Growing Pains

I'm the “smart” guy, at least that's what everyone calls me. I have many other skills and hobbies but I get the “smart” label just because I get straight A’s, it's not hard for me you know? I don’t even pay much attention, I just catch up with the subject at the last chance. I guess if I put in more effort I’d be a model student, but unfortunately I’m a lazy bum. My classmates ask me for answers, even if I don’t have them. They call me weird just because I want to talk to them, no one tells me things, I’m just a weird, smart transfer student. 

I used to have friends, good friends but my parents thought they were a bad influence and sent me off to a different school. Which is why I'm struggling to interact with people here. All I do with my dad is argue and argue, my dad incriminates me every time I make a stupid joke or I do something he doesn't like. I feel trapped, I can’t do anything to help myself and I can’t defend myself against him, I just want it all to stop.

He sits in the cold, dark room, where no one hears his cries, he doesn’t want them to. He wants to boil in hate and anger so that he can have a reason to be cold, so he feels worthy to be with friends he hates, but all he can do is flash his true feelings to the worn, cold floor.

I wish people would talk to me, no one ever comes up to me to ask if I want to go to a party, no one comes to me when they want to talk to someone while waiting for classes. In fact, there was an event at our school where people would pick a random stick with a classmates name on it and have to write a Christmas letter about the person's good features and by some horrible coincidence (everyone avoided my name) only two people wrote to me, and they were the nice, sociable people that like everyone and think everyone is their friend, well I’m not their friend, I want my own friends back, I want friends that talk to me. 

He hates it all, these people just don’t feel right, they're like the same people as his old school but reused. He doesn’t want to be defined, doesn’t want to be dissected by people who don’t know him. He wants a quiet, luminous life in his harmonious imagination. He wants people that see him pure as he could be, down to his cold, petrified heart. and want to be with him, even with the dying tendrils dangling off his heart, slowly burning into his soul, he has desire.

“Michael, MICHAEL” “What?” I muttered as I was dragged out of my trance. “Stop looking at us, we’re talking about a private matter” the person annoyingly replies “sorry, I was just zoning out” I pathetically retort. Great, another awkward interaction, all I want is for people to w̶o̶r̶s̶h̶i̶p̶ respect me, but I guess my all-nighters aren’t helping. I’m so hungry, It almost feels like the inside of my stomach is trying to eat itself, as usual. It's the last period and the person who just talked to me is supposed to be my friend, but she doesn’t come to hug me when she greets me, I’m not the person who she talks to when she wants to talk, but I guess you’re getting tired of me talking about how everyone avoids me.

At home he can read and lose himself in the story, a story he wishes he could share with someone. He always feels dirty, laying there, on his colorful, hard bed. Tired and worn out from school, He feels bad for not doing his homework, he feels horrible in fact, but he can’t bring himself to focus, as usual.

I’ve never been in love, I guess it’s a good thing seeing as I see so much drama connected to it. I tell people I’m not in love and they don’t believe me. Am I supposed to feel like this? I just don’t feel things like that, is that so wrong? But anyway I got tired of people asking and faked a crush on a girl named “Brooklyn” I didn’t even realize that I didn’t like her, at first I thought I did, but when I really thought about it I didn’t feel anything for her, but I’m still pretending to, because I don’t want people to go back to thinking I’m weird.

He listens to another song, letting himself let go of his overactive imagination. It's so colorful.

When I listen to songs I imagine a person singing in a simple, cartoonish art style and I try to add things the song talks about, like an animation. The only drawback is that if I watch something in a certain art style, my brain automatically copies that art style and I'm stuck with that for a couple hours. Which brings me to the point, I have a friend that listens to music a lot more than me. Me and him have been getting closer, he likes writing and listens to music 12 hours a day, which is insane. The only flaw in our friendship is the fact that he listens to so much music he never listens to me when I’m trying to tell him something, and I’m really sick of people not listening to me.

There's going to be a field trip to this place called Mount Rubidoux soon. I went there a couple times, it's a 3-mile hike up. There's a huge cross (that’ll please my school) and an American flag at the top. It's actually kind of fun to hike there, but it's really windy up there and it looks dangerous because there are no railings, a high drop and plenty of sharp rocks. I hope it goes well though, because I love running, and I’ll be surrounded by bored teenagers so at least there’s a good chance one of them will acknowledge or talk to me.

I can fix this.

He runs happily, unknowing and naive to the upcoming danger. The teachers call to him, he's too ahead of the others, running like that. He listens to music so he can’t hear them, he’s in his own little world. Suddenly, he hits a curved turn, his brain took too long to register this abrupt turn and he runs right into a steep drop, his eyes widened as he realized that he was about to fall to his untimely demise. Gravity took him down and he flew into the hard rocks, his mind was racing but as he fell, he smiled.

“The End” 

“Dang it!”

My eyes opened, it hurt so much. My eyes unfocused and focused, I can’t see. My face screwed up in frustration. It took them a while to find me dangling off the cliff and by the time they did my back was burned badly, it was inflamed and peeling. As I was falling my shoe laces somehow got tangled with a tree branch that, weirdly, managed to grow in the California heat. After they realized I was gone, (which took a pathetically long while) they sent every student to go look for me, their voices rang out yelling “MICHAEL, WHERE ARE YOU?” finally I gathered my thoughts. I yelled back to them with labored breathing “HERE, IM HERE!” I mean if I’m not going to die then why should I stay here hanging upside down in front of the California sun? They found me and helped me up. After that whole fiasco my mom treated my wounds and took me to the doctor. She said that if there was even one little thing that permanently damaged me she’d sue the school. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything else wrong with me. But the school did get fined and investigated.

