Nemesis

CHAPTER 1 : The Carcass

Turning a deaf ear to his mother honking her car outside, he stared at his canvas pad for quite a long moment in his room. It was one of the typical things he would do .

Skylar Mong was soon to be a college freshman at Imwalle University, One of the best in Mystria . He had to  leave for Imwalle that day.

Then he flipped the pages glancing each sketch one by one.

Despite knowing each of them was eccentric but he esteemed them as if they were pieces of forbidden arts.

All of them were pencil sketches. Most of them included dark figures of undraped female bodies in some sort of satanic forms.

If someone find out his sketches, he would surely be considered a psychopath.  He didn't really care about how people would think about him. But he fear the guilt pleasure and he might become a psychopath or even a pedophile just like his father. He really hated his father and even the fact that he got his father's Y chromosome.

It wasn't a lust or a thirst , yet it was an admiration,  a passion about these sinister arts. But he sometimes got abashed by his ungodly mind.

A tug of war between the desire of burning the canvas and just bringing it with him came to pass in his mind.

It envinced both his past mental health sickness as well as his creativity.

"Sky honey ... what's wrong... I've been waiting outside for 15 minutes... let's go" his mother, Isabel came up to his room unable to wait .

He closed the artbook abruptly and put it in his backpack, not choosing the "burn" option and silently walked out of his room.

"You didn't forget your medication, right??" His mother asked him when they both got inside car.

He just nodded and pulled out his earpods as his playlist shuffled to 505 by Artic Monkeys.

Even after his father was kept behind bars, Skylar was still overwhelmed with regrets and guilt which even affected his relationship with his mother.

Imwalle University main campus stood tall at the heart of the Imwalle Province which was about 27km away from his home Province,  Brookville. So it was more than a half hour ride.

"Sky honey... try looking out the window rather than staring at your phone.... I mean the kindle" Isabelle tried to make a conversation with him to lift up the awkwardness.

"Have you started reading novels again? Okay but I hope the genre isn't horror... I prefer romance and comedy . How about you  Other than horrors??? " she kept on with the one sided conversation.

"Shut up mom!! Please " Skylar puffed out with a heavy sigh turning off his tab and looking up.

"MOM !! STOP !! There's a girl infront of us" suddenly he shouted and gasped in terror.

At the next instance, Isabelle felt like she just knocked down something or someone but she didn't saw any girl he mentioned.

She got out and checked the front to find out that she seemed to have run over a deer . But the Carcass wasn't fresh, it looked like it was a couple of days old .

Skylar stood still and stared at the dead deer in horror.

"Sky...get inside let's go " his mother told him as it was obvious that the deer had been there before and it wasn't their fault.

"But mom... what about the deer???" He asked her in shock.

"It's dead...let's leave it here as it is " she answered.

"No ... call a police or animal control or whatever.... I don't want our family to be on the news again. I don't wanna be bullied again. " he started to panic and exaggerate the situation.

"Honey we didn't hit the deer. It has already been dead and lying here . Someone could've killed it .so it isn't our fault. See there's no fresh blood and it's sort of decomposing.  We are innocent and we are never gonna be on news . Sky let's go " Her mother reassured him .

"No...wait....and i saw a girl too...OMG we must have killed her... Maybe she's down here " he looked down and checked under the car but nothing was there.

He was totally freaking him out and began to wheeze in an audible degree.

Isabelle knew his asthma and the anxiety attacks had kicked in again . She handed his inhaler quickly and ushered him back inside the car.

He inhaled few pumps out of his puffer and whipped his tears and sweats gradually gaining his stable state.

Anxiety attacks weren't a new thing to skylar and most of his medications included antianxiety SOS.

"Im okay let's go....I'm sorry i overreacted " he told his mom as if nothing happened.

"No Sky ...let's go home . I don't want you to stay away from me.  Let's just go home " she never ever wanted him to go to Imwalle from the start . She never wanted him to be away from her cause' he was always a vulnerable child from the moment he was born.

" Mom... what about my college??? I was overreacting.  Don't worry I'm 18 now . Not a minor anymore. I can do this.  I'll not let these stupid attacks and hallucinations control over me ." Skylar suddenly became optimistic and courageous. In fact he had always been very eager to finish highschool where he spent most of the 4 years being bullied; then leave Brookville and start a new college life at Imwalle.

Isabelle knew it was wrong for her to underestimate her son and it would be selfish for her not to let him go .

"You know I'm proud of you Sky.... You have gone through so much but you never complain and never give up." She told him as she started the engine and drove towards Imwalle.

END OF CHAPTER 1