Chapter Three

Alice awoke the next day frowing. It wasn't a nightmare tonight. No, the strangest of dreams had plagued her ever since her eyelids begrudgingly closed, leaving her falling into mysterious swirling chasms filled with the stench of blood and fear.

An uneasiness had gripped her ever since she left the community center that she had failed to shake, left frightened by its unknown source. She sat up, her eyes over bright in the weak sunlight streaming in from between her curtain's gauzy fabric. Alice blinked, trying not to linger on such an unpleasant feeling as her eyes began to water. It wasn't safe to cry. Not yet. Nothing bad had happened. And she tried to comfort herself with the thought, distinctly taking an obsene amount of effort in even the most facile task.

She walked into the kitchen, seeing it deserted. This wasn't even unusual... and yet... how very empty everything seemed; how very hollow was the sense that everything was as normal as it appeared.

Alice fixed a bowl of cereal without thinking, the result of a long held routine. But once she had the food before her, she couldn't even stand to think to take a bite.

After dumping the unappealing contents of the bowl in the sink and washing away the evidence, she grabbed a handful of crackers from the cabinent and set out the door. Alice needed to move. Such a mood had rarely taken her before, but when it did, she couldn't loose herself in daydreams. Everything was too bright; too sharp. Almost surreal. The vividness of the world around her stabbed at her eyes, as if every object warred for her attention at once.

She tried to at least nibble at the crackers, she needed something in her stomach or she'd soon have a headache. Alice didn't need to go to the community center yet, so she sought out another path to calm her nerves. Without noticing her surroundings in her distress, Alice found herself nearing the very place she was trying to avoid. Even after wildly taking each turn at random, she found herself here. She looked up to see that the sun hadn't even risen very much higher since she had set out. Alice's hand twitched in irritation. She hated how slowly the time had past, but still there was some strange urgency forcing her forward.

Alice let herself be carried towards the building until she forced herself off course and to a nearby bench. Her weight sagged heavily under the damp wood, her airy shorts absorbing the dew. Alice noticed how fast she was breathing, her body too warm to register more than relief as the dampness spread through her clothes; a coolness seeping deep into her bones. She closed her eyes, concentrating on breathing.

At last, legs trembling in her anxiety, Alice abruptly stood. She crumbled the remaining crackers and carelessly threw them to the ground, only a flicker of a thought registering her actions as the realization fully hit her.

This was the problem. Something bad is here, waiting to assail her, though she knew not what nor why she had such a sense of certainty at this thought.

The last time she had been brought into such mind-numbing panic, was the morning before her parents told her of their divorce. But even then, this was different. Worse, somehow.

She let herself be pulled into the door, feeling as if she was entering the mouth of a dragon.

When his own hysterical sobbing graveled to a whimpering end, Luke could only hear the ragged echo of his own dragging breath, gasping in and out, pulling like fish hooks into his lungs.

He dangled at an angle that stretched his arms over his head and sent an ache spidering through his ribcage. Every swallow was a gulp, like a trout out of water, choking on his own humiliation.

It was the hours that chipped away at him the most, the queasy roiling in the pit of his stomach as he thought about anyone finding him, anyone looking for him. He could only imagine the Oratory, awake and sleeplessly waiting for him to come home, all those brothers and fathers who cared for him like he was their own child, each of them bent to their kneelers with worry.

Maybe they would call the police, maybe they would come to check on him, maybe they were on their way right now…

But the hours came and went in a silence only penetrated by Luke’s whimpers as he shifted his weight.

He could see out the grill, just barely, he could see the clock, the hanging suites, and billboard across from him. He licked his lips and tasted the salt from his own tears as he kicked the door panel hard and felt it rattle, thrown against the pad lock. He kicked it seven more times until his foot hurt too badly, and he stopped struggling.

Silence.

At ten PM the lights went out it and cast everything into the dull yellow dimness of single bulb, somewhere out of sight.

He woke from an uncomfortable doze when he heard the generator kick in and swallowed the blood in his mouth and the sickly sweet taste of Grinder. Groggy… chilled. A numbness was creeping through his arms, he couldn’t feel his hands anymore, and his back ached… his whole body shivered.

It had to be from the trauma. He’d been kicked and beaten around and thrown into a tiny locker… it had to be the shock… but there was a nag deep in recesses of his mind that haunted him with the thought that perhaps… perhaps it had been the storm.

What happens when a person is struck by lightning?

Death. Usually. On the spot.

Brain damage, organ failure. The human body wasn’t made to take the voltage of an electrical strike.

The though made him ill.

He shook there, trying to stand on his toes, to keep the weight off his wrists, to ease the pain in his shoulder blades… but it didn’t help, it felt like a fire licking up his spine, like someone had taken serrated blades and sawed them through his shoulders. A bout of agony threw him up against the back of the locker and in a blind terror he kicked furiously against the locker door. “PETER!!!!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice broken with the hoarseness of his own cries. “PETER!!! ANYONE!!! PLEASE!!!”

His heart was starting to race, he could feel the pulse in his throat, the rapidness of it flooding throughout his body.

“PETER!!! PLEASE!!! I’m SICK!!! I NEED HELP!!” he cried, but was met with the echoing of his own voice… and no reply.

At eleven PM he was running a temperature, sweating, feverish, overheated. He wrestled with the panic of claustrophobia, and something like drowning, he held to nothing but the whispered prayer he breathed with each exhale. Something wasn’t right, he knew it in his soul…


His back felt like it would split it two, his shoulder blades were tearing apart, and he pressed his forehead to the cool panel of the door and set his teeth against the searing, he swore… he swore he felt a hot warmth spreading over his dark shirt , down his back, and into the waist band of his pants.

“Holy Mary…”

Something… was breaking through his body…

He was dying…

He had to be dying.

There was an audible crack in his shoulders that threw him forward, cheek against the grill of the door, screaming so loud he couldn’t even hear himself anymore. He could only feel the pain. Another crack and his legs gave out and he hung on the hook.

“… mother of god, pray for us sinners.” His voice was a high pitched plea as his spine snapped back and he arched, kicking his legs against the door, trying to find support.

“now… and-and-and… at the hour…” there was a tearing feeling as his shoulder blades broke through his skin and he couldn’t make a sound… darkness was rushing towards him… like he was falling down a tunnel, falling, and falling… faster and faster.

His body bowed in renting anguish, and everything became colors, and feelings, and single stabbing thoughts. Red. Black. Green. Tearing, splitting, shrieking, tears, fire…

He convulsed, twisting inside a tiny locker as blood spattered the inside, across his face, and soaked into his clothes, and he collapsed into a painless unconsciousness.

I walked along the sunlight streets, seeing nothing but sated red fire... thinking of nothing but Fire. Fire was pretty... something that mattered to me, when nothing else did. When everything else was dark... it was like a black abyss had swallowed me whole and Fire did everything to bring me home.

The previous evening was pretty uneventful... nothing interesting happened, I just burned things.

And it wasn't about what I was burning... but how. I wanted to do things differently... with a twist. Tampering with someone's kitchen stove, messing with wires, overheating electronics... things that people wouldn't expect to die from. Things that you wouldn't see coming. And Fire help me... if I didn't love every second of it.

But along with all the twists and turns I was still a classic man... gasoline and a match. That was really all it took... a small spark and then the world was set on fire. It was the same with religion, the same with politics, the same with love... one spark... and everything was gone.

I made my way towards the community service building and saw the quiet girl standing outside of it. I nodded my head in her direction before pushing past and entering the building, making my way to the locker room.

I wanted to see if he had lasted the night... if I had broken his faith.

I opened the locker room doors and went to my locker, not even glancing at the one he was imprisoned within... grabbing my orange jumper and beginning to change. After my clothing had been neatly folded and put back within my own locker, shut tight and safe, I walked past his... moving slowly, before starting the show.

"What the- Hey! Kid, are you okay??" I asked looking inside the locker and seeing him barely breathing, barely moving. I smirked to myself before going over to the utility closet and looking around quickly. I didn't see what I was searching for.

