Note: I'm sorry about the poor uploading. I typed this on Microsoft Word, and I had to transfer it to Notepad in order to upload. This fic includes the first two parts, and I am working on a third. Again, sorry about the poor uploading. ^^;; Reviews are HIGHLY appreciated!
dark corners
1
Bodies swarmed through the room, slamming into each other rythmically, moving to the beat of the music. The smell of alcohol wafted through the air. He could hear coughing in the bathroom. Probably somebody puking, maybe from the beer. Maybe it was the pot circle that had made its way around the perimeter of the party area. Or maybe the vomiting person had received a drugged drink. He shrugged. They'd survive.
He took a sip of his beverage. Slowly letting it roll over his tongue, he tasted it for some bastard's idea of fun. I.e., drugs. Alcohol. Illegal shit like that. Well, he reconsidered, alcohol wasn't that bad. Frankly, it was downright mouth-watering after a person had been dancing and gyrating for four hours.
He gave up on testing his drink and took two gulps. His vision became blurry. Shaking his head to clear his eyesight, he scanned the chaotic scene. Mauling couples on beer-soaked sofas. Puke in the carpet. Heavy metal music rumbling the walls, making it seem as if the earth was shaking...
He slunk down the vomit and beer-splattered wall. Putting his hands to his face, he desperately tried to prevent what would happen from happening.
He failed and slumped onto the floor.
Morning. The Japanese boy could hear birds singing outside his window. More precisely, he could hear birds singing outside his hole in the wall, covered with a ripped and thin curtain.
Sunlight streamed in through the ripped holes in the "window" curtain. He cracked open one eye. Lying on the battered mattress laid on the packed dirt floor, he arched his back in a stretch, opening the other eye.
The shack this particular Japanese boy lived in was one of many, somewhat packed together in small rectangular lots. His lot had room for the little, about nine-by-nine foot hovel, a small ditch for wastes, and a tiny, four-by-four garden. There were no grass except for the weeds growing in his garden. Thus, for the few miles of shacks, all the ground was dirt, packed down over the years by trodden feet. The shantytown was small by the day's standards, with a few actual streets on the edge of it containing a small church (which the boy fervently stayed away from), a school plentiful in graffiti, a bar, and a few small shops, if they even deserved to be called that. All this was on the very edge of the "town", and the rest of the desolate landscaping were shacks. Shacks, stretching for a mile or two, packed together like boxes or dominoes. All this contributed to a rather depressing landscape.
Nearby was a much larger town, almost a city. But this was for the much wealthier (in their opinion) people. Poor folks like the boy could hardly go into a bar in the City and ask for a red vodka. In the quiet shacks, the residents could hear the nightlife of the City, the honking and shouting and music. Almost wistfully was how they listened, imagining themselves at the bar or dancing in a club. Some groups of people held regular story-telling meetings, mostly about how they would win a jackpot and waltz into the City, saunter up to the bar, and order themselves a "sloe gin fizz." The City was, to many of the residents in Shantytown, a bustling paradise of everyone's desires.
The boy sat up deliberately. I need something to eat, he thought. He hadn't eaten since supper two days ago. Then again, it wasn't as if food was plentiful in Shantytown. That's what the gardens were for. Some people even kept a few hens for meat and eggs.
He ran a hand through his dark, tousled hair and stood up. Wearing his green tank top was a staple to everyday life. It wasn't as if he had an ample supply of clothes. He didn't. He walked over to the "window" and pulled back the curtain. Sunlight poured into the shack, filling it with light. Except for the dark corners where rats sometimes scavenged for crumbs.
Staggering with weariness, he walked over to his small garden. There he kept a tiny orange tree, right there inside the garden. He inspected the various fruits hanging from it before selecting a ripe orange.
He mechanically peeled the fruit and passed a wedge of it into his mouth. Ah, food, he thought. Yet, this was only a mere orange.
"Hey, you over there!"
He looked up.
"What?" he asked monotonously.
"You over there, you need to get yourself to school! Why it's eight o'clock already!" An old man appeared in the next shack over.
That piece of garbage? They call that a school? he wondered absently, and walked indifferently back into his hovel.
"Hey you! You can't get anywhere without an education, don't you know that? I can make you a deal, boy!"
Prone to deal-making, the boy turned around.
"What kind of a deal?" he asked suspiciously.
The old man smiled widely.
