Out of Hand

Hug Me, There's Elmers Glue

"Drugs are so scary because they give us a cheap imitation of what we all seek while dulling our ability to feel it. Peace, happiness, comfort, security, sometimes even just plain fun. And when it's over, we're down off that high, and the world is painted in shades of gray. No wonder it's so hard for addicts to get away or why overdosing is so common. Who'd want to fight for a world of gray if colors, followed by the end, is offered?

Best we never try the forbidden fruit in the first place. Because we all know where it really leads."

No. A boy looked back at me, lanky and slender in the stretched out sort of way boys get when they just hit puberty. In his eyes, I didn't see myself reflected back, but I did see the room behind me, garish and bright. Yet his pupils were pinpricks and the blue of his eyes like granite. He wore mussed clothes I couldn't make out, and his sharp features foretold of an angular, but handsome man.

He didn't say anything. Just looked at me.

"What're you doing here?" I asked. After all, I hadn't seen him coming in, and I couldn't see how Father Brown would be okay with a kid just hanging out in the dead-peeps-and-friends-only place in frumpy clothes.

The boy opened his mouth. Instead of sound, thin, white-clear vomit spilled out.

I jumped back with a sickening lurch of my stomach only to find myself sitting up so quick I headbutt Takigawa in the face.

"AW!" He yelled, smacking his hand to his nose. "Damn!"

"Well, she's alive," said the professor as dry as whiskey.

I was about to tell Takigawa that his face hadn't felt all that great against my forehead so cowboy up, but more pressing matters took precedence.

"I'm gonna throw up."

They only had the time to register what I was saying before my granola bar breakfast came back up, with friends I didn't remember eating.

So much for the nice, scarlet rug.

"Is she having a seizure? Should we call a doctor?" asked Father Brown, all alarm, while Takigawa gagged and did his best to keep his own lunch down.

"I'm sorry," I whimpered through watering eyes.

Of course, Professor Davis was unfazed. "Perhaps, but more likely she experienced a vision, given her clairvoyance. It has shown signs of having an effect outside of her dreams."

"Yeah, whatever, can we get this cleaned up?" Takigawa asked, pinching his nose.

Father Brown jumped up to go back into the catacombs, where I suppose a janitorial closet was. I meekly scooted far away from my puddle of sick, shivering with a cold sweat that had beaded over me.

Naru followed, probably not to keen to be around vomit anyways. "Did you see anything? You looked at that angel statue and passed out."

I just stopped myself from looking at said statue again. No need to see it twice. "I saw a boy. A boy replaced the statue. He was, like, 12 or something, you know that age they just hit puberty and look like string taffy?"

Naru crouched down to where I had huddled on the floor, hugging my legs to my chest. I didn't quite trust them to hold me up yet.

"He had really bright blue eyes, and when I asked what he was doing here because, well, you know, I didn't think this was a place some kid would be allowed to hang out in, he sort of dribble threw up all this white spit, I guess."

Naru frowned. "White spit? Like foam?"

"No, like...it kind of looked like Elmer's glue. You know, a little clearish but still white? When I jerked back I ended up sitting up instead and, well, mashing Takigawa's face."