It's Worth It

Crooked Boys

Shooting pains ran down my neck, skyrocketing up into my head and landing right on my temples. I wish I was being paralyzed by the fear rather than hurt from it. Suddenly, there was a gentle tap on my shoulder, and I turned around, my breath catching.

It was Craig, golden-eyed and half naked. The mark on his stomach was a phosphorescent lime green. With a closer look, I saw pulsing purple veins around the glow, reaching around the mark like spider webs. It was beautifully horrific.

The worst thing was he just looked at me. His eyes were so gorgeously colored that I wouldn’t mind having them that deep gold constantly. My eyes darted to his mouth when he exhaled. Dark crimson blood was dripping from around it as well as from the inside. I prayed that it was Damien’s.

“Craig?” I murmured. His eyes widened and suddenly filled with emotion. Tears began to form, and soon one ran down his right cheek, then his left. The boy’s bottom lip began to quiver as his whole body shook violently. He wrapped his arms around his torso and whispered I think I just killed someone before taking a step towards me, lowering his head to rest it in between the crook of my neck. His messy hair tickled my cheek for a second, making me smile and wrap my arms around my taller friend’s back. We stayed like that for a minute or so before I heard rustling and a struggled moan.

“Tweek?” I called out into the dark corner of the room. Right, he was passed out when I saw him. Damien had thrown the poor blonde so hard into the wall that I heard the . . . sound of a bone snapping. Oh god. If he was dead, I don’t know how I would feel about Kenny. What if I couldn’t bring him back? What if he was too far gone? What if I was forced to end this violently? I wasn’t strong enough to look him in the eyes and take his life, even if it wasn’t technically him. But, if he killed one of my friends, especially Tweek (whom had told me to not come into the morgue in the first place), I don’t know how much anger I would feel towards Kenny. He’s the one who got me in the mess and hurt Craig. Now his little minion might have taken a life.

I took a few cautious steps into the darkness. The only light source was Craig’s belly mark. It was kind of silly, really, searching around in the dark with a glowing boy to look for a spastic friend (or his body). My feet suddenly hit something hard, and that something groaned in response. Tweek sat up suddenly, gripping his arm and holding out the other in a submissive act. He looked small, shaken, and sad. “You alright Tweek?” I bent down to examine his arm, which was turning blue and purple.

“Do I seem alright? DO I SEEM ALRIGHT? I almost died. You almost died. Craig is more of a freak than I am and all I want to do is go home and rest and curl up in my bed and drink coffee and-” The blonde began to mumble incoherently under his breath, swearing and talking about things he wanted to do. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Craig bend down and pick up something, dusting it off gently then placing it on his head. It must be his hat.

“Listen, Tweek,” Craig said with gritted teeth, “I don’t know what you think, but this whole mess is not anyone’s fault. You better calm the hell down before I make you calm by knocking you the-”

“Hey! Stop it. No more fighting. We have to get out of here and take you to a hospital or something. I’m stupid, I know. I should’ve realized that he is always one step ahead of us.” My heart raced as I spoke. I couldn’t even say his name out loud.

Craig snickered. “Who’s he? You’re boyfriend. You’re demonic, insane, stupid boyfriend who doesn’t even love you and tried to kill you multiple times but you just weren’t in the right place at the right time. You don’t even get it do you? You’re so stupid!” He drew back his fist, and pounded it into the wall. The loud noise it made was far too noisy for a simple punch. Once he took a step back, Tweek and I gasped.