So I did the next best thing, I ran out of the room and down the hall until I saw one of those Fire Axes... breaking the glass with my elbow I grabbed it and ran back to the room. Pulling back I started to hack away at the door and the lock.

The lock was metal so I wouldn't be able to break through that, but I would be able to break the actual locker. I hacked and tore into it, until finally I saw an opening. I ripped the now decimated door off it's hinges and dropped it onto the floor, carefully reaching in and grabbing the kid off of the hook, before pulling him out of the locker however I thought a warning prudent.

"Don't you dare say a thing... I swear to Fire... that how badly your hurting now? That will be the least of your worries." I whispered darkly. I went to grab him after my promising threat and I felt his back... completely soaked with blood. What... ? I didn't do that to him. I peered over his shoulder trying to see where it was coming from...

Strange...

I finally pulled him out, dragging him onto the floor where I settled him onto my lap, I could already feel the blood from his back soaking through my jumper. He was so hurt from last night, it was beautiful, made my stomach flip wildly inside of me, and my heart beat just a little faster.

I brushed his blood and sweat soaked bangs away from his eyes almost tenderly... and I could feel he was burning up, he was probably ill from dehdration and all of his injuries. Poor baby boy... I thought cruelly.

"Who did this to you?" I asked quietly, making sure my face was a mask of concern, and worry.

I sat there at the register waiting for another customer to come to my line,another one of my glorious jobs...but the one thing that made this job awesome was that I always liked to guess or make up some kind of story or a back round the shoppers had in their pathetic lives,it always made my life a little bit more...happy, less pathetic than theirs.

The store was just filled with roar.I swear it must have been a full moon.I was then interrupted in bagging when I was told by my manager to switch with one of the workers because an injury which I'm sure was absolute bullshit. I went to the back and watched everyone attack each other over the last can of beans on the shelf and I realized maybe I should have been the one to a restock the shelves.I slowly walked to the back of the dirty inventory space and counted what ever was there and hoped i could get out of here real soon it smelt musty and the air in here was moist.

When I was done I jumped off the ladder and text my buddy to tell him my shift was over,he replied back with a quick text that there was no way he was going to able to get me out here in the storm."Ugh,fuck this afternoon,who the hell am I going to get drunk with now?!I'm done with this afternoon I worked two shifts to the evening!" I mumbled under my breathe on the way out the door I grabbed my coat and head into the eye of the storm.

I ran half way so I could get to the bus stop on time,my mind was just racing with fury that I was alone,again.I think that was the point.I'm always getting bent out of shape over nothing, having that knot in your stomach but I'm fixing it every day with a therapist because I was told that if I didn't go to this therapist I'd be put in jail, also the fact that I'm an alcoholic,also bullshit.

I pulled out my flask and had a sip of beer while I waited for bus to come and it should have been here awhile ago from the schedule I read on their board.I really didn't have time to be waiting on a bus in this storm.

As I walked I could smell the dead animals that were ran over, and the smell of the tress. My eye sight was just blocked by this heavy rain. I thought about what I was told when I was younger about when it rained, it means that the Almighty himself was crying. I mean it made sense but he must be in some kind of PMS state right and he needs to get to over it, because I hate this!!!

I decided to run my ass through the rain maybe it would make the trip home quicker, then a quick detour through the woods made things quicker and after a little over and hour I was able to make it back to my amazing apartment where someone hot was waiting for me.HA!Some fantasy I had in my mind that I wish would happen!!!I ran across the street to get to my house then all of a sudden it went black,I knew I was going to hell but did have to happen now,I'll never wake up from this...

He heard the door open to the locker rooms, it was a far off sound, down some dark corridor of his mind, twisting and turning, and echoing. His eyes fluttered a little, trying to pull back, trying to wake up, but it was like dragging himself to the safety of a boat, from a pond that soaked your clothes so heavy they choked around your neck.

Luke let out a whimper as he opened his eyes to feel soreness of his neck and arms, the ache of his hands, his temple, his beaten ribs, his bloodied nose. The blood had caked and coagulated to the side of his face, lips, and down his chin so that when he shifted, and grimaced, he felt it crack.

Someone was banging around outside the locker, he swallowed, trying to focus on the clock through the grill…
It must have been morning.

It felt like morning, the kind of morning your body wakes up to right after a fever. Sweaty and achy. He let out a groan and leaned against the door, his cheek pressed against that cold metal, trying to get his tongue to form the words. ‘help me… let me out.” But whatever he was going to say… was interrupted, by a powerful smooth voice.

“What the- Hey! Kid, are you okay??”

His heart barrel-rolled into his stomach.

Grinder.

A pair of icy blue eyes met his own gaze through the barred grill, and Luke froze like a deer in the sight of fog lights, slicing the night in half, cutting his world in two. His breath couldn’t catch. Self preservation started to pump through his veins but he was so beaten up, his body was so weak from the fever last night that he couldn’t have fought this boy even if he wanted to.

He pushed himself back into the locker, tucking himself in, trying to make his body smaller, but in a few moments the blond boy was back, and this time with a tool, which he swung back and aimed at the locker.

If Luke was scared before he was terrified now, with nothing but the pounding of metal on metal, he thought the sound would bleed his eardrums, deafening him. Grinder was breaking in with an axe. Tearing apart the door.

“No!!! PLEASE!!!” Luke screamed, turning away. The blond boy was going to break in and kill him… he’d left him all night in a locker and had come back to finish the job.

With a creaking the door was pulled off its hinges and Luke was roughly torn off the hook, and dragged out. His fingers were numb, his arms were shaking from carrying his weight in one position for hours. He struggled to feel his legs, trying to stand.

“Don’t you dare say a thing… I swear to Fire… that how badly you’re hurting now? That will be the LEAST of your worries.”

The Grinder’s threat lingered in the air, poisonous and emotionless...

Luke’s whole world spun, he was in the arms of someone who had molested him. Nausea working its way up his throat, settling to the back of his tongue so that he could taste the bile and the blood from last night.

Those hands found purchase on him, felt his back, pulled his body into the lap of a boy who played with fire, a boy who’s fingertips were singed with the hatred of beauty. He trembled there, as his dark hair was pushed from his forehead, as his blue eyes met Grinder’s and then forcefully looked away, bottom lip trembling.

“Who did this to you?”

His bound wrists raised to hide his face, to push Grinder’s hand away, trying to curl into a fetal position he, was so terrified his bladder threatened to let go. He couldn’t answer… he didn’t even know how…

All I could hear were loud noises and wishing they would just shut up. I just wanted them to go away!

My legs were on fire...OH MY GOD,I AM IN HELL...Well if I really am in hell I'd want to beat the shit out of the devil himself for thinking I was pathetic enough to go to hell!!! But I could still hear the loud noises and someone calling my name. Maybe I wasn't dead after all, but my legs were on fire and my head hurt. And to top it all off my body ached all over...I remember waking up in the hospital. I was sent there for minor to severe burns.They said I was a slightly drunk from all alcohol I had...maybe I did stop at the liquor store, actually I paid someone to buy me some vodka mmmm and it sure was good.

I laid there in a hospital bed that smelled like stale chips, and thought about every thing that had happened, forgetting about what the paramedic said it was just a blur. I couldn't remember a thing...I just shook it off and watched the nurse in purple scrubs with her pulled back hair, give me some thing and the drugs just flowed through my body like Nile river. That's when my body finally drifted off to dream land.

I opened my eyes from my slumber and in my blurred image of every thing that had happened that many weeks ago. Did every thing really happen the way it did or was it just a bad dream? Why did every thing go down like that. I can say I can't remember but I would rather forget it all. My roommate came in waking me up as always not to be late, even though I always had my alarm clock on, it was always him. "What would I do without you?" I said in a charming voice. He rolled his eyes and mumbled some thing under his breath but his anger still pleased me.

After a little bit of healing time I was sent to the center the next morning pissed as hell. I was just like the rest of the guys and girls in this building,looked down upon for my "mistakes" or crimes. We were all told to go to our lockers and then report back so we could get instructions. I went on my merry way down this long as hall, as I continued to walk down the hall and watch this cute innocent little girl that looked like the purest thing on earth. She had beautiful brown hair and eyes that just told you a story with out saying a word. She was like a semi-opened book there were only certain chapters you were able to read but you some were a mystery.

