Filling the Void Ch 2
By SoreWaHimitsuDesu
Authors Note: Rewrite of Chapter 2, yay. Again, sorry. I'm trying to get new chapters up too.
He hadn't even said goodbye to me. That was the worst part. Couldn't he have at least said something? Didn't he know how it would affect me? I suppose he didn't. Calvin was never very good at caring about anyone but himself. And that stupid tiger.
Maybe he just lost it after Hobbes "died." He never was very sane to begin with. Perhaps the loss of his only friend caused him to fall deeper into the madness that was in his mind. I mean, come on, the kid talked to a stuffed animal for cripes sakes! Ok, I'll admit, when I was little I talked to my dolls, but I never believed they were really alive and they never talked back. Well, maybe Calvin was just lonely. But I was lonely too! And you never saw me having actual conversations with inanimate objects, being beaten up by bicycles or dressing up like some kind of superhero! Man... I missed him... I would have given anything to have Calvin back.
Years flew by. Or should I say, crawled. They were extremely boring. I guess I became sort of depressed after Calvin left. I thought, maybe if I had tried a little harder to be nice to him, he wouldn't have left. I was constantly beating myself up about it. I stopped talking to most people, I didn't do as well in school. My mother, who was always very supportive of me, took me to a psychiatrist. The man hardly even looked at me before writing me a prescription. I had to take these little white pills two times a day. Supposedly my depression was caused by some chemical imbalance in my brain. But I knew what was wrong and I think my mother did too.
Every once in a while I would look inside my closet and see that cardboard box. It haunted me. For some very odd reason, I was almost afraid to look inside. As if Hobbes was really dead and rotting in there. Don't be silly, I told myself, It's just a toy.
So one day, in the sixth grade, I pulled the box out from beneath all of the clothes and shoes and whatever else had accumulated on the closet floor in the last 2 years and I opened it. I turned the box over, and out fell Hobbes. His black beady little dolls eyes stared up at me, and I was filled with overpowering hatred. I hated him. I hated a toy. How ridiculous could I be? But I did. I wanted to strangle it, in fact I did. I shook the stupid stuffed animal, and screamed at it. "IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!" I yelled at it, "WHY'D YOU HAVE TO GO AND DIE?? YOU STUPID TIGER!!!" I threw it back into the box and threw the box back in the closet. I never looked at Hobbes again after that.
I don't know what had come over me that day. Whatever possessed me to go and attack a toy? I suppose I will never truly know.
After that, I decided I didn't care anymore. As far as I was concerned, Calvin had never existed. Like Hobbes had been to Calvin, Calvin was just a figment of my imagination. Even his own parents acted as though he had never existed. His father had finally gotten a dachshund like he had always wanted. I had never seen those people so happy before and it made me sick. They just threw away their only son like he was... a toy. An old worn out toy that was of no use to anyone. Then I remembered that Calvin didn't exist to me either anymore, who cared what the people down the street did.
In the seventh grade, I made a couple of friends. Jade and Milan. They were different, and I suppose I was too. We all had our little problems. The three of us would just sit around making up stories about strange things that didn't make any sense, being generally weird. I guess we never wanted to be normal. Normalcy was overrated and nothing good could come of it. As long as I was being different, I wasn't feeling so depressed all of the time. It was just a way to escape reality, and I think we all knew it. It was around then that I realized that maybe Calvin knew it too. Maybe his weirdness was just an escape from the horrors of reality. Maybe he wasn't so strange after all. Despite my wanting to think about Calvin, I started to think about him more and more.
I took up hobbies. A lot of them. Drawing, writing, photography, reading, whatever would distract me and keep me from thinking about Calvin. It worked for a while.
I started high school with the same friends. I wasn't too excited about it. I mean, how great could it be? It was, after all, only school. Jade and Milan had a different opinion.
"Oh come on, Alex! It'll be fun!" They called me Alex then. Jade decided that my real name was too plain, and that I was to go by my middle name, Alexandra.
"Yeah!" Milan agreed, "It will be so cool! We can go wherever we want during lunch!"
"We don't have cars." I pointed out, and she thought for a moment.
"Ooh, but maybe there'll be some really cute guys!"
I rolled my eyes. I had no use for "guys." They were all morons anyway.
"Yeah, maybe you'll get a new boyfriend!" Jade teased and I kicked her in the shins. I had had a boyfriend in the eighth grade. His name was... Todd or something. I can't remember, and I don't want to. I never really liked him. He followed me around throughout middle school and one day finally asked me out. I didn't want to say yes, but my friends persuaded me to. I would never do that again. Ugh.
"Oww." Jade whined and rubbed her legs, "Why must you be so violent?"
I grinned innocently and shrugged, "Cuz."
"Hmph."
We were at my house at the time, hanging out for the last time before we became "High schoolers." My mother made us some popcorn and we watched movies all day. The day went by far too quickly and soon my friends had to go home. Ah, the dreaded final hours of summer vacation. Surely to be spent unconscious. What fun.
