To Imagine...

Imagine Eight: Skylar

A deep silence wafted between us, extending long enough for me to become acutely aware of the sound of my own breathing. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what to say. I must have run the situation through my head thousands of times while sitting on the couch, but none of it could have ever prepared me for this. So I closed myself into the room and waited.

"Listen to me."

"Who are you?" I cut him off, the words blurting from my lips before I could take them back. "You're all over the news. I know you killed those two police officers."

The boy turned to me from the window, his dark lashes strongly contrasting his skin in a very strange manner. There was something odd about it. He may have seemed perplexed, but I couldn't read a single emotion from his face—it was like he wasn't even there. The thought sent me shivering.

He took a few moments to reply, sending us back into a strange, ringing silence.

"Those men attacked me."

"So then you killed them?" I hissed, incredulous. I suddenly realized how bad of a situation I'd gotten myself into as I moved slowly across the room to sit on a stool by the bathroom, watching the boy as he watched me. His eyes were consistently creepy as they followed me across the room, soft and cold.

"I do not know this world the way you do." The boy finally decided on his words, blinking slowly. "I am not from here."

I wanted to scoff at him. Kick him out of my house and tell him to go get help. I really wanted to. But how do you kick a boy from your house that killed two fully-grown, trained officers? I suggested to myself that you don't, and that that is something that you simply do not do. I took a deep breath, though it shook.

"Where are you from?" I asked softly, afraid of my weak voice. The boy's eyes moved away from me sharply, attaching to the base of the wall by the door. He was silent again for a long moment.

"Astaroth." The word came out as nearly a whisper.

I frowned at him.

"Where is that?"

He shook his head in response, small locks of hair drifting across his skin. My frown soured and his eyes flicked to me, as if he seemed to notice. Was he playing with me?

"It would take too much to explain," he offered, and I only scrunched my nose further at him.

"Then explain it to me."

He shook his head softly in response.

"That is not possible."

"To hell it's not possible," I hissed, leaning forwards on the stool. "Where is that, Astaroth? I've never heard of anywhere vaguely like that. Is it a city in America? Or are you just playing with me?"

When he didn't respond, I prodded him.

"Well?"

"Astaroth is not in America," he said simply, almost quietly. His eyes would no longer meet my own. I felt the hairs across my body rise, but I felt like I was getting nowhere—this conversation would get me nowhere.

"Where did you learn to speak English?" I asked, softly now, sitting back on the stool.

The boy looked to me once I spoke, a question in his eyes. He hesitated and I watched him, my throat closing on itself as I felt fear creep back into my body. His appearance was off somehow, as if something about him didn't conform to human physics. I struggled to swallow.

"E...nglish?" He asked, as if the word was foreign on his tongue. His eyes cast down for a moment as if to look at his own lips as he spoke, before moving back up to me. I didn't know what to say. "Where I come from, our language has a different name. It is rare to find someone who speaks another language. It was thought that all of those who spoke different languages were killed long ago, until recently—"

He cut himself off slowly, his eyes drifting away from mine to the edge of the bed that he sat on. I know what I had seen—a flash of pain echoed through his eyes, and suddenly I felt like I was violating his privacy. I glanced away uncomfortably, looking around my own room awkwardly. My senses were utterly confused—my first reaction was that something was obviously going on in his life, but for the life of me I had to remember that he was a murderer. He had killed two people just last night—and who was to say that I wouldn't be next?

I felt the hairs across my body raise again at that thought, and I bit the insides of my cheeks. That was when the boy looked to me again with his eyes, faster than I could blink, pure hate running rampant in his previously calm eyes. His head was still turned towards the bed, though he looked at me. I froze completely and utterly still under his petrifying glare, almost not of my own will, wishing that I could retreat into myself in that very moment, to spare myself. The look faded from his eyes when he turned my way, and I felt tears in my own—I had thought that he was going to kill me right then and there.

But instead he looked just as calm as he had before—and almost sad, as if everything that I had just seen had been just a part of my imagination.

With trepidation, I wondered quietly to myself—had it been?

"None of that matters anymore," he said. It took me a moment to realize that I wasn't breathing until I spoke.

"...What do you mean, none of that matters anymore? What happened to them?" I asked, apprehension and curiosity pressing my thoughts. Maybe he would finally tell me something about himself—about what happened.

This time, the glare that he sent my way was clear, though not even half as chilling. Still, I blanched. He tilted his chin up slightly, with the beginnings of a snarl on his lips.

"Nothing." He said, moving on his knees to stand beside the bed. I stood up quickly, unsure of what to do. My heart throbbed deafeningly in my chest, every muscle in my body tensed completely. I immediately felt dizzy.

"I'm hungry."

My jaw could have dropped to the floor.