Welcome to the Darkness

Chapter 4

My heart skipped a beat at the question, I stared at him, stared at the daffodil and wondered why the heck he head to be so nice. He rejected me, only because he got beat by my asking him first. I don't understand why he's acting the way he is, I don't understand why he would ask me out on date. More importantly, what possessed me to ask him first?

Nervously, I nodded and that seemed to please him. He laid the daffodil on top of my knee and went back to staring off into the hills of the countryside. He looked like he was in a trance, very quiet and content, just staring at the horizon for a minute or so.

We were quiet, the sun had passed that halfway mark in the sky and had started going down when we finally went back inside the museum. Ms. Partridge told us the bus was leaving at five and to be back outside by then. Brandon tried to joke with her asking "Or else what?" in that sweet, sly tone of his. Ms. Partridge didn't seem phased and simply put it as "Or else you're walking home, Lichen."

We rushed to finish off our list, saving the ones that we already knew for the bus ride home. The way home was still hilly with lots of twists and turns but this time around, Brandon didn't mind it. He was idly talking to me about where we might end up going on our date.

"I dunno if we should call it a date, Brandon. What if you change your mind?" I stated coldly.

This seemed to irk him a little and he narrowed his eyes. "Why would I change my mind? Are you a bloodthirsty ghoul planning to take my body and cook it over a spit?"

The kid beside Brandon looked as if he were nervous, listening to our conversation. He should be, any sane person might be a little spooked. It's lucky that I'm not sane, and it seems as though neither is Brandon, because the next part had the kid asking the teacher if they could move seats with the goth kid in the single seat in the back.

The teacher granted his wish, the bus pulled over and they scooted past each other as they took their new seats. The goth kid took an interest in the conversation so I slowly edged out of it, giving the occasional head nod as I listened to Brandon gleefully talk to the gore master that now sat beside him.

The college was dark by the time we got back, the streetlights' timers had all busted a few years back and the town hadn't had the funds to fix them as of yet. The electrical department was training their new kids to fix them this year as a sort of test run. Danni stood by the side of the road, next to the main gate, her green hair had faded to a brighter, highlighter green and stood out even in the darkness of the campus.

Brandon walked off of the bus with me and bid me goodnight after slipping me a sheet of torn paper with a phone number on it. On the back was a torn off section of his scavenger sheet. The kid was gonna get major point deductions for that.

I stalked on over to Danni, tired as ever. "My feet hurt like a bitch." I blurted, earning a few stares from the kids getting off the back of the bus. Danni snickered, turning on her heel to escort us back to the dorms.

The dorm areas were almost never quiet, there was a party nearly every night. The frat houses located on the campus had windows that buzzed with energy as the parties went in into the night. The main dorm area was small, just a little convergence area between the men's and women's dorms where there was a fountain and a small shack in the middle that housed a pool table, ping-pong and some old communal video game consoles.

Danni and I parted ways here, the women's side had windows all lit up while over on the men's side, nearly every single one was dark, some of them at parties, some of the dorms laid empty and a few were dark with sleeping figures. The dorm's entrance was lit up rather nicely throughout the night but as I climbed the stairs, some floors were dark to show that nearly everyone had gone to sleep a long time ago.

My dorm room was small, clean and at the very end of the 3rd floor hallway to the left of the stairs. Once I was inside the doorway, I shut and bolted it then turned on the light. Standard in all dorm rooms was a fluorescent light in the centre of the ceiling that flickered on as I came into the openness of the room. There was a coffee table, my bed, a bean bag chair I normally tripped over and a microwave in the corner.

I stumbled over to the lamp on the bedside table, flicked it on and waddled tiredly back over to the light switch on the wall, flicked it off and wormed my way into my bed from the bottom up. Sleep rarely ever gave me issues, tonight was a different story.

There was a boy who sat in the corner of a basement room, walls made of concrete and cold with the icy ground outside. A small window let in the grey light of the winter morning. The boy sat there, silent. He dared not to utter even a peep as the ceiling above him was not insulated and The Man had finally left him be.

The corner housed a bare mattress and a flat sheet to cover up with, it was draped over the top of the boy's head and pulled shut in front of him. The boy shivered and his teeth chattered, he tried not to move at the protest the bones in his arms and legs.

There was a loud smash on the floor above him, he'd heard the familiar sound of the bottle breaking before and it used to scare him. It meant The Man was angry and he would be coming downstairs soon, but today was different. There was a man that was shouting incoherently. A mass of thundering footsteps that couldn't have belonged to just one person stormed through the room above.

There was a lot of loud thuds and smashing, a lamp smashed over and a lightbulb exploded, a huge hunk of wood that might have been a coffee table was smashed into the floor and the basement door opened. The boy sat in the corner of the basement room and wondered what had gotten The Man so mad, but he knew better than to speak.

The Man never came down the stairs, instead a police officer in an old blue uniform stepped down each step carefully, holding a flashlight to search for the boy. The boy crawled to the edge of the bed and yelped when it creaked under his weight, he scooted back into the corner of the bed and the police officer came close and knelt down.

He tried to speak kindly to the boy, but the boy wouldn't listen, only pleaded that the man would be mad if he had a visitor. The police officer shook his head and went to grab the boy by his arm, earning a brilliant bite in the forearm from the boy. The police officer looked surprised then realized that he had to be gentle, that the boy had been mistreated.

The police officer told the boy that The Man was gone and that the boy wouldn't see The Man ever again. The boy didn't believe him and stayed put. The police officer had had enough and took the boy by his arm and drew him forward, scooping up the boy into his arms despite the boy's protests. The boy kicked and cried and tried to bite at the police officer's ear, the police officer ignored it and carried the boy to safety.

The shadows of the dream elongated, drawing in around the boy, engulfing the police officer and the boy kicked and cried but soon, the shadows engulfed him as well.

I woke up in a cold sweat, a scream held at the back of my throat. The dream wasn't a nightmare, it was a memory. A memory that I'd tried really hard to forget, but it never seemed to go away. I rolled myself from under the covers, hauling my ass up to grab some fresh clothes.

My phone buzzed with two missed calls from Danni and a text from the number on the paper. The text read:

"Friday night at 8, meet me by the front gate."

A feeling of slight delight washed over me, it felt warm and inviting. Brandon had just rhymed in the text depicting their date plans. What a dork.