Eccedentesiast (Brandon Darrow)

#Fishy

[#Fishy]
I have found so much beauty in the dark, as I have found a lot of horror in the light.
–Azereth Skivel
*****

     When I woke up this morning I decided to go to Brandon's. I got up and dressed before making my way downstairs. "Hey honey where are you going?" My dad asked as I went straight for the door. "You're not going to eat?" He questioned eyebrows raised.
    "Uhh no I'm going to meet a friend," I tell him and he nods.
    "Have a good day at school today," he says and I wave goodbye before walking out the door. As I walked toward Brandon's house I stopped at the bottom of the driveway as Brandon and what I presumed was his father walked out.
"Well, who's this?" His father asked staring at me and I shifted to look at Brandon.
"What are you doing here?" Brandon asked looking at me already.
"I thought I could talk to you," I said looking between Brandon and his father.
Brandon's father smacked him on the back of the neck and said, "Not bad. Hey, uh, you guys in class together?"
"Uh yeah," I muttered looking at Brandon who was staring down at the ground.
"Yeah?" His father said nodding, "Does your class know about fishy?" He asked.
Brandon closed his eyes before turning to his dad and sighing. "Dad," he said as my eyebrows furrowed.
His father just grabbed his bag harshly asking, "Do you know about fishy?"
I didn't answer as his father started to rummage around in his bag as Brandon protested. His father ignored him pulling out a stuffed frog. "Well now this here's fishy," he said holding it up. Brandon tried to grab it but his father kept an iron grip on it. "Now, it's a frog. But dummy here called him fishy," he said nodding his head toward Brandon.
"When I was three years old," Brandon said looking at me as if trying to justify.
"Yeah when he was three years old. Exactly and he still carries it with him everywhere he goes. Probably still pisses his panties too, huh?" His father said. I remember hearing about an incident where he had gotten to wasted and did piss his pants. Brandon looked at me and the sadness was clear in his eyes.
I didn't answer and his father threw fishy to me and I caught it as he said, "Here ya go, take that to class. Show your friends." Brandon walked away and his father said a cheery bye as I left. I clutched fishy in my arms looking back at the house. I shook my head before stuffing the frog in my bag. I felt bad for Brandon, it made sense why he would act the way he does. That didn't mean I forgave him for the stuff he did though.
The day had been pretty uneventful I talked to Elisia and Rowan and by the end of school I was ready to go home. However when I got outside I heard Trevor's voice, " Hey aspen, how's it going?"
I rolled my eyes turning to face him, "What now? Honestly you spend to much of your time trying to make me miserable. Why don't you just print out a flyer? Give it to the whole damn school; tell them what you really think of me," I said seeing Brandon and Sean walk up next to him.
"Are you prehistoric? We call that twitter. We already know your a ratchet ass loser without my PR team cutting down a bunch of trees–" Trevor said. Fine if they wanted to be dicks I could be one too. I pulled out fishy and held him up. "What? What is that?" Trevor asked. I smiled at Brandon as he looked between fishy and me, he knew exactly what I was doing.
"I have a good idea for our project," I said holding him against my chest with a smirk, I waved fishy's arm around at Brandon saying, "We could interview each other about our parents?"
"Yeah, yeah I definitely have some thoughts about that topic," he answered.
Trevor looked between us saying, "Yeah, yeah, alright, let's bounce," I began to walk away but heard Trevor say, "Later, Carrie. You look good without blood. Not really." I rolled my eyes as Rowan came up beside me.
"What was all that about?" She asked looking between me and the boys leaving.
"Nothing," I said putting fishy back in my bag. Rowan suddenly grabbed my arm and nodded to a truck.
"Does that look familiar?" She asked and I just shrugged, "Pigmania," she said and it clicked.
"We have to show Hailey. Trevor and Sean could be the pig and monkey guys," I said just as Rowan took a picture on her phone.
"Are you sending it to her," Rowan nodded and looked up at me.
"We're going to Stingers come on," she said grabbing my arm and dragging me with her. Well I guess I'm not going home. When we got to Stingers all of us sat down in a church pew and put our feet in the seat in front of us. Hailey was telling us about how she saw what looked like Sean, dead in the pool on a couple of TV sets. It had been a fake but it had really freaked Hailey out.
      Our conversation ended when Stinger sat in front of us. "So there's definitely a leader," he said, "A mastermind behind the man. King Cobra."
    Hailey sat up straight saying, "When I saw the video of Sean, it said King Cobra. I thought it was just another animal name."
"King cobra's the boss now, but he's not the one that started it, I guess that night Dunbar Rakes killed himself, somebody took over his MonkeyMan account; started a thread about how five girls ruined his life, made him miserable, and ultimately made him kill himself. And he says that these girls," he pointed toward all of us.
"You guys must suffer. After that comment King Cobra takes over and recruits people to help out," he finished
"Well that's great," I mutter looking at the others.
"This is King Cobra," he says showing us the computer, "He's the leader you're looking for. King cobra has specific directions for anyone who wants to help. I see something here about pigmania scaring blondie on the night of her audition and rabidrabbit wants to get the little one with a paintball gun. But King Cobra says it not enough just to scare you guys."
"What does that mean?" I ask already having a pretty good idea of what he's going to say.
"Wait, five girls. Do you think that means someone else is getting messages?" Elisia asked.
"Well only three of us were tagged in the shotgun video," Rowan answered.
"Yeah and there's four of us here," Elisia adds looking at me.
Hailey points at the computer and looks at it closer," wait I know that symbol. Of the two snakes."
I take a closer look and realize it looks pretty familiar too. "Yeah I think I've seen it somewhere too."
"So it says it's not enough to scare us does that mean?" Elisia trails off.
"They want to kill you guys, there's no other way of looking at it. You guys are up shit creek right about now," he says.
"Thanks that makes us feel better," I mutter just as Rowan's phone dings.
"Who's it from?" Hailey asks.
"My dad, I have to go, see you guys later," Rowan says getting up. I get up as well.
"Yeah I should probably go home too," I say waving bye to everyone.

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