JTHM Fanfiction
Over the Stars
Dear DIE-ARY
The world has been a dismal place to be lately. Maybe I should get out of this house, go somewhere new. Last time I did that, I just dragged myself back here. Though no one knows I'm still here, not even Squee (I do hope he's alright). I'm trying to shut off everything, and despite my initial view of the process, this has been rather more difficult than I had hoped for. But I'm getting closer, or at least I like to believe I am. The things in here, they no longer talk. Not even Meat, but inside (and not the inside squishy organ manner, but the inside heart, no BRAIN,) something (a part of myself, not anything else) tells me he's just waiting.
2:49 A.M.
Nny sat back against the unadorned wooden walls of his house, his eyes half closed and looking out through the only window in the room. With its rotting border, and jagged edges, it was hardly a beautiful sight. But he liked the view outside, which from this position, looked out on the sky. The stars were not out tonight, which in a way bothered him a little. It was too foggy out there tonight, or it may have been the light pollution. They've even found a way to fuck up the stars, he thought idly, but without much anger.
This was a part of his Closing Down procedure, Nny believed. But he was growing terribly weary. And weary is an emotion, as Nny figured. The whole process, it was a paradox. This realization had become steadily more obvious over the past few weeks. Until then, he had been doing fairly well. No more craving for company, no more maniacal rants, no more attempts to find Devi (he had finished that off with that final phone call, hadn't he?) And no more killing. That last one seemed to stand out the most in his mind, for reasons that Nny hardly wished to comprehend.
It was a sort of emptiness inside. He had been empty and not quite whole before of course. Nor had he been quite so sane. But then again, he figured he would never fully be in the realm of sanity. Not by a long shot. Now though, it was a different sort of empty. Restless. He had never been so restless before. Now, when the season was just turning to summer, he hardly slept. A few hours at most was all he needed, preferably from 5:00 to 7:00 AM, which was the time when most people his age started to go to work. His appearance too had changed, but not by much. He was still lean. At first glance (which was all people took most of the time), he was cringingly skinny, unhealthily so. But no one had ever really seen the stringy rope like muscles hidden in his arms and other areas. Why, if he had been as puny as people believed him to be, he would have never been able to lift those scythes that weighed a fair bit more than him. His hair was still a raven blue sort of black, though the rest of it had grown back to its previous appearance. The two long strands that were his souvenirs from hell still remained though, framing his pointy young face. And the eyes were the same, for the most part. He had never really been sure about their color in the first place.
So he leaned there, thinking about what have become of Noodle Boy. He had not drawn the comic in a while, even the homeless insane and the bookstores that he frequented (not the one with Devi) were beginning to ask their silent patron what have become of him. Well, he thought. I've no more stimuli. And that's all Noodle is, I think, a sort of crazed response. Nny did not even feel the least bit artistic even more; he did not even dare to pick up the numerous drawing pencils that were beginning to collect dust. Someone had once said to him that he had painted great things. And there were paintings in another room, but how could those had ever been done by him? They were beautiful, darkly colored, and the brush strokes were done with a hand that could have never been as delicate and caring as his own. He had spent many hours analyzing them though.
And so what if they are mine? It's just the past! Nny yelled angrily in his mind. He was steadily losing ground on his memories. Everything up until the whole fiasco with Devi was foggy, and he knew that would have gone too if not for the fact that he kept reminding himself of it. Animals never cared for their past. Fish, for example, at most their memory span was six, seven days. Maybe. Had he ever owned fish, or any animal? The accessories in this room seemed to agree with the idea, but he had no recollection of it. I could reach back, in my mind, and remember. I know that I'd find an answer. No. The past was unnecessary, it was dark. Nny could still remember the horrible things he had done. No animal would have ever killed like he did. The corpses were gone, but the smell of blood and the screams were still in his mind. If he left the past alone, it would eventually disintegrate. Nothing lasted forever in this world, and he sure as hell was not about to be haunted by his memory. With that as a final resolve, Nny momentarily closed his eyes and tried to find a bit of peace in the turmoil.
