Chapter 2 - The boy in the water.
He couldn't see anything anymore; sometimes he forgot how he looked like.
He grabbed his feet and his hands, counting his fingers, once and again, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
At the beginning he had tried to keep count but with time it didn't seem to matter anymore, everything lost meaning under the water, he was just floating there, scared to go to the surface, so he stayed down there in the dirt, surround by total darkness.
He could feel things touching him once in a while, poking him, biting him, but he was so tired, he didn't care anymore, may be this was right, may be he should just died like they had always wanted.
He was swimming in clean water, he opened his eyes to look at the sun that touched the water's surface and put his hand against it, almost breaking it but not really, he stayed like that for a long time, looking at the different colours that converge there, it was really soothing.
A hand broke the surface and moved five fingers under the water, waving at him. He didn't want to go, he wanted to stay there, he pursed his lips at the waving hand, daring it to come after him but he decided to swam to them anyway, and let the sun warmed his cold skin for a while.
He looked at the man who was in front of him, so similar to him but so different at the same time, he looked into familiar blue eyes that didn't hold any feeling for him anymore and tried to remember a time when it wasn't like that, but he couldn't.
He looked down at the man's hand moving with impatience a towel. He grabbed it faster than he could see and with his other hand he caught his wrist between his fingers, he could feel his pulse, beating so much faster than before.
His long nails grace the man's skin without breaking it, watching as the man's pulse was faster and faster, and suddenly he let go, the man fell to the floor and looked at him with wide scared eyes, there finally a feeling
The man breathed hard while he looked at him.
He closed his eyes harder and pressed his face against his knees, trying to block the memories.
'We find the perfect place for you, so you can swim and feel safe, nobody will bother you there'
New water, so beautiful. But he couldn't see the sunlight against the water's surface.
"Do you like it? it's an abandoned building, we can change the water every week and nobody will notice" She said with a smile.
"Go! Swim, we will be right here, honey" But the woman's smile turned ugly while she walked away, leaving him behind, whispering behind closed doors.
His hands burned, he had hurt himself trying to open the metal door. And the things in the pool kept on poking him, they will never heal like that.
He pierced his legs with his nails while he pressed harder and harder against them, his blood floating around him, making no difference in the darkness that surround him, after a while it was all the same.
Lost in his thoughts he missed the movement that was just in front of him, but the second time he didn't, there it was something new, something had pierced the surface and it was moving, back and forth, back and forth.
He didn't want to move but he was really curious, back and forth, back and forth. He swam near the "things" and tried to look at them beyond the darkness that all the dirt from the pool had accumulated, he moved his hand very slowly to grab one but he let it go the second he touched it, it was a foot! A human foot. There was someone here with him.
He started to breath really hard, he was scared, really scared, he didn't know what to do, he could just stay there and waited for the person to leave or tried to make contact, but the woman's voice come back to hunt him.
She walked to the pool with a green bathing suit, a green pattern made with different leaves, showing her skin with every movement she made, "a leaf for every tree, the old woman said while she looked at her with a sad expression".
She covered her eyes against the sun that blinded her, she forgot her dark glasses inside and she didn't want to waste her time going inside again, she could call him, she was sure he will come with her glasses like the dog he was but it didn't matter anymore.
With her arm raised, she looked at the pool, always so clean, full of different colours that were never meant for her, she entered without a second thought against the cold water, she lowered her body until she could sit on the stairs and waited.
She felt him before she saw him, under the water, grazing her skin. She tapped her fingers against her leg until he surfaced and looked at her with blue eyes; she lifted her hand and waited while she looked at the sun that was already burning her pale complexion.
She still had the leaves marks all over her body, one on top of the other, marking her skin looked like a plant, but she didn't care, she never did.
The silky wet hair pressed against her palm wake her up from her slumbering, she moved her hand back and forth, stroking his hair, making humming noises that she knew he adored, they stayed like that for hours, just sitting there, tapping her fingers against her leg and with the other stroking his hair, until the darkness killed all those colours she hated.
Finally she opened her eyes and looked down at the monster that she used to call brother.
