Chapter Seventeen

It hurts.

It hurts so good, and so bad, and everything in between. I relish the pain, and can't stop toying with my new piercings, trying to make it hurt even more. If my mother could see me now, she'd be having a fit. At least, she would have been having one if I was anyone but my father's murderer.

"You like the freedom, don't you Seb?" He laughs and smiles at me, black eyes burning Hell and roaring fire in my soul. I let it swallow me and let the smirk curl the ends of my mouth.

"Yeah, I do." He sidles closer to me and in the dim lighting I can make out his pointed canines. I wonder how they would feel against my lips. I shudder at the thought, both in fear and excitement.

We're in the basement of his shared house. The bass from upstairs resonates throughout the entire house, throughout my bones. My fingertips vibrate with the beat, and I lick my suddenly dry lips as he leans in closer to me, peering at my face.

"Those piercings look good on you." His words slip over me like a snake, breath ghosting along my lips and making my piercing tingle in pain as my lower lip throbs with excited blood. Twisting, they fill my ears and repeat over and over in my mind until it becomes a part of the beat thrumming through the house. I wonder if he can feel it too.

"I do." I look at him in confusion through my haze and he smiles slowly at me, like a snake eyeing its prey as I would later remember it. "I said I can feel the beat too. It cuts right through you, doesn't it? Makes you feel like you're existing, alive and here in this very moment. Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy, and I want out. But other times, I love it." He confided in me and my heart slowly swelled a little bit more, blood pumping faster. I mistook it for love at the time, but it was really my body telling me to run. "Do you ever feel that?" My lips cracked as they parted, and I could feel beads of blood seep out between the stiff folds. I licked them away and smiled inwardly at the sting.

"Yes."

"There are times when I'm not sure I even exist." He turns away from me, long black hair falling forward to shield his face from my view. I itch to pull it away like a curtain, to see his beautifully haunted face. "I'll wake up and look around and wonder why I'm still here. I wonder what I've got to live for, when everything I ever tried to live for turned around and pushed me off a cliff. It's like one day, I stopped being loved. I stopped being who I was. I just disappointed everyone, because I didn't grow up to be exactly like they hoped." He turned to look at me. "Hope is a funny thing, Sebastian. It tells you to believe the person beating you over and over will stop when they don't. Then you end up in hospital." He smiled a slow, sad smile.

For the rest of our relationship, we never got back to that stage. I used to think he was lying to me the whole time, and for the most part he was. I later realised that this was the only time he was truly honest with me. Something had killed him in his past, and it was that something that made him nearly kill me too.


Once again, I'm back to watching the night sky.

There aren't any stars out tonight; they're all hidden by thick clouds. I crane my neck out the window, absentmindedly lifting another cigarette to my lips and inhaling. The burst of nicotine swells and races in my bloodstream and I close my eyes to hold it, and my breath, in until I feel myself going dizzy. Then I exhale and let it all out. My fingers tremble and I bring the stick back to my lips. This time, I watch the embers flare an angry orange-red and consume the paper. They flare brighter and brighter as I suck as much as I can, trying to keep the embers alive. But eventually I can't inhale anymore and with a rush, exhale everything. The cigarette returns to its dull, lightly lit colour and I flick it away. It falls through the fire escape into the blackness of the alley.

"Sebastian?" I startle at the sound of my name and see Dai rustling beneath the blanket I draped over him when he fell asleep on my couch. "Why's it so dark?" He suddenly appears, bleary-eyed and my heart flips. He yawns, stretches, and rubs his eyes. He then blinks and looks around. "Oh, it's night." He glances down, and I can't see his face as he realises I've draped a blanket over him. He clears his throat and I decide I need to stop him from saying something stupid, like thanking me.

"There are no stars tonight." Dai looks at me in confusion.

"Okay..." He says slowly before getting up and walking over to me. He leans over me and looks out the window. I watch him as he turns his face to the sky, and squints, looking for stars. His hair falls softly over his shoulders and I realise how long it's getting. Before I can stop myself, I reach a hand out and brush my fingers through the strands. It falls through my fingers like silk, softening my rough hands. Then I notice him looking at me, his gaze hooded by the shadows. My eyes dart to his little birthmark, over his lips, and then into his eyes. I want to jump into them and see where I land. He leans towards me suddenly, his eyes slipping half-closed. I find myself leaning towards him too. His breath mingles with my own and I lick my lips, trying to taste it.

"You're wrong." He smiles suddenly at me and I blink at him. "There's a star, right up there." He points and I follow his finger to see nothing. I look back at him.

"There's nothing there."

"Look again."

So I do. I squint and strain my eyes until I see, in the distance, a very faint but still existing pinprick of light. Perhaps I am imagining it, because I want to see what Dai sees so badly.

"It's okay if you can't see it at first." Dai murmurs; his breath is hot in the shell of my ear. I'm suddenly reminded of him, and how he used to stand close behind me, his words snaking around and into my ear canal to lay rest and feed on me like maggots. I draw away and turn to look at him. "Light will always exist even when you can't see it at first. It just means you weren't looking hard enough."


