A few months go by, and we go about our daily lives doing typical stuff for the most part. Kyle and Stan would come over frequently to see Kenny and in doing so, I got to know them quite well. Butters too would come over, but he seemed to have stricter parents that made it hard for him to join us as much.
We would try and look up research on what this book could be, like, where it originated from and stuff, but we always seemed to come up empty handed. It's been interesting though, I spent some holidays at home and in a sense with Kenny. Like Christmas, New Years, Valentines and soon to be Easter as well. I also painted my room, blue, like I said I would. Kenny helped out a bit too. I still find it interesting how things he picks up, just float in the air, but you would look at the mirror and see him holding it.
It's funny, this whole situation I'm in, with me being here in the real world and him being in that mirror... I'm sure most people would find all this to be ridiculous and all that. But as strange as it might seem, I don't. For some reason, I don't find this weird or strange at all. And maybe that's because of how much time has passed by and I've grown used to it or how I just seem to adjust to things quicker than most but, this seems almost normal to me now.
Waking up and seeing him, then leaving for school and hanging out with Stan, Kyle, Butters and a few others at school or after, then coming back home and talking to Kenny some more before heading off to sleep. The two of us have grown to be pretty close in this time I think. We've learned about one another a lot. He's told me about his family, and the dumb things that he and his friends would do, and things he thought of possibly being when he grew up, and more.
I also told him about my family and how things were like in the city I lived in before and what I did there and stuff. The topic came of him asking why we moved out of the city in the fist place. I told him it was my dad's idea mainly, and how he thought it would be better for us to have a change of pace in our lives. He was able to convince my mom to agree and we ended up moving out here. My dad had a friend here who was able to help him out and get a job and stuff. And I told him while I initially resented my dad for making us move out in to the middle of nowhere, and leaving behind the few friends I had made there. I'm glad we did now, because I got to meet him. The last part kind of slipped out by accident and I ended up trying to play it off for the remainder on that day. Kenny just smiled at me and said he was glad to have met me too.
...
More and more snow begins to gradually melt away as spring starts setting in and soon we'll be able to go searching the floor of the woods. That's what I think to myself trying to sleep this night, but having a hard time doing so, after waking up a little while ago to see Kenny sitting behind me, watching me sleep.
This sometimes happens, I'll wake up at an odd hour of the night and see him sitting on my bed somewhere watching me sleep. Usually he'll only look at me for a few minutes or so before fading away again, but for some reason tonight he won't. I have my eyes only slightly opened and I think he can't tell I'm awake yet because of the darkness in the room. I look at the time on the alarm clock's reflection in the mirror and see that it's now 3:15am. He's been watching me for about forty-five minutes or so now.
I'm about ready to just sit up and ask him why when he lifts a hand up and places it onto my shoulder. I feel the fabric of the comforter tighten a bit where his hand now rests. And I see him begin to slowly move his hand down my side, the comforter tightening as he does so. His hand comes to a stop on my hip and I briefly wonder what the expression on his face is for some reason. But it's too dark to tell.
He moves his hand away from my hip and places it in front of me, so that he is now leaning over me. I end up closing my eyes completely, not wanting him to notice I'm awake. For a while I don't feel anything except for the small pull of the comforter under where his hand is in front of me. But then I feel something lightly move my hair at the top of my head and slowly make it's way to the back of it. Then down my neck and stop on the top of my back.
There's another short pause of nothing happening until I feel a shift from the comforter on top of me tightening quite a bit and something on the top of my head again. The feeling of not know what's going on, starts to drive me nuts and I chance a small glance. What I see causes my heart to stop. I see Kenny leaning over me, kissing the top of my head. As he begins to pull away I shut my eyes again. I feel my comforter get lighter around me. I take another small glance and see that Kenny is gone now.
I let out a small breath, not even realizing that I was holding it. The image of Kenny runs through my mind again and again and I feel my heart pound in my chest for some reason. I pull the comforter around me tighter and bury my face in to my pillow a bit trying to make this feeling stop. I close my eyes and try to think of anything else other than what just happened. In the end, all I keep thinking to myself is why did I have to look?
Eventually morning comes and it's time to get up and ready for school. I feel very tired from the lack of sleep I got but groggily get up. Kenny doesn't appear and a part of me is kind of glad he doesn't, because I'm not to sure how I would react to seeing him right now. I get out of bed and get ready for the day.
At lunch that day we briefly talk about going out later that day to take a look around the woods and see how it's current condition is before Cartman joins us at the table. The day goes by fine until science class arrives and we get partnered up with other students for a class project. I end up getting partnered up with none other than Jason. I look at him to see him staring right back at me. He smiles a bit and something about it is unsettling.
Great, the one person that I didn't want to be partnered up with I am... I think to myself.