She seemed like the quiet type. I read that from just making eye contact. We both wanted to get where we were needed. I walked down the hall and heard someone screaming out for help and all I could hear was someone in pain, crying out is how I would describe it,down the echoed hallways. I ran down the hall that now seemed like forever to get down and I saw some sinks and showers and then I saw lockers, finally!!! When I looked at the situation on the floor with these two boys, one a blonde, holding the other boy, a brunette cover in blood and bruises...

I could only respond in one way "WHAT...THE...HELL...HAPPENED?"

Someone passed by Alice but she only barely registered the presence. She nipped her lip as she quickly made eye contact and resumed her worries.

The community center looked so very ominous that she wanted to run away; hide in some bright, sunny patch of earth. For she was a girl made of earth and air.... But fire, fire had no place in her heart. And there was almost a heartbeat; a throb of scolding hot pain new to this place.

This imposing building, once so simple and impersonal, now seemed as if the light around it was absorbed in some unearthly way. A small lock of hair brushed her cheek in the gentle breeze. Alice stood as a statue, fear transforming her to marble.

And then a faint scream of pain ricocheted off those cold concrete hallways. The spell was broken.

Alice burst forth, throwing the doors open and sprinted toward the sound.

"WHAT...THE...HELL...HAPPENED?" a male voice yelled.

Alice clenched her small hands into fists, causing them to grow slick with blood. Skidding to the locker room door, Alice saw everything. With her heartbeat drumming against her eardrums, she took in the scene in horror.

A new boy with chestnut-colored skin stared aghast at the blond boy from yesterday. In his muscular arms, as if enclosed in a trap, was a bloody, broken angel.

LUKE!

How could this have happened?! Alice's vision blurred. She touched her cheek gingerly and found it wet with tears. She stepped forward, dazed, reaching out. She didn't want this to be real.

Sometimes... I sit alone and think. I think of all I've done in life... the bad and the not so good... and I wonder if this is what I was supposed to become. I remember my mother's arm's holding me tightly... her little star and I wonder what she would think, if she could see me now. Would she hate me? Be sick I had become this man?

Would she still love me...?

Probably not, unconditional love didn't exist, and besides... she was the past and it didn't do anyone, especially not me, any good to dwell.

So I only thought alone, in the dark... sometimes. And other times... I just burned things.

I was swept back into a world of screams and new faces... he was trying to push me away, didn't want me touching him...

Well... he'll just have to get used to it... now won't he?

"Shut up, you fucking slut... don't say a word, I swear to Fire... I fucking swear... " I whispered harshly before hearing the screams from the other side of the room.

"WHAT... THE... HELL... HAPPENED?"

My eyes narrowed at the new edition to the group... a fucking loud-mouthed kid... just fanFUCKINGtastic.

"Jesus christ... are you fucking retarded?? Do you not see how the strength of your voice is hurting him?? Shut the fuck up, who fucking raised you? A pack of dogs? Coming in here like a bat out of hell, grow the hell up." I snapped cruelly, petting Luke's hair gently, stroking his bangs out of his face... being so kind and gentle...

When it was really me who put him here in the first place.

The quiet girl had come in... crying and being a fucking drama queen... this girl was really starting to push my buttons and I wanted her out of the way.

Permanantly.

"What the fuck is going on here? Please tell me I'm still high and this is just a nightmare, because I'd really love to wake up now and have all this disappear right about now."

I sighed, frustrated and irratated... I just wanted some time alone with the boy in my arms... but clearly that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. And seeing as that other girl looked like she was about to piss herself with worry and drown in her own pathetic tears I decided to just give it up... because I couldn't look guilty anyways...

No one can know what I've done... what I'm going to keep doing.

The boy in my arms looked like he was going to be sick anyways...

I pulled him from my lap and laid him against the bench carefully, before kissing his forward, almost tenderly and getting up and walking towards the door... I needed to smoke... needed to get some air, but before leaving the room I said one last thing... something that was sure to drive him insane and make him feel so sick inside...

"You know Luke... if you weren't such a little fucking slut you might not have gotten exactly what you deserved... careful baby boy... unless you want it to happen again, poor, pretty thing like you needs to be careful, especially when things go bump in the night."

And with that I left, lighting up my cig and taking in a huge drag before walking down the hallyway.

The way his stomach was churning, and churning, it was like it would never end, like he’d always be terrified. The whole world had become an empty place waiting for him to fill in the shadows with his own shame and the rapidity of his heartbeat, thudding, echoing in all that space. It took a while for the blurry haze to clear, for him to realize where he was, in the locker room, laying in the shoe-scuffed floor.

His back was throbbing, aching, the kind of pain that spidered up his spine to pound in his temple to the rhythm of his every breath. The tightness of his clerical collar felt like a choke chain, and he wondered if he was really panting as hard as he felt he was.

That scent of smoke overwhelmed him, burning wood, burnt plastic, cigarettes. He turned his whole body away from Grinder, but couldn’t detach himself from the hold those hands had on him. He couldn’t, he couldn’t look up into that face, that smirk that cut deeper than any knife, those eyes so cold they burned.

“Shut up, you fucking slut… don’t say a word, I swear to Fire… I fucking swear…”

Luke squirmed.

He couldn’t even force words up his throat let alone string together a sentence. No. The thought of what this boy was capable of doing if he so much as even hinted about what had happened last night carved out the pit of his stomach and left him as hollow as an empty lie… a lie he was forced to live. Grinder had attacked him for no reason, just because he was smaller and weaker, just because he could, and Luke didn’t want to know what the blonde boy would force on him if actually given reason.

“WHAT… THE… HELL… HAPPENED??!!!”

A male voice cut the silence in a shout that made Luke groan, his headache was already splitting and the noise made his body threaten to vomit. He tried to sit up but couldn’t… embarrassment flooding his cheeks. No one could see him like this, held in another boy’s lap, the boy who raped his faith.

“Jesus Christ… are you fucking retarded?? Do you not see how the strength of your voice is hurting him?? Shut the fuck up, who fucking raised you? A pack of dogs? Coming in here like a bat out of hell, grow the hell up.”

It looked like kindness, or if not kindness a kind of fathering protectiveness. Luke fell ill as the boy’s hands slid through his hair and pushed it from his face gently. Caressing him… like a lover. His wide blue eyes turned to take in the angular face… to try read it, but it was wooden and unbreachable.

The gasping silence was broken again by the sounds of shoes beating the polished floor just outside the locker rooms, and then… Alice pushed open the door. There was a moment when the color paled in her complexion before the storm fell across her face and it became a mute slaughter of shock and tears.

Tears.

Her green eyes watering, running paths down her cheeks… and for that second he wished she could speak, wished she could say something… anything, cause anything would have been better than this. The look of pain on her face like she herself had taken the beating, right before his eyes.

Luke turned away, couldn’t look at her, tried to wipe the dried blood and other fluid from his forehead and the bridge of his nose with his chaffed and aching wrists.

“What the fuck is going on here? Please tell me I’m still high and this is just a nightmare. Because I’d really love to wake up now and have this disappear right about now.”

He felt Grinder breathe a heavy sigh, felt the other boy’s frustration and tried to turn and see who was speaking, but in this position he could only crane his neck so far, just enough to glimpse a new girl with dark hair, dressed in an orange suite. Oh god, this had become a spectacle. There was a crowd, a crowd of people looking down on him… all thinking the same thing.

Slut. Freak. Pathetic.

Luke grabbed at Grinder’s shoulder for balance and tried to pull himself into a sitting position at the same time he tried to push the older boy back, just trying to get away from him, trying to regain some dignity, if he could… if it was even possible, but he didn’t quite make it there, slipping and collapsing into the blonde’s lap again, his cheeks flushing with color and pain.

