It seemed like no time had passed at all before the bell rang and it was time for sixth period. I walked into my art room and took out my sketch pad. I always drew or doodled when I was bored, distracted, or feeling down. I opened the notebook up to the first blank page and began drawing. I sketched several pictures of the boy of my dreams, not even really meaning for that to happen. There was one in particular that I drew that brought my attention to it the most. It was a picture of the boy sitting in the corner of a dark room, knees pulled up to him, and his hands around his bare knees. His black hair was falling in his pale face and he was crying tears of crimson. He was not clothed in the picture either. What really made me notice it, though, was the wicked smile that played on his face. That smile was almost disturbing, but it was a smile of heinous joy. I don’t what was making me draw these, but I was. That day after the last bell, I was on my way outside to walk home. Shawn Dickens and Kyle Sutton stopped me in the hallway right before I got to the door. I tried to step around them, but it was no use. They weren’t going to let me through. “Going somewhere?” Kyle looked at me and smiled his most devious grin. “I’m going home, apes. Now leave me alone.” I glared at the boys with fury. Kyle and Shawn shook their heads at each other. Shawn looked at me and spoke. “Actually, you aren’t just yet.” With that they both jumped toward me. Shawn pinned and held me against the wall as Kyle threw punches and kicks to my face, stomach, and “other” places. I yelped in pain each time his fist and leg came back down on me. “Aww, the poor baby faggot is crying!” yelled Shawn to Kyle over my screams. Kyle laughed and hit me even harder. Then he and Shawn switched places and Shawn got a turn at the make Asher miserable game. He pulled his foot back and aimed for the one place a teenage boy, or any boy for that matter, does not want to be hit. I screamed and fell to the floor as the two boys let me go. They both were crying they were laughing so hard. Through his tears and gust busting laughs Kyle managed to spit out, “Poor Gregory. Now poor queer Asher doesn’t have a..” The two boys stopped in their tracks, turned, and quickly walked out the door. I looked up just slightly enough to see why they ran (I could only lift my head up so far because of the overbearing pain). Through the light shining through the door I could see a person walking towards me. I couldn’t quite make out who it was, but I could tell that it was a girl because of her perfectly curved body. When the girl got to me, she crouched down next to me and put her hand on my shoulder. I flinched from the pain and she took her hand off quickly. “I’m sorry,” she said with regret. Her voice was smooth and soft, completely different from my deep, raspy voice. I smiled the best I could and said,” that’s okay. It didn’t hurt that bad.” She smiled back and examined my wounds. “Are you alright? You look awful.” I laughed at her comment and replied,” I hurt everywhere, especially…never mind. But thanks for the compliment of me looking awful.” She blushed and said, “I didn’t mean it like that.” “I know. I was just kidding,” I said. She had a very pretty face for a girl. She had big, blue eyes, large pink lips, and smooth, fair skin. Her bleach blonde hair was big and really curly. It also had multi-colored streaks and little colorful bows in it. Around her forehead she sported an Akatsuki Naruto headband. She was wearing bright pink cheetah print skinny jeans and an off-the-shoulder shirt that was adorned in black and purple sparkles. Under the shirt she had a neon green cami on. The colors didn’t really match, but they were cute together. “You like Naruto?” I asked her. She smiled. “NO!! I loooove Naruto!” she said laughing. ”Uchiha all the way,” she said as she held up the #1 sign with her fingers. “I like Orochimaru and Sai,” I replied. “May I ask what your name is?” I asked the girl. She blushed and replied,” My name is Roren, but you can call me Roar. My last name is Clarke.“ I reached out my hand to Roar and she took it. “My name is Asher Gracen, but you can either call me Asher or Ash. Whichever one you prefer.” She offered to help me home and I accepted. She helped me to my feet and put an arm around me for support. As we walked out the doors of the school, I asked Roar some questions. “What grade are you in, Roar? I have never seen you around before.” She looked down for a minute and then looked back up. “I just moved here a few weeks ago, and my first day of school was only three days ago. I am in ninth grade and I‘m only 15. I miss my old house, school, and friends, though.” She looked down again, sniffling, but soon wiped a away her tears and smiled up at me. “What grade are you in?” she asked me back. “I am in eleventh grade and I’m 17.” I smiled at Roar. What an odd name, I thought. “Why do you call yourself Roar?” I asked Roar. She made a “pssht” noise. “Because my retarded biological parents named me Ronan Lette Kallandria Clarke. Why else do you think?” I stared at Roar with a weird look. “Your biological parents?” I asked her. She looked mad as she spoke. “I am an orphan. I live with a man named Mr. Bullsworth. Dumb name, right? But he is my adoptive father. He is a good man, though and I shouldn‘t complain. He cared enough to take me in, didn‘t he?” As we rounded the corner of my block, Roar let out a sigh. “Finally!” she shouted. I looked around and then looked back at her. “What?” I had no clue as to what she was talking about. “Those two Neanderthals, Shawn and Kyle I think their names are, have been following us for five blocks. They just now gave up and went away.” I was shocked. “What? Why didn’t you say something?” She looked at me like I was stupid. “I wasn’t going to take the risk of them coming over here and hurting you some more.” We walked up my front steps and to my door. “Thanks for helping me home. You are a really cool girl, and I hope we can hang out tomorrow at school.” I gave her a big, painful smile as she slid her arm out from beneath my arm and stood there. “Okay. Maybe we can walk to school together tomorrow. I live in that house right down the street there.” She pointed at a plain colored house with a green roof. “Cool with me,” I said to Roar. “See you later,” she called as she ran across the street home. I walked through the doors of my house and into my kitchen. There was a note on the table, held down by a paper weight in the shape of a dragonfly. I retrieved the note and made my way into the living room where I plopped down on my couch. I unfolded the note and read it. Through my mom’s scratchy handwriting I read: Dear Asher, I may not be home for a few days, so I will need the following things done while I am away: 1)wash all of the dishes 2)do the laundry 3)clean up any mess you make AT ALL! 4)do anything else that needs to be done Don’t try to call me because I won’t pick up. You can take care of yourself. That’s all for now, MOM. I rolled my eyes and sighed. Some mom she is, I thought. She did this to me all the time. She didn’t give a shit about me or my well-being. I slowly stood up, careful to not cause myself any more pain than needed. I made my way up the steps and to the second floor of my house. I went into my room and easily lied down on the bed. My eyes started to flutter shut and before I new what was happening, I drifted into a soft slumber.