Upside Down (COMPLETE) Inside Out, Book 2 [BoyxBoy]

Nathan

When Nathan first sensed the sudden attack at school, he immediately ran to the bathroom right at the back side of the campus building, near to the cafeteria and the gym. He knew one barely walked in here, and he had to be fast before the darkness engulfed him again. Previously, the mysterious mind disruption only happened at night, so he was a bit surprised to find it in daytime, especially so early in the morning. To make matters worse, the hallucination was taking over him at school out of all places.

His first attack happened two days ago, and he knew he should've told his father or the Alpha about it. But he thought it would be okay to stall. The attacks had all been the same—he would see the corpses and dead bodies around him, and this voice that kept on telling him vaguely not to "be paired."

If only he knew whatever that meant.

This time, it was a bit too much. Nathan struggled through a pair of rough hands choking him as it shook his body. An ear-piercing noise erupted everywhere around him, like a thousand of ghosts were screeching their throats out. The atmosphere was too bright and white he almost couldn't see anything, and the hands gripping his airway felt torturous. When the illusions came, Nathan tripped through dizziness. He was aware being on all-fours on the bathroom floor as he crawled his way to find the nearest wall. He didn't feel alive. The attacks always came in his state of drowsiness, so it hadn't been easy to stay conscious like it was now.

Nathan knew he was leaning on a wall when the vision worsened in his head. He cried because he didn't know what to do. Who should he go to when all of this was over? And most importantly, what was actually happening to him? What could he do to make it stop? With one mystery about his mood sensor unsolved came another shit falling into his life.

He breathed in; this was probably just like a sleep paralysis, he thought. He fought the dark phantasms before by calming down, but the hands felt raw and rough around his neck, and breathing air seemed more difficult. Please. Please . . . just let me go.

He felt the ghost throwing a punch to his guts now, and the pain was too much he couldn't even scream. He couldn't even close his eyes to not see the monster in front of him. "Why can't you listen to me?" it said. "Listen to me . . ."

"Hey." Suddenly, hearing a voice diverted Nathan's focus to something else. Was someone rescuing him here? Would it be people were already flooding into the school hallway and noticed him crying? What would they do, send him to an exorcist?

"H—help."

In the extreme brightness, he noticed a figure approaching him close.

Nathan wheezed when he saw a trickle of blaze lighting up in his distorted vision. In a blink, the whole figure of the ghost was eaten up in flames. The air felt a bit warm but finally he could inhale so much of them. His chest loosened up, and the relief made him weep out of joy.

Slowly, he sensed a warmth closing over his wrist. Someone was holding him, and it felt so good when Nathan could hear someone else breathing beside him.

The world turned into darkness, and this time Nathan knew it was only him shutting his eyes closed. The air felt cool and damp on his face due to his own tears.

When he could breathe normally again, he felt all his limbs wearing out of exhaustion. He couldn't retain his body, so he let himself fall forward and felt his head falling on top of something soft and comforting.

A lap, he thought. Someone was letting him lie down there. This person was probably a guy, unless Nathan clearly entered the ladies. He felt a hand brushing his hair on his forehead, and Nathan felt good having the touch. He didn't know how this guy had saved his life just now, how his presence actually burned the ghost hallucination he'd seen previously. The first attack made Jace struggle so much to get Nathan back to his senses. Maybe this guy's really an exorcist, then.