Grinder slowly started to shift, pushing Luke from his lap, lifting him like he weighed nothing and setting him down on the bench there. Luke’s heart was racing like a locomotive, his breath panicky as the blonde leaned over, very close to his face. He could feel his whole body, the warmth of the other’s, a heat he wanted to forget… and he prayed to God that Grinder wasn’t about to kiss him… right here, in front of everyone, his molester… but no… missing… a tender touch to his forehead instead. Some mockery of gentleness that wracked his body with a traumatic sickness, and made his eyes water with shame.

Then the space was opening between them, Grinder was walking away, towards the door to the lockers, towards the hall. Leaving.

Luke dragging himself upward, wavering, sitting up on the bench, huddled there, wishing more than anything that people would look anywhere but at him, wishing they would get dressed, start chatting to each other loudly, he wished the new boy with the chestnut colored skin would start yelling again.

“You know Luke… if you weren’t such a little fucking slut you might not have gotten exactly what you deserved… careful baby boy… unless you want it to happen again, poor, pretty thing like you needs to be careful, especially when things go bump in the night.”

There it was, the blow he should have seen coming. It knocked his reason out from under him, and he didn’t even care that he was surrounded by people staring, he bent over, his face in his hands, and cried… the kind of sobbing that didn’t make a sound… but only shook the shoulders. A small boy clad in the blackest love of the church … and there wasn’t a prayer to be found.

I arrived at the community center blasting music into my ears. I can't believe I have to do this because of her... He was enjoying himself. The girl pointed me towards the locker room, and gives me a key to a locker. I walk towards it, and feel the storm vibrate everything around me. Vibrations that were strong enough to melt me into sleep.

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED" I felt the words vibrate as I woke in non human state, as if all of a sudden I was stretched and flattened to the floor. It felt like the jumpsuit I was forced to wear was wearing me, and I was certain my piercings migrated dramatically overnight. I

Never eating shrooms again I thought as I pulled up the lower part of my jumpsuit up my then translucent legs, which left most of my upper body exposed. Just enough to get my by I smiled. I felt the rest of my body solidify going from water into bones, muscle, and lastly blood. I felt my memories solidify in my head, and recalled that the last time I came close to a hallucinogenic I was sixteen. Something was off here, and my insides started to form again.

“Jesus Christ… are you fucking retarded?? Do you not see how the strength of your voice is hurting him?? Shut the fuck up, who fucking raised you? A pack of dogs? Coming in here like a bat out of hell, grow the hell up.” I hear the words this time, as my guts seem to roll themselves into a vortex. I felt a rush of liquid lift up, and I manage to stop it from gushing out of my mouth. Almost as if the vomit had turned to jello in my mouth. I glanced at a crowd as I violently search for something to get rid of what's in my mouth.

“What the fuck is going on here? Please tell me I’m still high and this is just a nightmare. Because I’d really love to wake up now and have this disappear right about now.” I hear a girl said as my stomach clenches to get more of the acid out of me. I see a bucket and noisily scramble to it as another wave rushes up and I let everything jet out. Almost forcing anything in my stomach out of me. The bucket fills and the smell of fresh puke fills the air.

I dry heaved a few more times and spat out what I assumed was bile. I lifted my head out of the vomit to analyze what was going on. Some blonde guy carried someone that seemed badly injured, a girl stood in shock... crying, and another one seems to be in disbelief, and a guy who I assume is the one who woke me up. Blood, there was also a lot of blood.

I decided that the smell of my yesterday's lunch and hydrochloric acid was easier to understand and returned to dry heave into the bucket. Ugh, I wish I could freeze this. The stench is overpowering I mentally froze the vomit with enough strength I felt it go cold.

I managed to sit up and pushed the bucket away from me. "Would someone explain what the hell is going on here?" I questioned as I recalled the last time I was awake... I sighed and placed a hand over my stomach as my eyes settled on the injured boy. He could be an angel.

When I blurted out what I had just said the blonde just yelled "Jesus christ... are you fucking retarded?? Do you not see how the strength of your voice is hurting him?? Shut the fuck up, who fucking raised you? A pack of dogs? Coming in here like a bat out of hell, grow the hell up."

This guy was a dick, I wasn't even that loud. I was in shock of everything that was going on. As I observed the situation, I could see shit all up on his face and the blonde caressed him like a fucking pet animal. What the hell was his deal? He didn't own him so why he acting like it? Fucking creep.

That's when the girl that I passed in the hall came in, crying her pretty little eyes out at if it was a funeral. I rolled my eyes. I wanted to ask if that was jizz on his face but I was afraid that'd be a stupid question for this serious situation.

Another girl that I didn't notice with a slender body and dark brown hair said something really stupid “What the fuck is going on here? Please tell me I’m still high and this is just a nightmare. Because I’d really love to wake up now and have this disappear right about now.”

I mumbled ‘dumb ass’ under my breath. I thought only blondes were supposed to be dumb.

The blonde looked like he was pissed, like someone had taken something from him, he had such fire in his fucking eyes it just pierced right through you. I would compare it to a small taste of what hell was like.

The brunette struggled in some way, writhing in pain. It looked as if he wanted to get up somehow but couldn't, wanting to get away from the situation. Ashamed, dirty...I couldn't help feeling, that's what I felt from him, or maybe I was wrong.

The blonde eventually laid the brunette on the bench gently and whispered something in his ear that had him terrified to the point where it look like he'd wet his pants. The blonde slow got up took out a cig, brushing past us, smoking, and headed out the door.

I looked back to see the brunette with his face in his hands. I wanted to console him, but all I could do was go to the bathroom, get a wet a towel and give it to the shy green eyed, mousy haired girl. She probably knew him, cause she seemed to care the most.

"Clean him up I have to get out of here and I don't time have for this. My theory is; it looks like someone had their fun in some sick way, smearing their manhood all over his face." I said to the group. Then I leaned down to the brunette and said: "I don't know who did this but you better get them back in whatever way you can." That's when I went to the bathroom to change and left them to do whatever the fuck it is they wanted to do.

Everything had slowed around Alice. The voices of the other people were almost silent to her, and at some point she vaguely noticed that there had even been some new additions to the group. But none of this mattered at all. Alice's complete attention was locked on Luke, so much so that everything had faded away to the shadows.

This creature before her, so broken, was nothing at all like the kind boy she had happily went about painting with yesterday. The boy that reached out as she had rarely been bothered to be reached before, was now laying uncomfortably in a mass of blood and grime. And how strangely it hurt to see the pain in his too bright eyes. The boy with the blue eyes.

Luke tried to sit up, but was too weak to accomplish it. Watching his struggle was enough to make Alice step forward to help, but the blond boy decided at that moment to gently remove himself from the ruined flesh that was now Luke.

And there was so much blood!

Luke gingerly began to sit up, looking so very small and fragile on that bench everyone had gathered around. Alice faintly noticed some sickeningly sweet words uttered before the the smell of cigarettes followed the blonde boy from the room. Whatever those words were broke Luke, disintegrating him into silent tears. He covered his face as the soundless sobs shook his frail shoulders.

The boy with chestnut colored skin snapped Alice from her trance, pushing into her hands a cool, wet cloth.

"Clean him up I have to get out of here and I don't time have for this. My theory is; it looks like someone had their fun in some sick way, smearing their manhood all over his face," the boy said, but not unkindly.

He said something else, but Alice was already rushing forward. She sat on the bench, it's polished wood already faintly warm from the other boy's body. Luke did not move at her quiet advancement.

Alice wrapped her small arms around this broken angel and gently pulled his head to her chest, trying to calm his persistent sobs. She gingerly tipped the poor creature's head upward, revealing the tear-washed paths down his delicate features, making them appear gaunt and unhealthy. Alice meticulously began to wipe away the tears and caked on blood.

Alice's eyes were still leaking, like there was some great pressure within her that was springing leaks, and her wet face felt so cold in the cool room. And, oh, how her ribs ached, as if squeezed by some tight rubber bands. Despite her discomfort, Alice took great effort to make her movements soft; like the brush of a butterfly's wing. Luke was so hurt.

But the pressure was building within her so that she had to pause to catch her breath at increasing intervals.

Alice gently stroked Luke's hair, knotted and caked with grime as it was as she tried to gently cleanse his neck. Sapphire eyes gazed at her, shiny and bright.