I hated sleeping. Whenever I went to sleep I would dream about him. I would dream about us when we were in the first grade. I hated those dreams The strangest thing was, in all of those dreams, Hobbes would be there, but he was alive. He looked more realistic and walked around on his hind legs like a person, talking to Calvin and occasionally blowing kisses at me. I didn't want to see Hobbes, or Calvin. But, sleep was necessary, so I curled up into a small ball under the covers, closed my eyes, and eventually drifted off into those dreams. In those dreams I was happy, and that's what I hated about them the most.
The first few weeks of high school went by quickly. It was kind of fun at first, but like most things it lost it's luster, and became boring. School work became harder and I gradually found it harder and harder to concentrate. Perhaps I needed to change my dosage, I would talk to Mother about it.
The third week came. It seemed normal enough. I met Jade and Milan at the bus stop that Monday, we talked for about a half hour until the bus arrived. Then we would climb aboard, sit down and start talking again for about five more minutes until we got to school. Then we would get off the bus and talk on the way inside and up to first period. We never really talked about anything, just whatever odd random thoughts popped into our minds at the time. Boy, were we exciting. We sat down in the back of the classroom and waited for the final bell to ring.
It did, and we waited for our teacher. It was taking longer than usual for the usual day to start, so most started talking again.
"Hey Alex, who's that?" Milan tapped me on the shoulder and I looked up.
"How am I supposed to know?" I asked before I saw who she was pointing to. Then I saw. Our teacher and the principal were talking by the doorway. Behind the principal stood a boy. He was about 5'7" (about 4 inches taller than me), had blonde messy hair, and blue eyes. He wore mostly black: a black t-shirt, and baggy black jeans with lots of pockets. He wore some worn out brown hiking boots. He looked sort of distracted, like his mind was somewhere else.
"Mmm... he's cute." Jade said.
"Come on! Save some for me!" Milan whined.
I rolled my eyes again, "You two can have him." I muttered, although I wasn't too sure I meant it. He was kind of cute... and he reminded me of someone.
I watched, anxious to find out who he was and where he was going to sit. Our teacher nodded a few times, whispered something to the principal, and then whispered something to the boy. She was pointing right in my direction. I froze. Oh God, he's sitting behind me?
"Lucky!" Jade and Milan, who sat a few seats further up, whispered at me and I stuck out my tongue at them.
I looked back only once, and got a better look at him. Agh, he looked so familiar... I racked my brain trying to think of who this new boy reminded me of. Only one name popped up in my mind: Calvin.
By SoreWaHimitsuDesu
Authors Note: Rewrite of Chapter 2, yay. Again, sorry. I'm trying to get new chapters up too.
He hadn't even said goodbye to me. That was the worst part. Couldn't he have at least said something? Didn't he know how it would affect me? I suppose he didn't. Calvin was never very good at caring about anyone but himself. And that stupid tiger.
Maybe he just lost it after Hobbes "died." He never was very sane to begin with. Perhaps the loss of his only friend caused him to fall deeper into the madness that was in his mind. I mean, come on, the kid talked to a stuffed animal for cripes sakes! Ok, I'll admit, when I was little I talked to my dolls, but I never believed they were really alive and they never talked back. Well, maybe Calvin was just lonely. But I was lonely too! And you never saw me having actual conversations with inanimate objects, being beaten up by bicycles or dressing up like some kind of superhero! Man... I missed him... I would have given anything to have Calvin back.
Years flew by. Or should I say, crawled. They were extremely boring. I guess I became sort of depressed after Calvin left. I thought, maybe if I had tried a little harder to be nice to him, he wouldn't have left. I was constantly beating myself up about it. I stopped talking to most people, I didn't do as well in school. My mother, who was always very supportive of me, took me to a psychiatrist. The man hardly even looked at me before writing me a prescription. I had to take these little white pills two times a day. Supposedly my depression was caused by some chemical imbalance in my brain. But I knew what was wrong and I think my mother did too.
Every once in a while I would look inside my closet and see that cardboard box. It haunted me. For some very odd reason, I was almost afraid to look inside. As if Hobbes was really dead and rotting in there. Don't be silly, I told myself, It's just a toy.
So one day, in the sixth grade, I pulled the box out from beneath all of the clothes and shoes and whatever else had accumulated on the closet floor in the last 2 years and I opened it. I turned the box over, and out fell Hobbes. His black beady little dolls eyes stared up at me, and I was filled with overpowering hatred. I hated him. I hated a toy. How ridiculous could I be? But I did. I wanted to strangle it, in fact I did. I shook the stupid stuffed animal, and screamed at it. "IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!" I yelled at it, "WHY'D YOU HAVE TO GO AND DIE?? YOU STUPID TIGER!!!" I threw it back into the box and threw the box back in the closet. I never looked at Hobbes again after that.
I don't know what had come over me that day. Whatever possessed me to go and attack a toy? I suppose I will never truly know.
