Second Star Into Darkness

Chapter 1

A thin, paltry boy stood at a busy street corner, viciously hoping for the kind of freedom where fear didn't exist. He wanted to be without the paranoia for just ten minutes. Heck, he would settle for five.

But no matter what he did, his mind would fill to the brim with alarm and terror. As he began walking down the street, he couldn't help tensing his shoulders as if a herd of cows would suddenly burst out of an alley and charge.

He breathed heavily, not knowing what to do or think. All he knew for sure was that he wanted it all to, simply, leave him alone... He wanted him to leave him alone.

As cars halted at fading yellow lines, the boy took a step forward and scrambled to the other side. By the time his feet crossed the line to the sidewalk, his head was already enveloped in a cheap hood and his eyes faced the pavement in despair.

Don't let them see you, he thought, never actually knowing which individuals of the general public was one of them.

A hand grabbed at his shoulder, snatching his face to meet their eyes. The woman had big, grey-blonde hair, with a dark stripe down the front of one side. Her eyes were a bright green, but her face was white and her lips and eyes were painted eerily with black. She had a shady tone to her appearance, scaring the boy to the deepest parts of his bones.

Yet, he wasn't afraid of just because she was considered "shady"; the real reason for fear lied inside her.

He took a trembling step backwards, falling into the brick wall of a building behind him. "I don't want," he choked, "any trouble." His fragile arms clawed at the wall, grasping for something to cling to. At this point, he was somewhere between standing and falling flat on his face.

"This life is not one of a monster," she said somewhat blankly, yet with the general speaking qualities of a human. "We won't harm you..." her eyes began to spin with the color wheel, disrupting the formal green. It was how he knew the human qualities were a fraud; it was how he knew it was one of them.

"But-," the young boy stood up and began inching backwards down the cracking cement, his own eyes about to spill with a waterfall of dread, "but how do I know anyone else won't get hurt? How do I know you are what you say you are?"

He began to shout, allowing bystanders to fix their eyes on him with glaring looks, before walking away to their own destinations. He was a disruption, but not a priority to their daily lives.

"You'll still be there. You'll still be able to see and speak to your assignment." Assignment... the word made the boy shiver. He knew the assignment wasn't something as innocent as it sounded. The assignment was a living creature and because of it, he would never get to pursue his own life ever again. "You can still be there to see your life roll out, you just won't be able to fulfil the missions that take place along with it," she said, but what she meant was, "It's your body and your choice, but once we trick you into making it ours, it won't be under your control."
"What if you're lying?" the boy asked, somewhat harshly. "What if you lie and leave me in there to watch and regret every choice you make with my own hands? What if I want you out and you don't leave? What then?" When he had said "you," he never meant the girl, he meant him. He would do what one of them did to the girl... before she had spinning, dreadful, unblinking eyes.

Before the woman could answer, the boy spun around and began to run. She didn't chase him, but he was increasingly more afraid of what she might have to say if he stayed.

He ran across another intersection, tears swelling up from under his bottom lashes. A gentle-looking, darker-skinned man slowed him down. "Are you okay?" he stopped him in his tracks and asked.

The boy nodded slowly, still crying and trembling, but continued down the path. He didn't want anyone to see him like this.

"You're different," they had told him, but he already knew. He'd know it all his life. The information they gave him was just more proof to being a freak.

The man jogged beside him, "We're just trying to make things better, Oliver."

The boy gasped, somewhat over dramatically, but entirely true to the moment. He began sprinting as fast as his small legs could take him. He didn't need to see the man's eyes to know who he was facing. "Get away from me!" he screeched with another sob. With the tears in his eyes, he couldn't keep the thoughts from rushing into his mind like a disease in a city of poverty; thoughts were a disease when it came to a mind alike his. By the fact they never seem to give up on terrorizing you is how you know they don't care that you're scared. It's how you know they're just the same as the people who took it all away from you. The boy shook his head at the thoughts, but didn't hesitate to continue, They steal your happiness from the beginning, but it always seems like there's always something else to take in the the end.

With that, his legs took him farther. His feet hit the cement with small thuds, causing his ankles to ache suddenly, but he had a powerful motivation. He wanted to get home and cover his head with the pillows of his small bed. He wanted to scream into the blankets and forget where he was - to pretend life didn't exist within him.

It wasn't his fault that they were following him. It wasn't his fault that he was in his head every second of everyday, or how he would ask him the same question every single day even if it ended with "no" every single time.

No. Not then. Not yet. Not ever.

His chest seized with fear, sadness, and a natural command to just stop. Stop running. Stop thinking. Just stop... but he couldn't. He had to get away. If he stopped, he would give in and if he gave in, it would all go down hill. He couldn't let them take him; he couldn't let them take the world.

The post-traumatic disorder pushed him further. These creatures took his family, why would he let them take his body too?!

"No!" Oliver put his nails to his ears. "Get away from me!" He ran faster, and tears began to form into thick blotches, overcoming his vision. He couldn't see, but he carried on.

Why would he want him? Why would anyone want him?

Suddenly, a giant, obscure object came hurdling forward from the side of his vision in a great, blurry shape. He was in the middle of an intersect. The stop lights blurred into black. His eyes were closed and his breaths were short. He heard a whimper only to find it from his own, closing throat. He began to cry. He was dead and he knew it. He was so, quite literally, dead.

One, dark turquoise eye opened slowly. Was he breathing? He couldn't tell. The white, 1979 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am stood an inch from his face. Pieces of its hood scattered around the scene as if it had crashed into a brick wall. The entire front end of the car was completely smashed inward only a foot away from his face.

He stood up to see the driver of the car with his head, unconscious on the wheel. People from all directions stopped to stare. His mouth hung open, but he couldn't close it. He couldn't do anything, but stand there in shock.

The driver lifted his bald head slowly, showing a big red opening in the side of his face. It wasn't deep, but it was enough for Oliver to back away in guilt and fear or anything else that could make someone's heart seize with tension. The man blinked with daze until he could stare into Oliver's wide eyes. The broken vehicle was just as unforgettable.

"N-no..." Oliver's eyes were locked forward, but without thinking, he began to run again. He looked at his hands as his feet drove him forward. The car never touched him, but the car had to have had an impact on something.

Suddenly, his feet halted again. Tears were rushing down from his eyes. "What did you do?" he sobbed, yelling at the sky in confusion and terror.

The driver's end condition will be satisfactory... the voice rang through Oliver's ears.. I just wanted to make sure you would be, so I could not let your vessel collide. We cannot allow a vessel to become damaged before entrance...

The boy breathed heavily, trying to think things through. This was what happened everyday and it wouldn't stop until he agreed to a terrorizing set of conditions, sided with something that could kill him, or even something irrefutably worse.

This is what his life was. And. Would. Always. Be.