She bent her head to his and closed her eyes in another pause for breath when the realization hit her. Something was building inside of her; it had been all day. Her instincts made every nerve scream for its release, and she had ignored it. But now she couldn't anymore. Alice gave in, sealing it in a soft, chaste kiss upon the boy's brow.

From behind her eyelids, a faint golden glow surrounded her. Alice held Luke tightly as a torrent of pain crashed upon her so abruptly, she gasped in surprise.

Another wave of pain crashed upon her, and another, until she experienced such a bone-deep ache, she had to fight to hold on to consciousness.

Surely, this was hell.

“Would someone please explain what the hell is going on here?”-

Tears carved rivulets down his dirt smeared cheeks, and the sound of his sobs were swallowed alive by the ache of his heart. Everything he had worked towards was gone, in a moment, in a night. Perfect celibacy, avoidance of temptation, telling the truth… and now he felt like he could never tell the truth again, because there was nowhere to start. His path which was once so clear veered off and ran into uncharted places he never wanted to know.

He looked through his fingers at a new boy, hunched by a bucket, he looked sick… really sick, and they locked gazes. The boy’s eyes were the color of a grey dove’s feathers, the sad gray the sky was right before it rained through the night. He looked down again, in shame.

He couldn’t handle the stares.

"Clean him up I have to get out of here and I don't time have for this. My theory is; it looks like someone had their fun in some sick way, smearing their manhood all over his face."

The dignity was pulled out of him in a single statement, but his raw mortification was broken as his friend fell by his side. Luke’s shoulders still trembled at each gasping breath, drawing more cries from his lungs and he folded into Alice, as he felt her arms wrap around him, like the first glimpse of sunlight cresting over the mountains, the first glowing warmth a cold world had to offer. She held his head to her chest and let him cry, and he did, harder now , his hands clutching the hem of her shirt as he allowed himself to break.

She tilted his head up, saw into his face, his eyes listless with dread. She was untouched by it, it was gentleness and kindness and all the good things he wished he’d had this morning. A few hours to read his Bible in the dawn, the drifting curtains of his bedroom window, the blueberry muffins meticulously wrapped on the kitchen counter, a strawberry so ripe it tasted like wine.

“… thank you…”

He breathed as she started to wipe the blood from his face, the dirt, and the blond boy, from his skin. He was so close to collapsing, his whole body aching, from being hung for so long. Everything else blotted out, and he closed his eyes, two more tears chasing each other to the edge of his jaw, feeling her fingers stroke through his hair, untangling the blood and sin.

Then he felt it… a pull like no other, magnetic, all consuming, like Alice was the center of a black hole and he were a galaxy slowly flooding into its wake. A deep breath and a kiss on his forehead, and it was like the pain was draining away, pulled from him, so fast that he gripped to her… falling towards the opposite of agony as she fell towards him. A gasp. And his eyes fluttered open, holding her so tight his knuckles where white on her shirt, and his forehead still pressed to hers.

The pain was etched on her face. Marked there. So potent he could practically taste it. The nerves of his body no longer screamed for reprieve. His blue gaze dropped to his wrists, to the healed skin where the chafe marks had cut into him.

Gone.

A miracle.

His hold on her loosened, whatever pain he’d endured it was like she had drawn it into herself. He didn’t think, he just wrapped his arms around the thin girls back and held to her, and didn’t say a word, pressing his cheek against her mousy brown hair, dampening it with tears, clutching tightly, so tightly he couldn’t catch his breath. Something inexplicable had happened...

But his heart understood.

I waited for an answered patiently, but people only seemed to drop out one by one. The eyes of the injured boy glanced at mine for a second before shame smeared itself on his face. He turned away as if he had been the victim of a spitting cobra. I sighed as my guts settled, and the nausea faded away.

"Clean him up I have to get out of here and I don't time have for this. My theory is; it looks like someone had their fun in some sick way, smearing their manhood all over his face." My eyes followed the guys path... No need to rub it in

I watched as the short haired girl approached him, cradled him into her arms as if she was able to wash everything away. He burrowed himself and broke. The sobs seemed to be ripped away in such a way you might of thought he had been killed. She started to take the grime of his face, and his lips uttered something to her. Thank you

Then it happened. Her face mirrored his pain and his transformed into relief. They almost seemed to collapse into each other, mold their situations into one. As if his injuries were sucked into her mind. What the hell did I take before coming here I stood up slowly fearing that the vomiting would hit again, and walked towards my assigned locker. Each step taken as if my soul remained trapped into the community center.

I opened my locker with enough silence to make the most infamous thief tremble in envy. I picked up my phone and checked to see how long I've been out for. Damn, I need to call my dealer because he definitely hooked me... Wait I'm not allowed to have any drugs in my system. I haven't even seen Misty since I got my sentence. I thought as confusion and dehydration started to take a toll. I reached for my bag and pulled out a bottle of water and drained as drinking it would wash everything away. Sucked it right into my stomach with enough ferocity I almost puked. "Ugh" I complained as I staggered towards the bucket again. It was frozen. I screamed, as if that could of woken me up from a weird dream. Or at least stopped me from tripping. Didn't work.

Alice's body was on the verge of collapsing.

Every muscle felt sore, like she had been beaten. And her back, oh, it felt like her shoulder blades had been ripped open. She tried to take deep breaths to keep her concious. But, god, it hurt so much!

Even through the pain, she could not be made oblivious to Luke's embrace, holding her tight.

Alice was so tired, and her body ached so much... She felt herself slide down from the bench to the blessed coolness of the floor, unwittingly bringing Luke with her. She stretched out her legs carefully and managed to put her head in Luke's lap.

She opened her eyes, staring into those blue eyes watching her so intently. Something was off... Alice half-heartedly puzzeled over it for a while before giving up; her mind clouded as it was.

With each wave the pain was becoming more bearable, though it had yet to lessen. She gazed at Luke's face, not really registering anything. And then it hit her, eyes widening in surprise.

The features she had uncovered on the boy's face were no longer laced with scratches and bruises, but were smooth as if it had never been there and his expression... it wasn't strained with agony. Even through the haze of pain Alice was awestruck.

A scream was let loose, but it seemed so far away that she barely registered it.

What had happened? she thought, panting quietly as a another, smaller wave of pain hit her. What has happened to us?

There was some sick irony in the way the world turned on its head in a single moment; a flash of lightening, a smile, a touch. One breath decided every other. Yesterday morning he’d gotten up with guilt in the pit of his stomach but a sense of clear morality. There were the spades, and the diamonds, and the clubs, and the hearts, there were the blacks and the whites, and everything to its place and in its place. Today. He had to disentangle the chaos of guilt coupled with shame, faith and sin, fear and hatred. He felt as sick as the day he’d read Leviticus for the first and last time, as sick as the moment he’d lowered the Bible to sit, open, against his chest, the moment he realized that his existence was a sin.

Luke, held onto the small thin girl, clutched her into his arms, breathing into her shoulder, feeling the heat of her shirt against each exhale, but he didn’t let her go. His clearing eyes were making sense of his world, little by little. The dark-haired girl who had stood in the archway leading to the showers, suddenly broke, her face pale, cold.

“I need air… I don’t know what this shit is all about, but I don’t even want to know… I just have to get out of here!”

She cut and ran from the room, out the door and into the hall till her footsteps trailed away, leaving silence in her wake.

She’d seen.

Luke’s attention dropped back to Alice. It was her, the other girl ran from, or maybe what it meant when the laws of the universe suddenly snapped and shattered into a thousand pieces, turned on their head, right before your eyes. All that pain switching bodies, absorbed, leaving him to catch his breath and Alice to chase for hers. She went limp, her weight pulling him off the bench with her till he landed on the floor, one leg folded under him, her, sliding down his body till her head landed in his lap.

Panic raced through him.

One of his hands stroked through her hair, pushing it from her face, and those green eyes met his with a piercing intensity. She must have realized, it must have registered with her, what had happened. This impossibility, this miracle. But a miracle with consequence. The color had paled from her face, like all that hurt had flowed over into her.