It's been three weeks since I saw him at the park, three weeks spent looking over my shoulder and feeling the familiar trembles dance along my spine. Skye did not ask me about him when I next saw her, and Dai and I never talked about it. We never talked, not when I could draw it.

I look down morosely at the page full of dark, black eyes staring out at me, defiantly shaped jaws haunting me, twisted smirk forever ingrained in my memory. It was as if he never left my sketchbook, even though after it ended I tore out all my old pages and watched as fire consumed them and turned them into black, fluttering scraps of paper that were about as flimsy as his non-existent heart.

"Sebby!" My name followed by sharp raps on the door signalled Skye was here. I closed my sketchbook, slipping it between the couch cushions before I went to answer the door. Opening it, a buzzcut Skye stood looking up at me with a cheeky grin.

"What now, brat?" I said with irritation although the real malice had long gone by now. She pushed past me and did a twirl in the middle of my living room.

"Do you like it?" I raised an eyebrow.

"What the – " I stop the expletive about to slip out from my mouth and clear my throat. "What are you talking about?"

"My new piercings! I have one in each ear!" Skye smiles happily before doing a ballerina twirl over to me and showing me her left ear. I bend down to look at it. It's a silver stud that glints in the light of my apartment. She turns back to look at me. Her eyes are bluer and brighter than ever as she stares into my own haunted eyes with a swirling fearlessness and desperation for approval.

"You look pretty." Slips out of my mouth before I can even register what I'm saying and she smiles, quite possibly, the biggest smile I've ever seen her do.

"Thanks. Now come on Sebby, Dai and Yuki are waiting for us! You promised to teach me how to ride a bike, remember?"

It's too hot to be outside, but I'm holding the bike and running along with Skye down the path anyway. We haven't come back since the last time when she couldn't get the hang of it.

"Come on Skye, you're doing great! Don't worry okay? Sebastian's got you, so just relax." Dai encourages her, a wide smile on his beautiful face. His chocolate eyes are warm and filled with mirth, his hair blowing crazily about in the breeze as he runs with the two of us.

"I can't!" Skye wails and puts her feet out, so I stop. I sigh heavily.

"Dai, take over for me? The stupid brat is giving me a headache." I say and let Dai hold her. "I'm going to sit down." I announce to them before walking over to the grass and flopping down on it. I close my eyes, letting my heart return to its normal pace as I listen to Dai continuing to encourage Skye. I prop myself up, watching as Skye nods her fuzzy head. Her hair is growing back pretty fast so it sticks out everywhere, sort of like a shoe brush I told her last week. Today, she's wearing her favourite jeans: the ones she writes all her wishes on. I wonder if there's enough time to do them all, and more.

She's become skinnier. Her wrists have thinned to twigs and I keep worrying if she's going to twist her wrist too much so it snaps right off. Her face has become just as hollow and the circles beneath her eyes have gotten larger. I wonder if she notices this, if she wakes up every day to the mirror and wants to cry when she remembers.

As if sensing I am thinking about her, she turns her head to me and I'm captured by her ever bright, baby blue eyes. In spite of her appearance, there are times when I just can't believe someone like her is sick – someone so vibrant, so cheerful, so full of life. It just doesn't seem right that she be consumed by death.

"Seba-kun! Help?" Dai calls out to me and I exhale loudly as if I'm bored. Then I get up and take control of the handle, our fingertips brushing for a second and causing my nerves to fire up with excitement. Then I'm pushing Skye, and Dai is skipping alongside us before breaking into a run. Skye's feet push on the pedals and her hands tighten hard on the bars. Suddenly, I find Skye is pulling ahead so I have to run faster to keep up but she's going so fast that she's practically flying. I realise somewhere, I have released my hold on her and she's doing it. She's riding a bike and the wind is causing her white blouse to billow out behind her like a pair of puffed up angel wings. A whoop slips out from my lips and Dai is laughing beside me, cheering Skye on as we try to follow her. I can hear her tinkling laughter as she cries out.

"I'm doing it Sebby! Dai, I'm doing it! I can ride a bike!" She yells and laughs as birds flutter out of trees looming above her. I smile, listening to her and Dai's laughter mixing together to create the most beautiful sound.

I even managed to forget about the monster, to forget that it was lying in wait to strike. I forgot to look out for it and everyone knows that that's the moment when it dives and sinks its fangs into you, venom leaking into your veins and paralysing you. I don't quite remember when I heard her laughter turn into a shriek of surprise, then a scream of pain, and then silence. I don't remember looking at Dai before both of us broke out in a sprint towards her prone body. I don't remember the blood that was leaking out faster than normal, nor do I remember trying to staunch it. I don't remember the ambulance that came careening around the corner, the stretcher that her body slipped onto as easily as a ragdoll, the countless hands and beeping monitors, the questions being fired at us before they gave up trying to ask us at all and closed the doors on us. I only remember thinking that it was my fault for letting the monster get to her in the first place.


inspiration lies in the funniest places.

once again, thank you.