Third
25th December, 1997.
It was cold. Very cold. Snow was falling and the cold wind was not helping. Walking through the snow with his legs deep in the fallen snow, eight-year-old Liam hugged himself tighter in order to protect his almost frozen body from the bitter cold. He had a perfect family, perfect grades and even perfect features. He was not even needy in any sense, he lived near the Vale Mansion. His parents were very close to the Vale family, his ancestors were close friends with the Vales for many centuries. He had a five-year-old sister, Jane, and a two-year-old brother, Cody. They were a happy family, and he even had a scholarship for his good grades.
But Liam felt empty. And miserable. His chest was always aching. His parents had taken him to hospitals upon hospitals but the doctors could not find anything wrong with him. Sometimes the pain got so worse that he cried. His body was always weak and he was always complaining. It got to a time that he stopped complaining. To everyone, there was nothing wrong with him. But the pain was always there. It was always like a very hot hook was around his heart, pulling him towards somewhere over the horizon, so he was always at the beach, gazing at the wide stretch of water and wondering why he always felt like his relief from all the pain was there, somewhere far away from Charlottesville, over the horizon.
Then his nightmares.
Anytime his chest got too painful he had nightmares. It was always one thing he saw; a girl. She was beautiful, so beautiful. She was at least thirteen, with very long raven hair that was almost below her waist in soft ringlets. Long eyelashes and black as midnight eyes. Slim and tall and graceful, she was truly a sight to see. Anytime he saw her, his chest pains stopped immediately. Anytime she smiled, he always felt euphoric. But the girl never said a word to him. All she did in his dream was to sit with him near the beach and just smile as he watched her. That was not the nightmare. The nightmare was when the girl gets up and start walking away. His chest flared, like he was being poked with a hot iron rod. Then he would start screaming and begging her not to go, but she never turned back. His parents used to rush into his room in panic, but as time went on, they were less panicked when it happened. And it happened at least four times a weak. His parents even sought for help by letting him see a therapist, but nothing changed.
All this made Liam's life miserable. He did not even have the will to live. He rarely smiled, and he was sometimes bullied and called a freak. A handsome freak.
It was a cold night, and Liam just wanted to be in his bed dammit. He had gone to the beach earlier that day, even though it was very cold. He did not know it was going to snow so heavily.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid" he chanted to himself, teeth chattering and making the words sound like 'shupid'.
"A f-freak a-and a f-fool. R-really, Liam? Phoebe will b-be s-so..." he trailed off and swallowed thickly, the pain in his chest flaring slightly due to the name he mentioned. He had named the girl Phoebe, P for pain and B for beautiful. Beautiful pain. "D-diss-sappointed i-in y-you" he finished his sentence.
The cold was getting worse, and it was getting harder to see anything.
"G-god help me-e" he said and coughed.
He walked for a minute and suddenly stopped. He squinted his eyes and shielded his eyes with his hand as he tried to see where he was. He smiled to himself when he saw that he was getting near his neighborhood.
"Every breath you take, every move you make. Every bond you break-" he stopped singing when he heard a snap of a twig in the forest at his left side. He rolled his eyes in amusement. 'Typical horror movie cliché'.