There wasn’t a bruise on his body, the cuts and scrapes were healed.

One of the new guys, the thin one with half his jumpsuit hanging off, was at his locker, checking his phone. The other boy with the caramel skin was in the bathroom, still, washing up. Luke could hear the sink running, the sound echoed around the locker room, like a radio stuck between stations.

He looked down into the girl’s face and every cell in his body told him to find some water for her, anything, but he didn’t move, didn’t want to drop her head from his lap, afraid to let go.

“Shhhh… Alice… I’m going to get you something to drink.” Luke whispered, looking up towards the skinny kid, about to ask for some help when the other boy screamed. He had left his locker and was standing by the door again, looking down into his bucket.

“Mother of God!!!” Luke said back in a hiss, his voice still sounded stuffy from crying. The scream had startled his already rapidly beating heart. He raised his eyebrows his eyes widening, a look of disbelief settling into his delicate features. He didn’t know why the other boy screamed and he was still blushing with shame, because all of them knew, thanks to the boy by the sinks what had happened to him. It made him sick. And his voice shook when he spoke.

“Are you okay??”

I decided to get dressed but I notice that I smelled like ass. So I jumped into one of the showers to get the horrible smell off of me. I was annoyed with the fact that I was here. Not to mention, that a kid was fucked up to a pulp. I'm so sure someone had their fun, and left him there. But no one else seemed to notice that there was someone’s semen all over his face.

I stood in the shower in a daze still mauling over everything that was happening. Half of me wished I could do something for the hurt boy, but he wasn't my problem. I had to worry about myself. Me, myself, and I.

As I washed down in the shower I started to feel a really bad headache… or migraine? I never understood the difference, but my head was killing me, It was worse than a hangover, it was to the point where I actually felt like I was passing out. Maybe I should get out of here.

I jumped out, grabbed a towel off the folded pile, and dried myself off. Then I put on that ass-ugly orange uniform on top of my white t-shirt.

I stepped outside of the bathroom and noticed the way everyone looked, so fucking gloomy, it annoyed me so much. I realized that I didn't have to go out for awhile so I sat there and decided to break the awkward silence. "I'm Edward Black, is there anything I can do to help? I know I seem brutally honest, but it’s just a wall..."

There was a bit of more of an awkward silence. I realized that this was going to be a long ass day...

“Mother of God!!!” I heard the boy in the room scream back, it seemed I unsettled him... I was too freaked out the care. I looked down at the bucket and placed a hand into my head. I breathed, at least once possibility was out of the question. I glanced at him before looking down at the bucket again. “Are you okay??”

"I puked not too long ago; I spent the night in a community center; To top that off I think I'm going crazy". I stated calmly. I tipped the bucket with my foot causing it to fall facing them. Part of me prayed for it to spill, make a splash. Instead it emitted an uncanny clunk. "Now if that spilled and spread all over the place. I need to be hospitalize," I lifted my eyes up, and set them on his. My face slightly concerned over my well being. "If its frozen something is all sort of fucked up around here." I pressed my right hand into my head, as started to lean my back against the locker. I flinched at the cold, before settling. Then I noticed that pain was no longer carved into his face, and the girl laid in his lap.

They switched roles? Maybe they're connected to the frozen bucket of freshly puked vomit[Possible]. Maybe I am in an alternate dimension[Doubt it]. Maybe I'm locked up in a room and this is all going on in my head[Too much TV]. Maybe I turned into some sort of freak that can freeze shit; well... Vomit. I need to lay off the drugs. I shook my head, and chuckled meekly at myself.

As I waited for their answer, the guy that escaped the room early showed back up.

"I'm Edward Black, is there anything I can do to help? I know I seem brutally honest, but it’s just a wall..." I looked at him, as he spoke. Honesty was something I craved at that point, but someone else needed help. I sighed, and calculated the scene.

"We can worry about my sanity later. First we need to help..." I looked at the short haired girl, then back to the boy whose injuries disappeared. "The girl. You should clean up." I stated as I reached back into my locker, and pulled out a bottle of water. I walked towards the girl offering it. "Here, is not full but it sure is better than nothing." I smiled.

"I'm Nerio by the way, Nerio de Agueros." I claimed to everyone in the room.

Alice was concentrating on breathing. Slow breath in, slow breath out. And it seemed to be working. The voices around her abruptly focused, like turning up a radio.

"...to top that off, I think I'm going crazy," a male voice concluded calmly.

Alice turned her head slightly to see a boy with a scar across his cheek using his foot to tip a bucket toward them. it fell with a resounding clunk, some odd concoction frozen inside.

"Now if that spilled and spread all over the place. I need to be hospitalized," he said, his face concerned, "If it's frozen, something is all sort of fucked up around here." Alice wanted to speak and reassure him, but no word would ever fall from her lips; not a word, and besides, she was too tired to if she could.

The boy put a hand to his head and leaned against a locker, looking anxious. His eyes wandered toward Alice and Luke, widening in surprise. He shook his head and chuckled, as if this wasn't real. This had to be real, right? The pain felt real enough. Why would Alice feel pain in a dream, experienced as she was with dreaming.

"I'm Edward Black, is there anything I can do to help? I know I seem brutally honest, but it’s just a wall..."

Another boy had entered from the bathrooms, the one who had handed her the washcloth. His hair was still dripping, and had dampened his orange suit at the collar.

Edward, Alice repeated silently.

"We can worry about my sanity later. First we need to help the girl. You should clean up," the other boy said, redirecting Alice's attention. He opened his locker to produce a bottle of water, coming closer to offer it to her.

"Here, is not full but it sure is better than nothing," He said kindly, adding a smile. "I'm Nerio by the way, Nerio de Agueros."

Alice unconciously signed "Thank you" and claimed the bottle, not having noticed before how thirsty she was. She downed the bottle's contents and handed it shyly back to Nerio with a weak smile.

My cig was burning so low, burning the skin off of my fingers but I did not notice it. The way you really don't notice the sun. Funny... when the moon comes out, everyone looks, they say how beautiful it is, or even notice if it's not in the sky. But the sun... you never hear anyone say how beautiful the sun is... You just don't.

And right now I didn't notice that the only smell was my flesh, burning away.

I had made it to the lone bathroom, entering and locking the door behind me. That face still lingered as I looked in the mirror. I saw Beatrice, and then I saw Luke. Both beyond beautiful, almost other-worldy with the way they looked.

His blue eyes always had me lost... almost like I didn't want to hurt him, there was a part of me that wanted to keep him, keep him as mine. But that was my humanity... and was sure I stamped the last of that out of me.

But it was here... inside me, burning so brightly the light hurt my darkened heart. Hurt the soul that never existed but merely lingered.

I didn't know what to think about what was happening... about how things were turning out. I just wanted to cause a little chaos... have some fun and then be left alone. But it seemed as if things weren't going to turn out the way I planned.

It seemed like... somewhere inside of me I cared, only I really didn't. I looked at those blue eyes... hers, his, and mine. Staring back at me.

And then they were both gone, and there was only me. Only my face, cruel and angular staring back at me... but this time... this time there was something in the corners of my mouth, and something in the creases of my eyes... telling me everything and nothing at the same time.

And then I remembered Fire... how it took her, burned her, and how it would take him as well... the Fire would burn out the light in his blue eyes until he was nothing but a dead boy... one that used to have all the hope in the world, but now has nothing, nothing at all.

And just like Fire took her, and would take him... it would conquer me as well, and we would meld together, my god and I.

And maybe then at the very end... I would be free, and that was okay... even if it meant me being completely alone.

I shook myself off my thoughts, rinsing my hands off in the sink even though they weren't dirty... at least in that sense. I kept thinking of Luke, so small and innocent... vulnerable and I knew I would have my way with him. I knew he would be mine in every sense of the word.

I turned off the water and went to take a piss, and then I heard it... a loud knock on the bathroom door. I pulled my zipper down and pulled out my cock getting ready to pee before I heard a much louder and persistent knock.

"It's occupado buddy!" I yelled, shaking my head in annoyance.

