Set Me Free

12. Relations

      A prickly yet soft thing poked me in the forehead, causing me to stir and blink tiredly. Sunlight seeped in through the window of my bedroom as I shuffled in bed to avoid waking Apollos. It felt so fucking surreal seeing that weird Hell reindeer that was apparently his father. I totally regretted accepting that deal.

     I'm so sorry, Apollos.

     I got out of bed and sadly stared down at him before changing into a 9:30 t-shirt. He looked so...peaceful...for a reindeer I guess. Was it weird that I thought of this reindeer as a human figure? Then again, he used to be a kid who loved football like any other modern day boy. I could still see the human side in Apollos, including his fears of losing the ability to experience happiness.

     "Stop staring at me," his mouth moved while his eyes stayed shut with discomfort.

     He's like me...whenever Ky or the others try to photograph me in my sleep... 

     "I'm..." I stared at the bathroom from across my bed room, "I'm going to go and shower..."

     "I'm not mad at you."

     I froze in my tracks as I was about to exit the room.

     "You know that, right?" Apollos' tone sounded slightly confused.

     "Erm..." I slowly turned around and sheepishly smiled at the reindeer. "Now I do?"

     "Typical," I noticed him roll his eyes.

     Typical? What the fuck?

     "W-what do you mean?"

     "You're just like when I was alive in 1117," he shrugged a half-smirk. "People took advantage of my emotions by manipulating them to make me more emotionally hurt."

     "How?"

     "Whenever I was confused, I was told something false to at least satisfy my knowledge and curiosity, but since I was just a naive fifteen year old kid, I didn't really know any better, so I believed some of those lies."

     "How's that related to me then?" I put down my clean clothes and sat on the floor adjacent to the bed.

     "Don't fans use your nervousness to push you into saying things or doing things you shouldn't say or do in the first place?"

     "Uh..." I became speechless for a moment. "I don't think so..."

     "Mmhm," Apollos made a human-like facial expression that appeared to not believe me. "Well," he sighed, "never mind that I guess."

     "L-listen..." I shuffled on my butt across the floor to the edge of the bed. "About yesterday afternoon-"

     "It's fine."

     "Apollos," I narrowed my eyes at his reindeer face. "I can tell you're lying to me. That's the exact same face I make whenever I lie or keep secrets about the third album."

     He sighed again and attempted to stand up on the mattress, his antlers nearly hitting the roof of my flat as he hopped down from the bed. Apollos' fur began to glow again, right as he disintegrated into a ball of golden-brown light that sped off to somewhere in my flat. I really hated it when he did that to avoid answering my questions.

     You used to be like that at fifteen? Didn't you? My conscience reminded. I shrugged the issues onto my shoulders as I went to the bathroom to have my shower, muttering chords and lyrics off the top of my head as I washed myself. I knew I shouldn't be working my ass off on a holiday break, but I loved to write loads and loads and more shitloads of depressing and upbeat songs for future records.

     In a way, Apollos was like that too. He couldn't help but use his light-shifting ability to run away from the fucked up memories that ran wild in his head. He obviously did this intentionally to avoid me and my pushy attitude, but he just wanted to do it anyway because he loved to use that tactic to get himself out of a situation.

     Maybe part of Apollos was born into this world through me and my body. Maybe I'm a partially reincarnated version of him...