"A beneficial one, I can tell you that."
The boy narrowed his eyes and turned to stalk back into his shack.
"Wait boy, let me show you this."
The boy turned around and gasped.
Where the man's right hand should have been was a claw.
Metal.
Gleaming.
Blinding.
Mesmerized, the boy walked closer to the man, who smiled a friendly smile.
And found himself clutching his stomach in pain.
2
He woke up to find himself sprawled at the end of a filthy alley. Groggily, he tried to remember where he was. I must have blacked out. Again. It happened often. He would meander into a party (without invitation- those were not necessary), get lost in dancing, and try hard not to drink anything that was opened already. But his thirst almost always got the better of him. Giving in, he would grab the nearest beverage, downing it in three seconds flat. Sometimes it had drugs in it. Sometimes it didn't. Always, it had alcohol.
But who could blame him? Where else was he supposed to go? Home? Right. Sure. Home was not existent. During the day he slept, occasionally changing locations as the daylight wore on. A person could never be seen sleeping in the same place in the City. It might suggest vulnerability. He had seen several unfortunate sleepers die because of their location. Not fair, yes. Survival wasn't the most noble thing in the world.
He painfully sat up and leaned against the exterior of the building that formed the alleyway, checking himself for telltale damage. Only a few bruises. No needle pricks or slashes...amazing. First time he had zero flesh wounds. No injections or cuts. Uncanny.
Next, he carefully checked his hair. Long and wavy, he normally kept it in a braid tied with whatever string he could find. He quickly checked it for split ends and pieces of glass. His hair was his pride and joy. Nobody could take that away from him.
"Duo, hey, Duo!" a voice called. Subsequently, a figure jogged up to him.
Duo peered up at the person.
"Oi, hi, Xan." The boy with short black hair nodded his greetings and plopped down next to Duo.
"Was hangin'?" he asked conversationally.
Xan shrugged.
"Got sum o' that new shit they've got at Millard's..." he trailed off.
"Ya mean the powdery white junk? C'mon, Xan, this ain't the gutter..." Duo tried to coax his friend out of the dangerous position he was in.
"Wanna bet, Maxwell? This sure as hell is close." Xan said belligerently.
Duo looked down at his hands. The purple lines that ran diagonally across his wrists seemed to jump out at him, teasing him. Flashbacks flooded his head, screaming at him.
"K'so, Xan! You won't live long then, man. That Kev guy just overdosed last week! You know...it's really not that great..." Duo tried to persuade Xan to lay off the drug. Duo may have drank in his time, but anything that you sniffed and was powdery he strained away from. Too many of his fellow partiers had gotten seriously screwed up or worse, died from the drugs that circulated the city undergrounds.
"Hell, Duo, s'ain't so bad...see, look, I gots some in my pocket." Xan pulled a small baggie out from his pants pocket.
Duo instantly shivered. /Get that stuff away from me!/ his conscience cried. Eyes glazed over, he lapsed into a state of blockage to surroundings. He heard nothing of what was going on...
It's tearing me down
ripped my lungs in half
I'm drowning
Drowning inside
No one's got a life preserver
And no one knows CPR.
I'm swimming in the tidal wave
The current's taking me under
Feelings gone asunder
Where's my ship, where's
my sail
I'm leaving, I'm gone
I feel like I've died.
Maybe I have.
Maybe I haven't.
Maybe I should just get the hell away
From people.
People, so damn many people
I can hear them, but there's always
the little voice
Inside my head
That screams,
"You're lying, always lying..."
I'm a liar.
The voice is drowning out the people.
I'm drowning again.
It's killing my lungs.
It's killing me.
I've gone to the depths.
Straight to hell.
and
into the pit of
Nothing.
---Red Tide
Duo's eyes shot open. Xan was slumped beside him, head lolled down on his own shoulder. Duo shook his head, trying to remember what was going on. Dammit, it happened again! he thought, panicking.
Duo had often gotten that glazed-eye look, when nothing and no one could "snap him out of it." It was almost as if he were in a trance, and no one could wake him out of it. And it seemed that this trance only ever happened in a bad situation. He struggled to regain his senses of his surroundings. I'm right where I woke up....and here's Xan....okay, I think I know what's going on now...
"Xan?" Duo asked tentatively.
Nothing.
"Hey, buddy...c'mon, stop fooling around..." Duo chided nervously. Xan didn't move.