After school, me, Stan and Kyle meet up to go searching. Butters goes to hangout with Cartman, to keep him preoccupied. We told him to tell Cartman that we're busy today. We head to the woods and look around, the floor of the woods is almost clear so we decide to end up searching the area. When it starts to get dark out we head back. It's much easier to search the ground now but we still think it best to wait a little bit more for the snow to fully melt.
I get home and change into more comfortable clothes then sit on my bed taking out some homework I need to do.
"Back late today, did you go searching?" Kenny, who I see appearing in the mirror from the corner of my eye asks.
"Yeah," I reply keeping my gaze focused down at my binder.
"No luck?" he asks.
"Nope," I reply.
"Maybe next time then," he says and I can see him walk over to my bed.
He sits down in front of me and my chest tightens. I look down more at my binder, trying to block him out, don't look at him, don't look at him, don't look at him-
"What are you working on?" he asks and I feel the bed sink down a little in front of me.
And me being curious, glances over at the mirror to see Kenny leaning towards me looking down at my binder. Images of last night flash through my mind and I end up pulling away from him holding the binder to my chest. I see him give me a strange look and I stand up.
"It's- some homework that I need to do," I walk over to the door, " I think that I'm going to work on it downstairs. I don't want any distractions," I say before leaving the room.
I sit on the couch downstairs and manage to calm my heart down and finish up my homework. When I go to head back upstairs after finishing it I stop, still remembering what happened from the night before. I end up choosing to sleep downstairs that night and deciding to tell Kenny that, I just was too tired to make it back up to my room after finishing my homework.
Although for the next few days, I find myself avoiding talking to him too much.
I find that being around him, starts to make it hard for me to breath almost. I try my best though to pretend that everything is fine with me. When the end of science class on Friday arrives, I realize I have another thing to deal with too. Jason. I had also been avoiding him, although for a much different reason than Kenny.
Jason comes up and talks to me, saying that we need to get to work on the project that is due Monday. I don't like the idea of having to be around him longer than necessary, but reluctantly suggest he come over to my house on Saturday to work on it, because I sure as hell didn't want to go to his place. He smiles at me and tells me that he 'can't wait then' and a cold shiver runs through me.
And so, I now sit in my room this Saturday waiting for Jason to arrive so I can get this dumb project done and over with. I let out a sigh.
"What's wrong?" Kenny asks.
"Nothing really," I say, "just someone from my science class is coming over to work on a dumb project or whatever."
"What's the project on?"
"The human body," I say, "things like, the digestive system and blood cells and stuff."
"Sounds like a blast," he laughs. I let out another sigh, "Are you sure you're ok? You seem kind of... off or something. Actually you've been seeming kind of off this whole week."
I think briefly of how the way I've been acting around him must seem like that, but shake my head a bit knowing that today's reason was for something else.
"I'm fine, it's just that.." I trail off.
"Just what?" he asks.
"Just that, the person I got partnered up with... they, kind of creep me out a bit is all."
"Who did you get partnered up with?"
"Jason." I reply.
"Oh him," he says.
"You know him?"
"Not really, I mean, sometimes he hung around us at lunch or school events before, but I never really knew him that well," he tells me, "but I can kind of understand why you might find him creepy," he laughs a bit, "he does have a bit of a look to one I guess. But I'm sure everything will go by fine though."
I look down at my lap,"Right..." I mumble, "I think I'm going to work on it in here with him. I don't really like the idea of being fully alone with him, because my parents are at work today and my sister is hanging over at a friends."
"Sure," Kenny says, "if it will make you feel more at ease with me being here as a spiritual support."
I look at him and smile faintly. He returns it with a smile of his own.
The door bell rings, "He's here," Kenny sing-songs.
I get up and glance once more at Kenny as he fades away. I shake my head and go downstairs. I open the door and see Jason, he gives a small smile. I don't return it.
"Hello," he greets.
"...Hey," I reply.
"Are you going to let me in?" he asks still smiling a bit. I hesitate for a few seconds before I step to the side allowing him to enter. He glances around the house, "Everyone is always talking about how haunted and spooky this house is, but it looks like any normal house to me."
I close the door and lock it, "Well people always have a way of blowing things out of proportion," I say.
He looks at me, "I heard it was possessed by a demon."
"Like I said, 'out of proportion'," I repeat and head for the stairs, "by the way, we can work on the project upstairs in my room. I Have my computer there we can use to look stuff up and a few other things I did already for it," and with that I head up the stairs, he follows me and we head into my room.
I head over to my computer desk and get some papers I have with some of the project stuff written down on them.
"That's a huge ass mirror," Jason says examining.
"Yup," I say and sit down on the side of my bed, sorting the papers out. Jason walks over to me, "You can take a seat in the computer chair if you want-" I go to suggest but he ends up sitting down next to me on my bed, "or there too," I mutter.