Remember the friend I told you about? The one who listens to music 24/7? Well, he’s more useful than I thought. He's not only music obsessed but he’s a quiet kid, and apparently quiet kids are good at gathering information. I asked him how everyone saw me before the incident and he said people called me “weird” which I guess is fair but it still hurt me. After the field trip he told me people started calling me Michael “Won’t die” Sonce, which is also fair. I did notice girls talking to me softly and people being generally nicer to me, which I don’t deserve, I was stupid enough to run right off a cliff edge. 

Whenever I try to sleep I wake up unpleasantly, I guess falling off a cliff hit me harder than I thought. Many times I go through this weird altered version of my house, it's so familiar, yet it doesn't feel like home. Whenever I look around I see a shadow following my eyes, and I hear a distant humming. It's actually kind of terrifying, and ever since that dream started I haven’t been able to look in a mirror, it feels like I’ve been constricted. I’ve also been getting more of another dream that's actually been recurring for years now. In the dream there is a long spiral staircase that I am in the middle of and there is a monster at the bottom of the staircase and one on the top, I have to try not getting caught by either of them (which is impossible) and it's even more terrifying knowing that they are coming after me, and there's nothing I can do about it. Reminds me of something.

“Hey, zombie!”

That's what some (dumb) people started calling me, they think I actually did die at the cliff and resurrected (which is stupid)

I gave him a glare, signifying I heard him but I didn’t like the nickname he gave me.

“Why don’t you come and do some voodoo magic for us?”

He and his friends laughed, this is worse than being ignored and hated, now I’m being actively hated.

“Were you born this stupid or did you take lessons?” I threw back

A couple people said “Ooh” but by the time the situation died down I was gone. I’m not stupid, I’m not staying there one more second. I’m not scared of the guy, in fact, I’m pretty intimidating (maybe that's why people thought I did witchcraft) but I’m not looking for trouble.

In fact, a girl came up to me yesterday, I guess she heard of my little mishap, and decided to approach me with a get-well card (she probably got some kind of discount on them and thought of me), and well, you can kind of guess what happened, I’m not very good with kindness directed towards me (It doesn’t happen a lot), and so when she came and asked how I was doing I got flustered and just stared at her, which seemed to creep her out after a couple seconds (I guess I have a creepy stare) and she left without giving me the card, you must be thinking “ouch, this kid’s got no game” and you’re probably right, but I don’t really need it to “survive” per say, as I’ve mentioned my disinterest in love.

Anyways, I guess I’m gonna deal with these weird rumors about me now.

I’m starting to think people are right about my weird aura. I've been seeing shadows in the corners of my eyes and I’m becoming paranoid of dark areas. Along with the dreams, I’ve been searching for a sign why this must be happening and I purchased a book about runes and bad omens. I've begun using runes more frequently, they are actually quite interesting. So I tried a couple of ways to formulate the runes and learned some of their meanings and asked why there was some sort of spirit following me. I got a horrible prediction of Yr, which is the Algiz rune inverted, meaning death. Perhaps my peers were more correct than I gave them credit for.

The mist was everywhere, he was somewhere in the surroundings inspecting the particles of water, until he realized where he was, the dark, wet streets by his house, after realizing this he fell to the ground in the middle of the streets, he was holding someone's hand but he couldn’t look at them, but with the glimpse he got of them they were breathing unevenly and had an inhuman grip on his hand, he was desperate to get away from this-this, creature that was feigning a human being. He realized he could not move anything but his eyes so he looked at the sky in a useless attempt to understand what was happening, but the sky only made him even more confused and scared. It was filled with ancient runes, each rune making a particular humming noise, as if they were chanting, as he looked at the sky he felt the creature move its head towards him, his eyes widened and he rapidly swung his head toward the creature, he could now move, this was not good. Once he saw the creature's face all he wanted to do right then was die, Its horrible smile would surely be etched in his head for an eternity. It had no eyes, but endless holes that sucked his soul of its humanity.

“HELP, HELP, HELP” I screamed, I opened my eyes and realized I was back home but something felt off, I was sure it was a weekend, so I calmly picked myself off my bed and searched my house for my parents, I was getting hungry, but wherever I turned I could not find them “It’s fine, maybe they just went to the store.” I said hopefully, but I kept searching in spite of myself, I was getting worried but as I searched I noticed the rooms and walls beginning to look more and more unfamiliar and when I finally looked in a dark empty room I encountered a shivering form curled in the furthest corner of the room. “Mom? Dad? Is that you?” The form stopped moving and slowly stood. Finally it turned its head, I immediately felt my breath sucked from my lungs. I̶T̶S̶ B̶A̶C̶K̶, I̶T̶S̶ B̶A̶C̶K̶, I̶T̶S̶ B̶A̶C̶K. The creature mumbled “You have lovely skin.” “ I can't wait to wear it.” in a dismembered, harmonious voice, and the Yr rune began to appear all over the grimy, concrete walls surrounding me, the runes were humming and some were screaming in human voices.

Now he knows where his parents are, and where he will soon be too. Where he belongs.

“I guess I really am dead”

The End