Duo carefully lifted Xan's head off of his shoulder. His eyes rolled upwards.
Xan was dead.
dark corners
1
Bodies swarmed through the room, slamming into each other rythmically, moving to the beat of the music. The smell of alcohol wafted through the air. He could hear coughing in the bathroom. Probably somebody puking, maybe from the beer. Maybe it was the pot circle that had made its way around the perimeter of the party area. Or maybe the vomiting person had received a drugged drink. He shrugged. They'd survive.
He took a sip of his beverage. Slowly letting it roll over his tongue, he tasted it for some bastard's idea of fun. I.e., drugs. Alcohol. Illegal shit like that. Well, he reconsidered, alcohol wasn't that bad. Frankly, it was downright mouth-watering after a person had been dancing and gyrating for four hours.
He gave up on testing his drink and took two gulps. His vision became blurry. Shaking his head to clear his eyesight, he scanned the chaotic scene. Mauling couples on beer-soaked sofas. Puke in the carpet. Heavy metal music rumbling the walls, making it seem as if the earth was shaking...
He slunk down the vomit and beer-splattered wall. Putting his hands to his face, he desperately tried to prevent what would happen from happening.
He failed and slumped onto the floor.
Morning. The Japanese boy could hear birds singing outside his window. More precisely, he could hear birds singing outside his hole in the wall, covered with a ripped and thin curtain.
Sunlight streamed in through the ripped holes in the "window" curtain. He cracked open one eye. Lying on the battered mattress laid on the packed dirt floor, he arched his back in a stretch, opening the other eye.
The shack this particular Japanese boy lived in was one of many, somewhat packed together in small rectangular lots. His lot had room for the little, about nine-by-nine foot hovel, a small ditch for wastes, and a tiny, four-by-four garden. There were no grass except for the weeds growing in his garden. Thus, for the few miles of shacks, all the ground was dirt, packed down over the years by trodden feet. The shantytown was small by the day's standards, with a few actual streets on the edge of it containing a small church (which the boy fervently stayed away from), a school plentiful in graffiti, a bar, and a few small shops, if they even deserved to be called that. All this was on the very edge of the "town", and the rest of the desolate landscaping were shacks. Shacks, stretching for a mile or two, packed together like boxes or dominoes. All this contributed to a rather depressing landscape.
Nearby was a much larger town, almost a city. But this was for the much wealthier (in their opinion) people. Poor folks like the boy could hardly go into a bar in the City and ask for a red vodka. In the quiet shacks, the residents could hear the nightlife of the City, the honking and shouting and music. Almost wistfully was how they listened, imagining themselves at the bar or dancing in a club. Some groups of people held regular story-telling meetings, mostly about how they would win a jackpot and waltz into the City, saunter up to the bar, and order themselves a "sloe gin fizz." The City was, to many of the residents in Shantytown, a bustling paradise of everyone's desires.
The boy sat up deliberately. I need something to eat, he thought. He hadn't eaten since supper two days ago. Then again, it wasn't as if food was plentiful in Shantytown. That's what the gardens were for. Some people even kept a few hens for meat and eggs.
He ran a hand through his dark, tousled hair and stood up. Wearing his green tank top was a staple to everyday life. It wasn't as if he had an ample supply of clothes. He didn't. He walked over to the "window" and pulled back the curtain. Sunlight poured into the shack, filling it with light. Except for the dark corners where rats sometimes scavenged for crumbs.
Staggering with weariness, he walked over to his small garden. There he kept a tiny orange tree, right there inside the garden. He inspected the various fruits hanging from it before selecting a ripe orange.
He mechanically peeled the fruit and passed a wedge of it into his mouth. Ah, food, he thought. Yet, this was only a mere orange.
"Hey, you over there!"
He looked up.
"What?" he asked monotonously.
"You over there, you need to get yourself to school! Why it's eight o'clock already!" An old man appeared in the next shack over.
That piece of garbage? They call that a school? he wondered absently, and walked indifferently back into his hovel.
"Hey you! You can't get anywhere without an education, don't you know that? I can make you a deal, boy!"
Prone to deal-making, the boy turned around.
"What kind of a deal?" he asked suspiciously.
The old man smiled widely.
"A beneficial one, I can tell you that."
The boy narrowed his eyes and turned to stalk back into his shack.
"Wait boy, let me show you this."