He glanced up at the feet one more time.
"They will hunt you down" She had said to him multiple times, while the man just sat there doing nothing like always. "Could you buy me some cigarettes?" "Yes, dear" "Could you fix that?" "Yes, dear"" Could you...""Yes,dear"
He covered his ears and screamed, the feet where still moving back and forth, back and forth.
He closed his eyes and finally swam to the surface, he could feel the air against the skin one more time but he kept his eyes close, he didn't want to see the horror on the person's face once he saw him.
"You smell like fresh flowers" A voice said to him, he opened his eyes so fast that his vision blured for a second, there he was a boy about his age, sitting in the pool with his feet underwater, back and forth, back and forth.
" Wh..at" The sound of his own voice, scared him, it sounded so wrong and foreign now.
"I said: you smell like fresh flowers" The boy smiled at him and he couldn't help but returned it.
"What's your name?" He asked tilting his head to the right, looking at him like he was the most normal thing in the world, what's wrong with this kid? He was a dirty "human" boy coming out of a dirty pool after touching someone else feet.
But he couldn't help himself and answered anyway.
"Artie" Without realizing what he was doing he was getting near to the boy like following the movement of his feet, until he was touching them with his chest.
"What's your name?" The feet didn't stop, back and forth, so he caught one of them between his hands, the boy didn't seemed to mind, He just answered his question.
"Kurt, do you want to play with me?" That took him by surprise, no one wanted to play with him, people look at him strange most of the time, well before the betrayal, before the pool.
Kurt released his foot from his hand, so he grabbed him between his claws once again; he touched every finger with the tip of his nails.
"Give me your hand, so we can play outside" Kurt said to him while he stretched his hand as far as he could without falling. Artie let go of his foot and look at the hand that was being offer to him, in that moment he decided 'I'll never let it go'.
He grabbed Kurt's hand and went out of the pool after a long, long time. His legs couldn't hold him, he was too weak, he had always been like this, and his legs weren't made for earth so he fell on top of Kurt. throwing them both to the floor.
He stayed like that, breathing hard the air that now surround him, when he opened his eyes he lost himself in new pool ,a green/blue pool that stared back at him.
"Are you okay?" Kurt asked him while he tried to get up, but he didn't seem to be successesing, so he grabbed his waist and put him into a kneeling position beside him.
"Yeah" Kurt looked down at his hands and put them between his, soothing the pain that he didn't realized he had, he hadn't had the time to look at himself outside the pool, he was hurt, really hurt.
His legs were covered in blood, tiny bite marks and dirt, his hands too, he didn't want to think how his face looked like. He tried to take his dirty hands out of Kurt's but he just couldn't, human contact was so rare for him and he realized he didn't want to. They stayed like that for a long time, while Kurt petted his hands, back and forth.
But a noise woke him up from his slumbering, the metal door was opening. He tried to stand, to scream, they were coming back for him. But the face that appeared on the door was completely new for him, it was a man with a baseball cap.
He turned around to look at Kurt, who kept on with his petting motion; he didn't seem faze by the man at all. He felt something warm on his back, the man had taken off this shirt and put it on his back.
"It's getting late, why don't we go home?' A bad feeling settle in Artie's stomach, he was going to be alone again. He looked at the dark pool; he didn't want to go back there. He wanted to stay here with Kurt.
"Come on, Artie, let's go home, we have a big swimming pool in our backyard, you are going to love it! and then we can go shopping and buy you a light blue bathing suit, it'll bring out your eyes, I'm sure" He didn't say anything, he could only start at him in shock.
He felt a pair of big hands under his knees and a voice saying 'put your hands around my neck' so he did, he seemed to be doing everything in automatic, he let the man carried him outside of the dark pool while Kurt petted his feet, back and forth. When they crossed the metal door he had to cover his eyes, the light was so bright.
"Don't worry we will get you a pair of fashionable dark glasses" And Artie's tears started to finally fall. He didn't see the remains of the burned door that Burt had to take down to enter so he never asked himself how Kurt had entered without opening the door.