He looks down at the papers and picks one up, "You've done this much already? Wow."
"I figured I might as well do as much as I can, so I don't waste up all of your time today and you can be on your way sooner," I tell him.
He looks up at me, "You make it sound like you want to get rid of me as quickly as possible."
Although that is true, I try not to let it seem too obvious, "No, I just thought you would want to head home and play games or sleep or whatever you like to do for fun quicker, rather than spending all day here, working on a class project," I explain.
He shrugs, "I don't really care about working on it all day or whatever, but alright," he says placing the paper back down.
I collect the papers and put them in the proper order and start reading over them to him. Everything is going fine and I start to feel a bit more at ease around him until he starts to ask me a bunch of personal questions.
"Hey, do you ever, like, check yourself out in the mirror?" Jason asks.
"Huh?" I respond looking up from the paper I was reading, "No."
"Really? So you never do any poses or anything than in front of it?"
"No," I reply flatly.
He looks at me, and I would just brush it off if, it weren't for the fact of how he was looking at me. I feel his eyes look me over from top to bottom and I try to shift away a bit from him.
"What about skinny dipping? You ever done that? Or streaking?" he asks, to which I shake my head no at, as the feeling of unease starts to rise in me again, "What about touching yourself? You ever experiment with yourself?"
The question catches me so off guard, it takes me a few seconds to even process what he just said to me. What I find to be the most off about it is how nonchalant he went about asking me it, as if it were a normal thing to ask somebody.
"What- no," I say.
"Why not?" he asks.
I shake my head, "Look, can we just stay on topic for the project and get it done?"
"We are on topic though, I'm asking questions about what you do with your body. A human body," he says.
"That's not-"
"But from what I've heard so far, you haven't really been exploring all of the things that a human body could do," he smiles at me slightly, "maybe we should do a bit of experimenting to help you find out more."
And with that I stand up, having enough of this creepy conversation. "I think you should go, now."
He stands up to and faces me,"But why? Things were just starting to get really interesting with this project."
"Leave," I order.
He doesn't budge though, so I decide to walk past him to the door in order to leave the room and get away from him. But as soon as I walk past, he grabs my wrist. I pull my arm away trying to break it free.
"Let go-" but before I can finish the words, everything goes by me in a blur and I find myself lying on my back on my bed looking up at the ceiling. Jason crawls on top of me and pins my arms down. "Get off of me!" I shout.
He smiles at me and it sends a chill throughout my body. I struggle to get him off of me but he lies all of his body weight down onto me. His body is much bigger in size to mine and I have a hard time moving underneath it. He let's go of one of my arms and moves his hand down to my pants, trying to undo them. I immediately try to stop him with my freed arm.
"Stop!" I yell at him, trying desperately to get him off me, panic completely taking over me. He undoes my button, "Stop it!" I cry out.
And suddenly the heavy weight on top of me from his body is gone. I see him go flying backwards and slam into the wall then fall down onto the floor.
He staggers getting up to his feet, "What the hell..." he mumbles.
"Get out," a very familiar voice demands.
Jason looks around the room, "Who-" he stops when he looks at the mirror, eyes widening.
I glance over at it and see Kenny standing there in it, wearing a dark expression.
"Y-you're-" Jason stammers.
"Get out!" Kenny demands, shouting at him.
Jason quickly takes a run for the door, heading downstairs and slamming the front door as I hear him leave. I turn onto my side and curl into a ball, trying to calm myself down. Taking in slow deep breaths. As I start to calm down, it sinks in what almost happened to me. I feel my eyes begin to sting, and tears start to roll down my face. Tears of the fear of what almost happened to me. If I had chosen to work on that project anywhere else in the house, I don't think I would've of been able to stop it. And that's the thing that really terrifies me. I feel myself begin to shake at that thought.
"Craig? Are you ok?" I hear Kenny ask in a quiet tone.
Kenny... If Kenny hadn't have been here then... My thought trails off. I feel something wrap around me, my comforter. I look to see that Kenny has pulled it up and over me.
"Craig?" he asks again.
I lower my head back down, into my knees. My only response being quiet and muffled sobs I'm trying to stop from leaving me. I didn't want him to see me like this, to see my face like this.
"Listen, I think you won't be able to see me for a little while," he tells me, "I used up a lot of energy slamming Jason in to the wall like that, so I'll need to recharge for a bit," I feel the comforter on my shoulder tighten a bit, from what I guess is his hand on it. "But I'll still be right here with you, don't forget that."
And the pressure on my shoulder disappears. I look back up at the mirror and see that Kenny is now gone. And even though he said he would still be here, even if I can't see him, it doesn't stop me from feeling all alone.