Damn I'm hungry.
Well, that was alright. Hunger was not an emotion, it was a need. And animals lived to stop their needs. This meant, simply, that it was time to visit the 24/7.
"I'm really sorry, sir," the tired looking middle aged woman told him. "But we turned off the machines nearly an hour ago."
Nny had a distinct memory of once doing something drastic the last time he had found this out. It seemed totally unnecessary at this point, and the woman did seem extremely worn. She was probably working the extra job to help her kids out and that-
Wait no, that was pity.
"-but if you really want something cold and sugar filled, I'd suggest walking two blocks up to the 24 hour Sandy's, they serve a crappy burger but make a good Cherry Doom of their own."
Well, that was good! "Oh, thank you. Veeeerrry much." He turned on his heel, half frolicking, and stuck out an arm as he reached the door before yelling, "G'night!"
The woman stared, resting her head against the register and struggling to keep awake. Nice kid, she thought.
Sandy's was a dismally cheerful place if Nny had ever seen one. There were posters of an old, chubby man supporting some disgusting piece of meat on a bun and cashiers in silly aprons that made Nny giggle a little. He ordered his Cherry Doom, and in a surprisingly chipper mood (which may have been caused by his first sugar high in quite a while) he leapt out of the door and crossed the street to the park. His senses told him that no one was currently near by, and this suited Nny just fine.
Half an hour later, Nny deposited his empty squishy container into the nearest trash bin, and began whistling his way about the park. For such a small, crummy town, the park was quite large. Once you got past the squeaky play set, and the snack machines, it seemed like a world on its own. A jungle. Overgrown weeds dominated the area, and twisted trees reached up in to the sky. It was just a replication, Nny knew, but he liked the idea of it. If I was a real creature, I'd live in a place like this. He liked the solitude here, sort of silent except for the brush of the wind and the crackling trees.
He was leaning against one of those gnarled trees when he heard the sound. It was…sobbing? Not a girl, no definitely not. It had a higher sort of pitch to it. A child's voice. Familiar, it was
Squee!!!
Without much thought, Nny's arm leapt back to his backpack, and pulled out the curved knife that was closest to his grip. He leapt over the brush and fallen tree branches, eyes wide and feral as he came down in front of the very frightened boy. There was nothing there though, nothing Nny could see. No attacker or monster or multi-legged tentacle demon. He blinked, twisted around a couple of times, before sitting in front of the shell shocked boy. He was the same as when Nny had last seen him, a little hunched over, and still carrying the bear.
"You ran away?" Nny asked, eyeing the hysterically large bag the kid was toting around behind him. Weeeell that would explain a lot.
The boy nodded, still in shock from seeing the armed image of his neighbor leaping out from the dark. "I thought you were gone!"
Nny shook his head, "No. Never forever. I think I'm going to leave soon for something better though, kinda what you're doing but without a bear."
"Oh."
Nny sat down against a tree, so that he was at eye level with the boy. "Squee, what are you running from."
The boy sniffed in righteous terror. "Mo…oommy and Dad are going to send me a way, to a school so they don't never have to see me again and I don't like this school because the viddeeo they showed me had dis really mean looking nurse lady person and I didn't like it at all. So I run away to find other kids who runned away from home."
"Well that's quite a mission, but don't you think you'd be better off going home." The kid was about to protest, but Nny continued. "I mean, think of it this way, your parents are crappy, right? And they're sending you away. Good! You'll be far better off without them anyways. And once you're at this boarding school of yours, you can find a bunch of miserable little Squees like yourself and wreak havoc! Your parents can't do anything because they want you there!"
Squee shifted on his feet a little, biting his fist. "I lost."
"WEEEeelllll, that's not a problem. We go home now!"
Much to Squee's protest, Nny jumped up and grabbed the kid by the ankles before swinging him up on to his shoulders and bounding away.
Author's Note: Alright, so I haven't quite gotten in to the plot yet, but I didn't want to move that fast. Look in to the next chapter and leave me reviews! Meep! ::Huggles Nny::