Chapter 1 – In Hell It's Always Twilight
Drip
Drip
Drip
I had that dream again.
I don't know what it means. All it is is the steady dripping of water, like a leaky faucet. Drip, drip, drip.
I woke up screaming, not knowing why. Why am I so afraid? Why is a drop of water so terrifying? Maybe it's because of that.
I woke up when the day was ending, at twilight, the same hour I had gone to sleep. Had I really wasted an entire day? I looked around the room, and saw the twinkling stars that decorate every available space. I've never seen a real star before. I guess I've just never stayed up late enough.
I looked around my room again and was surprised when you appeared beside my bed. You looked down at me with a strange look in your eye, staring. "Yo, Roxas," you said. I looked back at you, wondering what it was you wanted, how you managed to get into my house without a key.
"How did you get in my room?" I asked. In response you lifted your arm and showed me the keyblade you held in your hand, and I understood. You put it back down, and looked at me again. Then you put your hand in your coat pocket and pulled out two strips of red paper.
"Yo man, I totally got us tickets to six flags," you said innocently, smiling.
"Really? Aw man, that's awesome, I love roller coasters," I said, grabbing one of the strips out of your hand. It was an admission wristband. "Do you expect me to pay you back, because I don't have any munny."
"That's okay, I'm sure the old lady still has some bees in her yard," you said.
"Gee man, I'm so happy, but isn't it a little late in the day?"
You glanced out the window at the rigidly immobile sun. "Nah, there's plenty of sunlight left." You said.
"I dunno', it looks like it's setting," I said.
"That's even better," you said, "don't you know six flags does awesome shit when it's dark?"
"Like what?" I asked.
"Like glowsticks and porky pig and fireworks and enchiladas," you paused and glanced around the room, "and stars…"
"Wow! I love stars! I'd really like to see one one day!" I replied.
"Uh, you don't see them in the day," you said.
"Every night I wait up as long as I can, hoping it'll get dark and the stars'll come out, but I always fall asleep before I see them."
Then we sorta just sat there in the room for a few minutes.
"Dude it's hot in here, don't you have a fucking fan?" you said.
"Yeah, you're holding it. You tore the spinnies out to use as a weapon."
"Fuck."
"Are we gonna' go to 6 flags now?"
"Yeah, get in my car. It's outside," you said. Then, without asking, you went into my fridge and took my bottle of grape soda.
"We're not gonna take the train?" I asked.
"Hell no, that thing doesn't leave this town. It just goes in a fucking circle forever, and there isn't anyone driving it," you said, drinking my grape soda straight out of the bottle.
"Hey, I was saving that for a special occasion," I said.
"Like when, when you finally see the fucking stars? Like that's gonna happen," you said. You finished the bottle and threw it across the room, the few drops of soda left spilling on my carpet. "Six flags, now."
We got in your car and it was a long, slow ride to six flags. We were good friends, but not enough to have a 6 hour conversation so during the first 20 of the trip I kept thinking about how the hell we would keep talking or how it would fade out. Thankfully, it finally started to fade out, but I painfully tried to maintain it so I wouldn't seem the awkward silence. You kept trying to turn the music on to avoid talking, but I really hate Metallica, so I kept turning it off.
"Stop getting trigger happy on the radio."
"I don't wanna' listen to this."
"So, you wanna' talk about something interesting?"
"Sure. What coaster do you wanna' go on first?"
"Oh, I dunno', I sorta' wanna' go to the water park."
"What? Fuck man, no, I thought you needed separate tickets or some shit—"
"No man you climb the fucking fence in the tiger exhibit to get in."
"I don't wanna' do that shit—can't we go on the damn coasters and I didn't bring a fucking swimsuit, I bet you wore one under your clothes and didn't say shit about what you were planning to do like the time we were gonna' go to Disney Land, but it was closed, so we went to the beach, and you pulled out this like beach umbrella from your trunk and a cooler full of snacks and shit and I was like 'a brother don't just carry that crap around everywhere he goes, plus I know you stopped to get ice for that cooler when we stopped at the 7 eleven because you said you needed to use the bathroom. I was wondering why you opened your trunk.' Or the time you was like 'come on over to my house and bake some cookies,' and I was like, 'why, it's 3 in the morning' and you were like, 'just come over here,' and then I was like, 'okay you woke me up, where's the Pillsbury,' and you were like, 'shit I don't have it, let's go to the beach.'"
