The Tragedy of Evil

a couple days later

Ever had a nightmare? I'm sure you did. Everyone has them, at least at child's age. Sure, they're not pleasant, but they're still considered a part of growing up, leaving fears behind or coping with them. It's even called normal.

Although, things like these aren't normal when they occur often. One or two nights of nightmare a week is considered normal, yet three or more are worrysome. Then something definitely is up and your mind is trying to deal with things the way you're not supposed to deal with things. Alone.

Nightmares aren't stupid or childish, though it's often dismissed as such. As a matter of fact, I dealt with terrible nightmares when I was a child and growing up -- later on in school, when I actually felt so lonely, I thought no one was capable of loving. Not you, not me. No one of us.

Of course, there is no such thing as a ridiculous nightmare, not even a foolish one. Nightmares, just like ordinary dreams, are revealing what's inside of you -- your mind, your soul, your deepest desires and wishes. What you see in dreams is a mirror of yourself ... even though sometimes you might not know it ... or even want to admit it.

See what I'm getting at?

Nah, I doubt it. You are dreaming, even when you're awake. And you still don't want to wake up ... or at least confront your mirage. Well, Luke did. At least that's one thing that could easily be said about our classmate. He knew what he was when he murdered his father. He knew what and who he was and everything else about him. He knew himself thoroughly. And maybe, he learned it from his nightmares.

A few days had passed and Luke had gone home first thing after he woke up. In some ridiculous way, he had really felt embarrassed, when he'd woken up next to Alexander who had his arm still slung around him, despite the fact that he was in a cold sweat, still shivering from the left over horror from his nightmare. He had wriggled himself out of Alec's embrace, grabbed his jacket and shoes and had snuck out of the house as quietly as possible. Sickness had been a good excuse not to see Alec, but now that his Dad had practically -- and quite literally with a nasty kick to his ribcage -- thrown him out, he couldn't think of anything to avoid him. So when their first lesson together arrived, Luke hurried into the room with his eyes directly pointed to the ground, his hands clasping his backpack. He was fast enough to avoid seeing him in the first lessons, but shortly before lunch break, as he was on his way to the bathrooms, someone suddenly stepped into his view and caught his wrist softly mid-air.

Luke was left breathless, and as he lifted his head and encountered those pale eyes staring at him, boring deep into his core, he couldn't help but blush. He somehow felt that he was still trapped within a dream, having nothing to hold on, nothing to take him back to reality.

But this was reality. As surreal and strange as it seemed, this was reality. Him, Luke Cassil, being stopped in the middle of the hallway in school, meaning in front of a bunch of people, by none other than their most beloved bad boy and most interesting guy of the school. Alec had been acting confident around Luke for quite some time now, asking him for his opinion, having taken an interest in his past and his current life. However, he was clever enough never to let too many people see them converse. It had, if anything, been in front of other members from their gang, people he could trust.

In some way, in this gang, they seemed to have the unspoken rule of never conversing intimately with outsiders, at least not in front of others. Alec had broken that rule once already, the evening Angelika Barker had killed herself, wrapping his arms around Luke's slender, trembling body in the middle of the great Hall, to comfort and warm him, as if there was nothing more to it.