I relaxed a little, trying to finally release and then I heard it again, it sounded so loud, like the freaking door was going to cave it. What the fuck was this guy's problem??

"Look! If you want you can join me for a piss if you are really that impatient... jesus." I growled.

It got quiet... Finally.

BANG BANG BANG

"What the ACTUAL fuck!" I yelled zipping myself up and storming to the door before throwing it open...

"What the hell is your-"

I was slammed backwards by a large man, my back cracking into the urinal. I didn't know who it was yet, I hadn't got a good look at him, but whoever he was... he was strong.

I shook my head, stars creeping through my brain before finally focusing on who attacked me, it was Peter.

But it didn't look like Peter. His eyes were blood shot, and almost a vicious red, like he was bitter through his soul. His body was practically rippling with more muscles than the guy had last time I saw him. To be honest he looked like a steriod junkie, and he was strong like one too.

He came at me again, punching me in the face and using that key moment to throw me into the mirror, my head splitting open, crimson drenching my white-blonde hair before slipping down to stain my clothing. The mirror was shattered behind me, pieces of my flesh and hair snagged in the jagged lines.

"Fucking Prometheus!" I cursed, spitting out a mouthful of blood from the last punch.

"Come on bitch... you wanna fight, well you fucking got one." I snarled using my fist to deliver a cold, hard uppercut to the much larger man, before slamming him so hard into the urinal it broke, pieces falling to the floor.

I stared... it was supposed to hurt him... not the freaking urinal. What the fuck was this guy on?!

He seemed so crazy... and then he grabbed me by my throat, lifting me clean off the ground, my feet dangling, flailing and trying to get away. He squeezed me, cutting off my breath. Black lights popped behind my eye lids as I spit hard, blood splatter landing on his face... making him even angrier, than before. He started to shake me and I followed his short movements like a rag doll.

He slammed my head back into the mirror again, rubbing it nice and hard into the shards, before grabbing one, and positioning it right above my heart...

I was going to die... but not today.

He started to growl at me and I kicked him, hard in his stomach, watching as he stumbled back into the wall. I was starting to feel a little dizzy from the blood loss in my head. Drops were splattering my face, like freckles, and I needed to get away...

The Ax!

I made a mad dash for the door, slipping out into the hallway...

"Come on you fat fuck! You want me?? Huh stupid?? Come and get me!" I egged him, throwing my insults at him and running, hard and fast.

Shit... fucking Fire, he was fast, so fast... and something weird was happening. My chest felt so hot, like I was burning from the inside out. I didn't know what was going on... it didn't feel right.

Like there was ash in my soul, I ran even faster, blinking away the blood that was slipping into my eyes, blinding me. And then I saw it... the locker room door, I was almost there. I just needed to get in there and grab that weapon and finish him.

I was almost free.

Tension and chaos were an unsettled union between two forces that were entirely different by experience alone. Tension slowed down every moment till Luke was painfully aware of every exhale and every inhale, every potential glance in his direction, and chaos transformed the eternity of that torturous moment into a blur.

The tall thin boy kicked over his bucket, it hit the floor with a resounding bang and rolled on its rim in short half-circles before coming to a stop, facing them, its contents weighted but completely solid.

"I puked not too long ago; I spent the night in a community center; To top that off I think I'm going crazy"

He wouldn’t have been the only one. By this point Luke had begun to realize that reason had tilted on its axis and was now spiraling out of control. His life had fallen into the realm of insanity in the space and time of a single day, ever since the lightening strike, or perhaps ever since he’d met that blond boy. Same thing, really.

His stomach roiled on cue.

"Now if that spilled and spread all over the place. I need to be hospitalized."

Luke paled.

He thought he might have an idea of where this was going. His mind was racing at a thousand miles a millisecond. The laws of physics had been thrown in the face of God, and snapped in half. The world didn’t work like this. Someone didn’t absorb your pain into their own mind, and no one froze anything at will. They should be dead, or at least injured, but aside from a few scrapes and bruises, there didn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with them, unless the damage wasn’t physical… or, perhaps they WERE dead and this was just some purgatory they were forced to endure until they had served their sentence.

"If it’s frozen something is all sort of fucked up around here."

A few seconds passed with no reply. Luke opened and closed his mouth letting out only the tiniest of throaty whimpers that couldn’t conjure a sentence if it had hoped to.

“It’s… frozen.” Luke finally worked the words out of his mouth, they tumbled out and circled in the air like a dying moth, writhing in its final agony. His voice sounded small, shaky, and high-pitched, his hands were still trembling slightly, but no longer from pain or lack of bloodflow. Embarrassment embedded itself into his guts and gripped him so tightly it was hard to breathe.

He felt the heat graze his cheeks with the thought of what the new boy might think of him, after walking in on such a scene. The darker skinned one had been sure to announce to the whole group his situation and even though his body was no longer beaten, his stomach was churning with the kind of guilt that was waiting to eat him alive… as soon as he was alone.

Luke lifted Alice’s head from his lap gently, tucking a few strand of her mousy brown hair behind her ears and pulling an abandoned duffle bag, that was stuffed haphazardly beneath a bench, across the floor. He pushed it up against her back, propping her there, stroking her hair back from her face, and now kneeling by her side.

He was bent, his wooden cross swung in the air beneath his throat, a testament to a protection that hadn’t come.

The caramel skinned boy from the bathroom walked in, still dripping wet, he’d clearly taken a shower and freshly dressed into the orange suit they were all forced to wear. Luke felt his heart beat more furiously, lowering his head so he didn’t make eye-contact.

"I'm Edward Black, is there anything I can do to help? I know I seem brutally honest, but it’s just a wall..."

Luke wasn’t exactly planning to tell either of them his name, it would make it worse somehow if they knew who he was.

"We can worry about my sanity later. First we need to help... the girl. You should clean up.”

“I’m not going to leave her…” Luke said softly as the thin stranger handed Alice the water bottle, his wide blue-eyed gaze slowly followed the bottle, to the other boy’s hand, arm, and up to his shoulder to his face like it took a great effort to actually lift his head.

"I'm Nerio by the way, Nerio de Agueros."

Luke knelt there on the ground, his jaw set with the kind of tension that tightened his whole body, he looked like a cornered animal. “Luke Sterling.” He replied quietly and one of his hands lifted to brush into Alice’s hair again, it almost looked defensive, but inside he knew it was more for his security than the girl’s “And this is Alice…”

He didn’t dare look at Edward as he stood slowly, reaching for the wet washcloth, using it to wipe off his chin and neck. He’d just opened his mouth to ask the two new boys a question when he heard an ungodly commotion in the hall. Someone was yelling, screaming at someone else, the sound echoed off the hallway and by the time it reached them it was just white noise, not yet discernible.

He looked to Nerio for a reaction, hoping for something to go off of. “You can hear that too, right?”

For some reason it made him lower back onto the floor, back to Alice, slipping his hands under her arms, tugging her to her feet, and sitting her on the bench, trying to get her up encase they had to run. Whatever it was sounded like it was heading straight for them, the sounds were getting nearer.

No one seemed to say any thing at first I was annoyed already and maybe I should've just kept my wall up and not cared.You could feel the tension in the room. I tried to dry my hair while I was still soaked in my orange suit.

I sat down with the group waiting for someone to say something. Then one of the guys kicked a bucket, which I found random, and he responded "I puked not too long ago; I spent the night in a community center; To top that off I think I'm going crazy," my thought was that we were all going crazy. Just this situation was stupid, psychotic, and weird...I think I'm making a list in my mind.

I turned my attention to the brunette and watched him. He looked like shit, and the way he moved and struggled to get up made him look like he was REALLY drunk. But I could see he wanted to be left to himself like he needed to keep some of his pride, so I just left him to alone. Getting out of my thoughts, I heard the boy say, "Now if that spilled and spread all over the place. I need to be hospitalized." I think we all need to, he was not the only one. I'm sure the brunette's head was some where else. But I would have loved to have got his name.