"God, shut the fuck up. We cool, we cool, we'll go to the coasters. Fuckin' Kingda Ka man, that looks like the shit."
So, satisfied, I stopped arguing, which unfortunately meant that we didn't exchange another word for the rest of the trip. I played Manslaughter Prostitute Taxi Driver Wrestlemania 3 on my PSP for five hours and you kept putting Metallica on, and eventually I gave up on turning it off. I hate Metallica so much, seriously.
When we finally arrived, we put our wristbands on and went through the gate. We found a map and argued about where we would put our things.
"I am not paying for you to put your shit in a locker when you could have left it in the car," you said.
I stared up at the sky. Damn it was hot. God damn I wanted to stop sweating, but I couldn't. It was twilight, so it should be getting dark soon. I concentrated on the map, looking for which ride I wanted to go on first. We chose the Superman, which I had heard good things about. We found it and waited on the line for an hour, at which point you started to get bored.
"We haven't been on one ride yet and it's been a fucking hour, let's ditch this shit," you said, leaning over the gate and watching the cars go by.
"Don't worry, we're almost at the end," I said, excited to finally experience the fourteen second long ride.
"No way man, I'm going to the waterpark," you said, and you grabbed my arm and started dragging me away from the line.
"No way man, I thought we agreed we weren't going—"
"Waterpark."
"I'm gonna' stay on this line."
"Fine, bye. I'm going on the Whale Launcher," and you took your clothes off, standing in your swim trunks, and handed them to me.
"What am I supposed to do with these?" I yelled after you as you walked away.
"Put it in the car or something."
"I can't leave the park or I'll have to get one of those gay stamps on my hand, which will make me look like a little kid and it'll give me cancer." You continued to walk away and I was left standing alone on a line in the sun in 6 flags, pissed off and lonely and I just stepped in ice cream. Fuck. I love these shoes. I bought these laces from a specialty shop and I just got them shined by a homeless guy like two days ago.
So with no other options I got off the line and went to a rest area. I put your stuff on a bench and ordered myself some Dippin' Dots, but I didn't have the 23 munny it cost. I was so pissed off at you that I reached into your coat pocket and rifled around for your wallet. I pulled out all of your money and paid for my ice cream, and kept the rest of it too because I blamed you for my ruined shoes. There I was, finally in a theme park, surrounded by images of fun, and the damn cartoon character designed cup they gave me my ice cream in exaggerated the state I was in now. It would be better to be alone in my smelly apartment than in this damn theme park, playing video games in the dark. But, trapped by my own pressure to be happy, I ensured that I spent the entire evening here in misery. I saw some damnass kid with a goofy hat and I was like, "huh, I kinda' want that. That'll make me happy." So I went to the gift shop, but it was 64 munny, but I couldn't afford that even with your money. So, feeling crummy about myself, I went to the best place to feel crummy about yourself—the food court.
I spotted a giant plastic building all divided up inside with a pink plastic princess castle sections with tea cups to sit in, except the plastic was all dirtied up by spilled food and infant vomit. It was even hotter in there than outside with the fry-saturated hot air steaming up from the back and mixing with the sweat of obese people to hang humid in the air. I stood on line for about 20 minutes before giving up and sat down in a table with only a few fries and a ketchup smeared napkin I found on the floor. Behind me a kid screamed and as I heard the screaming and smelt the stink I looked up at this big ironic plastic statue of bugs bunny smiling at me. What the fuck you smiling at? I thought. Maybe he thought it was some damn joke. I looked away, loathe to see the artificial happiness this disgusting place was trying to create, and realized I left your coat on the bench outside. I was still really pissed at you, so I left it there, enjoying my greasy, soggy French fries as much as was possible. It wasn't possible, though because they tasted like floor, so I turned around again and gave them to the screaming kid. I left the food court before his mother could yell at me for feeding her kid dirty fries, and went to finish my Dippin' Dots outside. By then, however, they had melted into a colorful goop that tasted like failure.
