IRVING //a short story//

6.

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the visitor.

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WREN IRVING MATTHEW   

Days soon turned into weeks.

Wren stayed in her bed, Irving grew and her family worried. They worried that they'd never quite get her back, they feared she was lost in the haze of the world.

She spent her days in the fog of her mind, it was so thick that sleep was the only place where even a slither of clarity yielded to her. She fantasied often, but they weren't the same anymore. They were sadder, lonelier. She no longer had someone guiding her out from enchanted forests and labyrinths, she felt well and truly lost. She wrote stories in her mind and imagined her bedroom to be a studio apartment above a theatre, where she could sulk and despair for the sake of genius and art, even though she certainly couldn't paint to save her life.

Eventually everything she locked up inside her reached a boiling point and exploded. She stopped eating, she didn't want to feel. She stopped listening. She didn't feel her mother's hand stroking her hair late at night, when her mother was able to do things instead of sleeping. Irving would hide then, somehow, and restrain himself from eating the lady whole.

She tried to convince herself that nothing mattered, but she felt as if the storm inside her body had thrown her around and discarded her in pieces of what once was a whole.

Life felt like a desperation to make it through the day.

Then, on a Thursday, light came in through the door. Wren squinted, her eyes were no longer accustomed to anything brighter than gloom.

"Hey."

Matthew had come to see her, the thought made her chest constrict. He walked over and turned on the lights, opened the shades and sat next to her on the bed. Wren sat up and stared.

"I missed you at school, everything was boring without you. Soo gloomy."

He pulled a face and his arm wrapped itself around her shoulders, pulling her into him. Wren said nothing, but a tiny smile began to bloom.

"Nice room you've got here Wrennie"

She raised an eyebrow weakly.

"Wrennie? Really?"

He smiled tenderly and shrugged.

"I was testing out a nickname"

"It's a no to that one"

"shame"

They sat there for a few minutes, wren smiling softly. Matthew asked how she was and told her about everything she'd missed. She'd missed him, that's for sure. When he was here she didn't feel scared.

"You know, you really need a shower Wren, you stink bad"

She smacked him pathetically on the shoulder.

He just laughed.

"C'mon dude, go get ready and we'll see a movie or something."

"What?"

"You need to go out for a bit, staying here in the dark isn't going to do you any good, and anyway, I really want to see a film, I haven't been to the cinema in aaaaggggees."

He smiled and for a moment Wren was transfixed by the colours that exuded from him.

Then she remembered why the room was safe.

"But... I-I"

He interrupted her before she could finish, his eyes had an odd shine to them, like stars.

"Everything is going to be absolutely fine Wren, now go have a shower and get dressed, I'll just be in the lounge room, your mums got antiques roadshow on and I love me a fancy plate"

He smiled and went to leave, turning on the light in the process.

A hissing noise cut through the air.

"you can't do this"

Matthew paused and turned towards Irving, who'd wriggled his heaving mass out from behind the dresser and was now staring at Matthew with anger. Matthew just walked closer and smiled, not at all deterred by the thousands of sharp, pointed teeth in jagged rows.

"You can see him."

Wren didn't register that shocked whispers was hers until a few seconds after.

"Of course, I can! I'd probably have to be blind to miss him, I mean he is massive."

"you can't do this"

Irving spat poisonously. Matthew didn't even flinch and Wren was reminded of a story her parents had told her, fear-not, in which a boy had faced horrors and trials and had not once backed-down or been worried. He'd just smile through it all, only ever faltering when he thought the one he loved to be dead and gone.

"I can and I will, I'll do what's right for Wren. I'll do what I can do to help, it's what friends do-support each other."

"No, she can't have friends. It's not safe, nothing is safe."

"It's not your job to protect her anymore, Wren can take care of herself."

Irving growled and the room shuddered, Matthew just walked up to her calmly and held Wren to his chest, she hadn't even been aware that she had begun to shake in terror. Fearless as Fear-not she was not, Irving terrified her.

"No!"

Matthew patted her hair down softly.

"It's okay, everything is going to be just A-Okay, right?"

"okay..."

Irving screamed in frustration and began to shrink.

"You can't do this! Nothing is safe, you'll just get hurt! You need me!"

Wren looked up at Matthew, a smile was still on his face. She was ready to leave the grey, she was ready to escape the Labyrinth for good.

"No, I don't think I do."

One last time Irving screamed like a banshee, but now instead of screams of self-loathing and frustration that shook Wren to her very bones, it just seemed...pitiful. The silent voices of the tasks began to cheer, and their gazes seemed less like glares.

The scream reached horrible pitches, but Matthew and Wren stood, watching silently as his form changed, from monstrous beings, to a soft toy placed on wren's bed, to you, to me, to Matthew and then lastly Wren herself before falling silent and disappearing into nothing.

Then things where silent.

Suddenly colour rushed forward and the room seemed lighter, the fog in Wren's mind rushed back, everything seemed sharper, more beautiful. The forest in the sea was peaceful and birds rushed and darted in between trees and leaves and wren finally saw the last of space, and she exited the labyrinth that held her.

She smiled at Matthew and he smiled at her, kissing her lightly on the forehead. He gave her his familiar crooked and gentle grin, before pulling away slightly and breathing with a long intake of air. Wren felt more exposed now, colder and bare without his body protecting hers.

"Go get ready, I'm going to inquire after a glass of water."

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A/N

One more chapter...