But when we all looked inside it was frozen. Holy shit !Why?! "If it’s frozen something is all sort of fucked up around here." I heard the boy reply. I was creep-ed the fuck out. Was this a dream? I heard the brunette slip from his lips, “It’s… frozen.”...So then none of us were tripping on acid and it definitely wasn't a dream.

Knowing each others names was the least of our worries, all of the shit that just happened was really weird. But I wanted everyone to know mine. Which I did, but then the boy responded that we should get the small brown haired girl cleaned up. Which was a great idea. The brunette didn't want to leave her and I don't think any one did, even though half of me kind of wanted to but I was already in too deep.

Someone actually introduced themselves "I'm Nerio by the way, Nerio de Agueros." which was a sexy foreign name, and I thought it was nice. the brunette finally introduced himself as Luke Sterling and the girl's name was Alice. All I could think about was that his name was from the bible like an angel...I think I never really read it. But the girl I thought of Alice In Wonderland. It was a great way to remember their names.

I was done with my thoughts when I heard something..."Hey guys what the fuck is that sound it sounds like construction in the fucking hallways...and it sounds like itls getting closer every second...it actually sounds like a person or..." the two boys looked at me like I was crazy until I could tell that they heard it too. “You can hear that too, right?” So now I know I wasn't going crazy.

I saw Luke back next to Alice...Oh shit just got real at this place I could only give a terrified look for what ever we were hearing... it was definitely hell coming through those doors...

Luke. Even after he gently removed her head from his lap, he was still stroking her hair. Almost like her mom had once done when she was a small child, tucking it neatly behind Alice's ear. She savored the rare touch even as her nerves pulsed angrily in unison.

The bag she was proped against made small guttural protests as she breathed deeply, forcibly relaxing her muscles as she let herself sink in. It pulled the heat from her neck and pooled it there uncomfortably. And there was the smell Alice had noticed before, the faintest hint of roses. She had heard many times before that the rich scent was often a sign of the presence of the Blessed Mother. Alice had always liked such vague and faciful ideas no matter the origin of it. She always made a wish on every eyelash and eagerly awaited every baby's first laugh.

But the air was static here, like someone was holding their breath, trying to disappear. Luke. He seemed so nervous, his small form somehow managing to condense to an unnatural size as he crouched beside her.

Why would he be so frightened? Nerio had been quite kind, and so was the other boy, Edward. She tried to smile; tried to lend some comfort to her tense friend, but it turned into a wince of pain. Alice forced herself to close her eyes again and counted out her breaths.

This wasn't so bad, she tried to convince herself as she unconciously rubbed her numbed wrists. This whole situation didn't really make any sense to her, but she only knew it was true and couldn't be bothered further by it's unlikeihood.

"Luke Sterling," Luke almost whispered. His face had become so uncharactistically sharp as he clenched his jaw. He fingered at a lock of Alice's hair before smoothing it down, running his fingers through her hair once again. “And this is Alice…”

And then, out of nowhere, the feeling of the room became thick, the air heavy with angry voices. Loud, distant bangs added to the chorus of a terrifing composition. And it was getting louder. Alice's eyes widened in fear, remembering the booming thunder that had always sent her scurrying beneath her bed.

"Hey guys, what the fuck is that sound?! It sounds like construction in the fucking hallways...and it sounds like it's getting closer every second...it actually sounds like a person or..." Edward practically yelled, incredulous.

“You can hear that too, right?” Luke's voice was low and serious.

The room was almost like a sick funhouse, everyone's face mirroring each other's fear. Alice was so scared, she wanted to cover her ears; pretend it wasn't there like a bad dream. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt someone urgently pulling at her. She fought back, all pain forgotten in the flood of adrenaline, until she opened her eyes to see Luke. He was struggling to tug her upward onto the bench, and she quickly tried to scramble there though only really succeeding in making useless, jerking movements. Alice sat there terrified and she clutched to Luke's dirty shirt as they all stared at the locker room door.

"Shit!" I yelled as I felt Peter tackle me to the hard flooring. My jaw smashing downwards as I felt blood pooling in my mouth.

"Mother-" I was suddenly yanked backwards by my ankle, and I felt myself being dragged across the floor, back to where he was waiting to kill me.

I felt panic slip throughout be and the blood in my mouth begin to boil... actually boil. I was afraid... for the first time since I was 4, I was frightened.

His breathing was heavy and foul as I realized was staring into his ugly fucking face, what a troll.

"Let... GO!" I growled, trying to kick at his much stronger body as I tried to avoid the knife that he was swinging all over the place. What was wrong with this guy?? He was a bit of a dick... but he never seemed to be violent.

Then again... a lot of things had been really weird since that storm.

Even me.

I felt the blood in my mouth boiling, but it didn't burn my tongue. I gritted my teeth before spitting the hotter than hell blood onto Peter's face. He screamed and released me, hands clutching his face as nasty burns appeared and my blood mingled with his.

I looked at him in shock... what was happening to me? What was I?

A lot of things in life are confusing, how people talk, what they say, the human condition... but this was downright baffling.

I didn't have time to dwell before Peter ran for me again... I was scared and angry, angry that I had no control. And out of sheer fucking stupidity I launched myself at him, hands outreached, pressing against his chest.

He screamed, shrill and other-worldly... he fell to his knees as reaching for his chest, tearing off his shirt. My eyes widened as I saw his skin blistered and burnt.

Looking down at my hands I was in awe... what... what was this?

I shook myself from my thoughts and took the oppurtunity where he was flailing and screaming, his veins looking as if they would burst, to book it for the locker room doors. I was almost there... I could see them from where I was.

I was almost there.

"It's... frozen" The newly healed boy manage, his voice meek and petty. I can freeze things... but why? What about when I woke up, they were in the room already. Something is off I felt my stomach twist in fear this time.

“I’m not going to leave her…” The boy said, and I felt his gaze make it's way from my hands to my face. Shame seemed to have hung from his neck.

“Luke Sterling,” The brunette boy stated, as he tucked the girl's hair behind her ear. A father protecting his little girl's innocence. "And this is Alice."

Luke stood up slowly, his eyes cemented to the ground. Part of me wanted to say something, however this didn't seemed the time or the place and there were too many things to think about.

"It's... frozen," I froze. it. How, I barely thought about it when the smell was too overpowering. Is like it was an extension of myself. The kid... Luke he was the one that needed help, but now the girl has... Sucked into her whatever he was feeling. What the fuck is going on. I pressed my hand onto my left temple, as if it could somehow silence my head. Then came the noises. I felt my blood run cold, and a terrible chill crawl it's way from the soles of my feet. Claw its way through my back and plant itself in my thoughts. It must be a side effect I lied to myself before Edward's voice broke through the murk that was now my mind.

"Hey guys what the fuck is that sound it sounds like construction in the fucking hallways...and it sounds like itls getting closer every second...it actually sounds like a person or..." I stared at him half crazed, a quarter shocked, and what remained was glad I definitely wasn't crazy... psych ward crazy anyways. "Two people can't be wrong" I recalled my science teacher's voice, and felt it echoed through every bone to my body. I was quivering.

I noticed Luke stopped himself, as if the same noise made itself far more important than was about to escape his lips. “You can hear that too, right?” Luke confirmed it. I took in a deep breath and calmed my nerves. I've been through worst So I thought anyways... Something was certain things were about to get a heck of a lot more interesting.

"We need to get out of here..." Then I heard the shrill of a monster in pain. Angry enough to make blood boil. Whatever it was it was getting closer. I Looked around and noticed there was only a way in. The thought of dissolving crossed my head, and I felt the same sickness from before creep up. I placed a transparent hand over my mouth and breathed. I felt my insides settle, and watched my hand in amazement. "Whatever that is is angry." Another scream followed, heck of a lot angrier than before, almost as if confirming my statement. "If we use that against it" I approached Luke, and Alice helping her up. However gentleness was the last thing in my mind. We needed to move. For a second I considered hiding her in a locker, after all she was in no condition for a run let alone a fight. "We'll be fine" I forced a smile as I looked into both of their eyes. I glanced at Edward, and judged his arms. He was fit.

"We can probably hold it off... There has to be something we can use as a" I glanced around the locker room. "Weapon."