Finally I gave up and decided I'd go to the fuckin' waterpark. Checking the map first, I followed your advice and went to go jump the fence. I conceded.
I saw you stepping out of the log flume, and you slapped me on the back with a big wet hand, and I winced as the water soaked through the whole damn back of my shirt. "We're going on the Whale Launcher! Yeah bro, this is freakin awesome!" you screamed as you climbed the side of the ride, while the attendants yelled below. Unlike the lines for the coasters, this one seemed to go so quickly. The car pulled up and you shouted, "hell yeah, let's get on the first car! Then we can get soaked!" The seat already was soaking wet and the whale face painted on the car dumbly smirked at me in mockery. I spent the next three hours getting the clothes I could not change out of for the next twelve hours totally soaked until I had to keep pulling them back up because they were so heavy with water.
"Are we done here yet?" I asked, hoping you'd be sick of the place by now.
"Hell no, we're not leaving till it closes," you said, to my great dismay.
"When does it close?" I asked.
"Once it gets dark," you said.
"Well, what time is it now?"
"Probably about twilight," you said. You looked around for a minute, then asked "hey, where'd you end up putting my stuff?"
Oh shit, I thought. "Uh, so uh, hey man, I totally left everything you own in the other park."
"God damn now I gotta' go to lost and found."
Lost and found was a dirty concrete building on the edge of the park with a damp, sticky waiting room inside that smelled like pool for some reason. The woman sitting behind the desk glared at us like we were the stupidest things she ever saw.
"Okay, so I lost—"
"Yeah, I know you lost, you gotta' fill out the damn form, you 'spect me to find it for you? Fill this out then go sit down o'er there."
I was handed a large stack of forms with Disney characters on them waving to me with a speech bubble saying, "I'm so sorry you lost something while at 6 flags! We assure you we keep the best of records and wish you well on your search to find whatever you lost! Please check each applicable box so we can assist you! This is for . The next form you need to fill out is ."
I looked in your direction, hoping you would help me fill out these ridiculous forms, especially because the missing items were yours. But you were gone, and you didn't return until I had finished the forms. You came back dripping wet, again, as if you had gone back to the water park while you waited for me.
"I went to the water park while I was waiting for you," you said.
"What the hell man why didn't you help me fill the forms for your missing shit?" I yelled.
"Uh duh, you lost it. Where's my stuff, by the way?"
"I've been waiting for it for hours and they haven't given me anything. They didn't even accept the forms because I filled one of the bubbles in wrong, so now I have to do it all again."
And when you leaned over to look at the forms, sure enough you dripped water all over the stack of papers I had already filled out. The entire stack ruined, I had to throw them out and ask for another copy. "There's a two copy limit per person, if you want another one you hafta fill out form F4492829D78392034847," the woman behind the counter told me, at which point I gave up and left the lost and found office.
"Dude, you didn't get my shit back," you complained.
"Whatever, you can replace it."
"My fuckin' car keys are in my pocket, how are we supposed to leave without those?"
"We'll use the key blade. Can we just go home already, I hate it here."
"Did the star show happen yet?"
"No, it's not dark yet."
"Fuck. Let's go to the water park."
"NO, god damn, we're leaving."
"Oh look, my jacket."
So, the car keys recovered, we finally left the park and got in the car to go home. I was starting to get really tired, which was upsetting because I can never stay awake before it gets completely dark. On top of that my clothes were completely soaked, and the air conditioner was broken so it couldn't be turned off, so I was stuck in the car freezing my ass off for six more hours. I was angry the entire ride, feeling the seat squishing up against my horrible soaking clothes and the six flags bus theme playing ironically on the radio. As soon as I got home I changed into my dry clothes and fell asleep at twilight.