After that, I decided I didn't care anymore. As far as I was concerned, Calvin had never existed. Like Hobbes had been to Calvin, Calvin was just a figment of my imagination. Even his own parents acted as though he had never existed. His father had finally gotten a dachshund like he had always wanted. I had never seen those people so happy before and it made me sick. They just threw away their only son like he was... a toy. An old worn out toy that was of no use to anyone. Then I remembered that Calvin didn't exist to me either anymore, who cared what the people down the street did.
In the seventh grade, I made a couple of friends. Jade and Milan. They were different, and I suppose I was too. We all had our little problems. The three of us would just sit around making up stories about strange things that didn't make any sense, being generally weird. I guess we never wanted to be normal. Normalcy was overrated and nothing good could come of it. As long as I was being different, I wasn't feeling so depressed all of the time. It was just a way to escape reality, and I think we all knew it. It was around then that I realized that maybe Calvin knew it too. Maybe his weirdness was just an escape from the horrors of reality. Maybe he wasn't so strange after all. Despite my wanting to think about Calvin, I started to think about him more and more.
I took up hobbies. A lot of them. Drawing, writing, photography, reading, whatever would distract me and keep me from thinking about Calvin. It worked for a while.
I started high school with the same friends. I wasn't too excited about it. I mean, how great could it be? It was, after all, only school. Jade and Milan had a different opinion.
"Oh come on, Alex! It'll be fun!" They called me Alex then. Jade decided that my real name was too plain, and that I was to go by my middle name, Alexandra.
"Yeah!" Milan agreed, "It will be so cool! We can go wherever we want during lunch!"
"We don't have cars." I pointed out, and she thought for a moment.
"Ooh, but maybe there'll be some really cute guys!"
I rolled my eyes. I had no use for "guys." They were all morons anyway.
"Yeah, maybe you'll get a new boyfriend!" Jade teased and I kicked her in the shins. I had had a boyfriend in the eighth grade. His name was... Todd or something. I can't remember, and I don't want to. I never really liked him. He followed me around throughout middle school and one day finally asked me out. I didn't want to say yes, but my friends persuaded me to. I would never do that again. Ugh.
"Oww." Jade whined and rubbed her legs, "Why must you be so violent?"
I grinned innocently and shrugged, "Cuz."
"Hmph."
We were at my house at the time, hanging out for the last time before we became "High schoolers." My mother made us some popcorn and we watched movies all day. The day went by far too quickly and soon my friends had to go home. Ah, the dreaded final hours of summer vacation. Surely to be spent unconscious. What fun.
I hated sleeping. Whenever I went to sleep I would dream about him. I would dream about us when we were in the first grade. I hated those dreams The strangest thing was, in all of those dreams, Hobbes would be there, but he was alive. He looked more realistic and walked around on his hind legs like a person, talking to Calvin and occasionally blowing kisses at me. I didn't want to see Hobbes, or Calvin. But, sleep was necessary, so I curled up into a small ball under the covers, closed my eyes, and eventually drifted off into those dreams. In those dreams I was happy, and that's what I hated about them the most.
The first few weeks of high school went by quickly. It was kind of fun at first, but like most things it lost it's luster, and became boring. School work became harder and I gradually found it harder and harder to concentrate. Perhaps I needed to change my dosage, I would talk to Mother about it.
The third week came. It seemed normal enough. I met Jade and Milan at the bus stop that Monday, we talked for about a half hour until the bus arrived. Then we would climb aboard, sit down and start talking again for about five more minutes until we got to school. Then we would get off the bus and talk on the way inside and up to first period. We never really talked about anything, just whatever odd random thoughts popped into our minds at the time. Boy, were we exciting. We sat down in the back of the classroom and waited for the final bell to ring.
It did, and we waited for our teacher. It was taking longer than usual for the usual day to start, so most started talking again.
"Hey Alex, who's that?" Milan tapped me on the shoulder and I looked up.
"How am I supposed to know?" I asked before I saw who she was pointing to. Then I saw. Our teacher and the principal were talking by the doorway. Behind the principal stood a boy. He was about 5'7" (about 4 inches taller than me), had blonde messy hair, and blue eyes. He wore mostly black: a black t-shirt, and baggy black jeans with lots of pockets. He wore some worn out brown hiking boots. He looked sort of distracted, like his mind was somewhere else.
"Mmm... he's cute." Jade said.
"Come on! Save some for me!" Milan whined.
I rolled my eyes again, "You two can have him." I muttered, although I wasn't too sure I meant it. He was kind of cute... and he reminded me of someone.
I watched, anxious to find out who he was and where he was going to sit. Our teacher nodded a few times, whispered something to the principal, and then whispered something to the boy. She was pointing right in my direction. I froze. Oh God, he's sitting behind me?
"Lucky!" Jade and Milan, who sat a few seats further up, whispered at me and I stuck out my tongue at them.
I looked back only once, and got a better look at him. Agh, he looked so familiar... I racked my brain trying to think of who this new boy reminded me of. Only one name popped up in my mind: Calvin.