The boy turned around and gasped.
Where the man's right hand should have been was a claw.
Metal.
Gleaming.
Blinding.
Mesmerized, the boy walked closer to the man, who smiled a friendly smile.
And found himself clutching his stomach in pain.
2
He woke up to find himself sprawled at the end of a filthy alley. Groggily, he tried to remember where he was. I must have blacked out. Again. It happened often. He would meander into a party (without invitation- those were not necessary), get lost in dancing, and try hard not to drink anything that was opened already. But his thirst almost always got the better of him. Giving in, he would grab the nearest beverage, downing it in three seconds flat. Sometimes it had drugs in it. Sometimes it didn't. Always, it had alcohol.
But who could blame him? Where else was he supposed to go? Home? Right. Sure. Home was not existent. During the day he slept, occasionally changing locations as the daylight wore on. A person could never be seen sleeping in the same place in the City. It might suggest vulnerability. He had seen several unfortunate sleepers die because of their location. Not fair, yes. Survival wasn't the most noble thing in the world.
He painfully sat up and leaned against the exterior of the building that formed the alleyway, checking himself for telltale damage. Only a few bruises. No needle pricks or slashes...amazing. First time he had zero flesh wounds. No injections or cuts. Uncanny.
Next, he carefully checked his hair. Long and wavy, he normally kept it in a braid tied with whatever string he could find. He quickly checked it for split ends and pieces of glass. His hair was his pride and joy. Nobody could take that away from him.
"Duo, hey, Duo!" a voice called. Subsequently, a figure jogged up to him.
Duo peered up at the person.
"Oi, hi, Xan." The boy with short black hair nodded his greetings and plopped down next to Duo.
"Was hangin'?" he asked conversationally.
Xan shrugged.
"Got sum o' that new shit they've got at Millard's..." he trailed off.
"Ya mean the powdery white junk? C'mon, Xan, this ain't the gutter..." Duo tried to coax his friend out of the dangerous position he was in.
"Wanna bet, Maxwell? This sure as hell is close." Xan said belligerently.
Duo looked down at his hands. The purple lines that ran diagonally across his wrists seemed to jump out at him, teasing him. Flashbacks flooded his head, screaming at him.
"K'so, Xan! You won't live long then, man. That Kev guy just overdosed last week! You know...it's really not that great..." Duo tried to persuade Xan to lay off the drug. Duo may have drank in his time, but anything that you sniffed and was powdery he strained away from. Too many of his fellow partiers had gotten seriously screwed up or worse, died from the drugs that circulated the city undergrounds.
"Hell, Duo, s'ain't so bad...see, look, I gots some in my pocket." Xan pulled a small baggie out from his pants pocket.
Duo instantly shivered. /Get that stuff away from me!/ his conscience cried. Eyes glazed over, he lapsed into a state of blockage to surroundings. He heard nothing of what was going on...
It's tearing me down
ripped my lungs in half
I'm drowning
Drowning inside
No one's got a life preserver
And no one knows CPR.
I'm swimming in the tidal wave
The current's taking me under
Feelings gone asunder
Where's my ship, where's
my sail
I'm leaving, I'm gone
I feel like I've died.
Maybe I have.
Maybe I haven't.
Maybe I should just get the hell away
From people.
People, so damn many people
I can hear them, but there's always
the little voice
Inside my head
That screams,
"You're lying, always lying..."
I'm a liar.
The voice is drowning out the people.
I'm drowning again.
It's killing my lungs.
It's killing me.
I've gone to the depths.
Straight to hell.
and
into the pit of
Nothing.
---Red Tide
Duo's eyes shot open. Xan was slumped beside him, head lolled down on his own shoulder. Duo shook his head, trying to remember what was going on. Dammit, it happened again! he thought, panicking.
Duo had often gotten that glazed-eye look, when nothing and no one could "snap him out of it." It was almost as if he were in a trance, and no one could wake him out of it. And it seemed that this trance only ever happened in a bad situation. He struggled to regain his senses of his surroundings. I'm right where I woke up....and here's Xan....okay, I think I know what's going on now...
"Xan?" Duo asked tentatively.
Nothing.
"Hey, buddy...c'mon, stop fooling around..." Duo chided nervously. Xan didn't move.
Duo carefully lifted Xan's head off of his shoulder. His eyes rolled upwards.
Xan was dead.