Black Eyed (Original)

Chapter Seven- Flames

A/N: Hello, my lovely readers!

I first want to apologize so much for not having this up on Sunday, but I had no idea what I was going to do with this chapter. I didn't know what it would include nor how it would end. It took me a few days to get it sorted out.

Thank you so, so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy.

        I wake with a start as I fall off the wooden bus stop seat.

        I knead my eyes with my palms, lying on the dry dirt. I have not been sleeping correctly through this past week due to the most vivid of dreams, and probably dozed off when I laid on the wooden bench. I have no idea as to how long I was resting, but the sky is admittedly much darker, suggesting a few hours. I stare at the blue sky, listening to the cicadas and grasshoppers, trying to decrease my rapid heartbeat. When a car suddenly passes, I have finally have the emotion to stand.

        I shove off the ground lazily. Standing, my hands beat on my clothes and clap on each other, attempting to remove all traces of the red dirt and failing miserably. I plop my ass onto the butt stop seat, then remove a heavy book from my bag to distract myself.

        As I’m doing so, the words seem to be combining and slipping into each other, forgetting that they are bound by the laws of physics. I give up when I finally understand that the mother figure in the book has just succumbed to her cancer. Debating whether or not I should throw the book across the road to properly illustrate my displeasure, a truck passes leisurely, paying me little attention. I resolve just to discard the book into my bag.

        I start to drag my feet in the dirt, no true illustration in mind, thinking about the dream. The lucidity of it was starling, and the fact that I can remember it at all is strange unto itself. I can still feel the extreme pain of my knees being impaled my wood and rock, my spinal cord snapping and breaking. The sharp piercing of the wood and bone splitting open my skin was indescribable. But the oddest part of the entire happening was Brenton. Why had he seemed so hell-bent on watching the racing cars? And what he said, that he promises it would be over soon, I would have sworn that I had heard that in another dream before.

        And I have; I remember now. I had a dream about Brenton and his parents coming over to the Allens’ house before it happened. I had come to this realization the morning after he had come; that I had seen it all before and it wasn’t some extreme déjà vu. As to the origin or the reasoning of it, I have no clue.

        My feet move lazily across the dirt, my design as disarranged and chaotic as my thoughts. I look around at the cotton and corn fields, the blue sky, and the occasional car. When I look down to the dirt road that leads to my house, I see a tall, white haired man walking towards me. He breaks into a smile, one that I try to return.

        “Hey,” Brenton says.

        “Hey.”

        “I saw you walk by my house, but I just woke up and was half naked so it took me a bit to get out here.” Where have I heard those words before?

        “I’ve been out here for an hour.”

        “It takes time to make perfection.” I laugh, but it sounds factitious.

        “Are you calling yourself perfect?”

      “I may have been implying it, yes.” He takes his hands out of his pockets and kneads his knuckles. “No design today, huh?”