Angel's End / reddie ghost au

One - Bruised

The bruise started as an indigo stain on Eddie Kaspbrak's pale blemished skin.
The spreading of purple with yellow blotches only being the surface wound. The real one was within him, that feeling of betrayal, that breaking of trust that is so essential in a friendship.

Eddie traced the milky line where porcelain skin blended with angry blue. Staring numbly down at his delicate pacing fingers.

He hated them. He hated them all... especially Bill. Perfect Bill Denbrough.

As the boy's mind desperately tried to wonder, all he could think about was the fact that beyond the ugly blemish the bully Henry Bowers had given him, it were Bill's cruel words that had scolded Eddie more than any fist to his arm could.

"Ghost boy,"

Eddie gritted his teeth as the taunting voice of his former friend, Bill, echoed through his skull. The same voice that had soothed him in his times of need now encouraging, and siding, with the notorious school bully Bowers. How ironic.

"But I saw him." Eddie muttered to himself, "I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy."

Oh how wrong he was.

Eddie Kaspbrak was delusional. Everyone knew it. Everyone at school had heard different versions of the same story. But it didn't matter what version they heard, it always resulted in the cruel words "mental", "head case" and "crazy person" being passed around behind his back.

Those were bad. But the malicious name Eddie despised the most was the one Bill had reserved for him especially.
"Ghost Boy."

Eddie grimaced at the thought.

Stupid Bill Denbrough with his perfect floppy hair and his perfect smile.

"Fuck him... Fuck everyone," Eddie screamed in his head, "Fuck every single one of them!"

Crazy.

Crazy to think anyone could ever want to be friends with him. Crazy to think someone as perfect as Bill Denbrough would stick around with someone like him.

Crazy to trust someone with a secret so important.

Eddie reached his hand up to wipe away a tear, only to find his eyes still dry. He swallowed uncomfortably, pulling his knees to his chest and curling up into a ball.

He closed his eyes and wished it all away. But it didn't disappear. It had still happened. Things had still played out the way Eddie wished they haven't.

And like a bad dream, Eddie practically watched it all play out in the panorama of his mind once more, as a reminder that he will never, ever be accepted.

Never.

And there Eddie lay. Several weeks earlier. Lying in the blackness of his room with his duvet pulled up to his chin.

It had been a warm, golden autumn day, with the remains of summer loitering amongst the reddening leaves. And with such a tranquil day had brought an equally comfortable night.

That particular night had had a special kind of blackness to it, Eddie remembered noticing. The kind that wanted only to hold the stars and help them to shine brighter. It was a warm black that hugged you no matter what. Eddie hadn't felt afraid of the dark that night. He usually did. He feared it. His mother insisted of locking him in his bedroom at night in the pitch black so that he'd eventually get over his 'silly' fear.

But that night had been different.
And Eddie had soon learned why.

He had been struggling to sleep. Something that wasn't out of the ordinary for Eddie. Only that particular night he didn't mind taking a moment to let his mind sink in and absorb the tranquility.

He had been gazing off into the black. Half lulled over by sleep, when he saw something that changed his life.

At first it was only a pale ashen light that seemed to fade in from the blackness of the bedroom. But as Eddie watched, eyes widened. The mist seemed to manifest. Surreally and uneasily expanding into a form more recognisable.

Levitating a foot off the rotting floorboards, a pearly-white translucent object shimmered with a hazy bright blue.
Slowly it came into focus like an object looked at through an old camera.

At first it's whisper had been like the soft susurration of the wind in the trees, however, as the ghost became more clear, more sharply focused, the whisper became an eerie rasping voice, moaning, groaning.

Eddie could then see the form of a boy with a blackened cold lips and sunken soulless eyes hidden behind chunky bootle-lens glasses.

Eddie couldn't comprehend what he had been looking at. At the back of his mind he felt horrifically afraid but the rest of his mind had felt calm.

The boy before him seemed to drift closer. His eerie embrace almost inviting as Eddie found it impossible to look away.

Eddie's chest rose quickly as his breathing had quickened. Feeling paralysed as this unexplainable being stood only a meter from him.

'I must be dreaming," Eddie had thought. "Or having sleep paralysis, what the fuck. This can't be real. This can't be real."

He closed his eyes tight, fear suddenly breaking through his calmness as he began to panic.

"Go away!" Eddie had murmured, "Go away please!"

He had opened his eyes and the boy had vanished. Leaving Eddie alone in the darkness once more, panting and whipping cold sweat from his forehead.

Eddie had felt so strange and overwhelmed about his encounter, and he felt as if he might burst if he didn't tell anyone.
He couldn't tell his mother. No way. She would never understand, she thought her son was crazy enough as it is.

So Eddie's obvious choice had been the only other person in his life. His one and only friend, Bill Denbrough.

Eddie opened his eyes and pushed the memories out of his head, not wanting to relive the nightmare that was Bill's reaction the following day at school.

Instead Eddie just stared down at the ugly bruise once more and frowned.

Eddie needed to find some friends.
Some that didn't think he was insane.