Johnny stared out the window, his elbow rested on the sill as he let his head slump down onto his hand. Rain had begun to spit on the earth outside, flecks decorating the streets and sidewalk. Blades of grass began to flatten against the ground, springing up and flaking droplets onto the next. It wasn't a good day for weather, that was a given fact, but to Johnny it usually gave life to tired eyes as the sky darkened with black clouds, defying gravity wherever they went. If they could float so freely, yet still be so dark and depressed all the time, then why couldn't he?
It was a silly thought, but it made sense to him. It's almost as if people just threw on the disguise to fool people that they were happy, yet the pain was often times so clear that people would look right through it and not think a thing of it, but it was just so obvious.
His eyes drifted towards the drooling figure holding up a miniature hamburger as it glued on the most devious grin. "Why haven't I just thrown you out the window yet, hmm?" Johnny thought to himself out loud, glaring at the toy from the corner of his eye. "You're nothing to me but just a blank voice in my head, taking on the form of a hamburger dude." He returned his focus to the people outside as they shivered in coats, opening an umbrella over their head and mothers tucking the children into their raincoats as they shielded them from the ever so destructive water droplets.
"Because it wouldn't do a thing to help you." A voice responded from the shelf next to Johnny with a crooked smirk. "True, I may be just another one of the voices in the house, but one that has also sunk deep into your head. If you threw me out the window, let me rot out there for days, weeks, months, even years, it wouldn't do a thing to help you. Why, you would have only gotten rid of a dumb child's toy that had mysteriously appeared in this crumby house just as the voice came to you. You can't get rid of you're mind, Johnny, only the source of me. Hell, not even."
Johnny shifted his position to give a glare at the toy for a moment before slowly making his way across the room in thought, stopping to rest his gaze upon a styrofoam figure that had been nailed into the wall with a knife, the eyes still taunted him too much, forcing him to look away coldly in fear that eventually their voices might return if he stared at them for too long. Johnny sat on the couch, pinching the skin on his forehead as he thought. "You know." He sighed, looking down at the floorboards. "You're starting to become more and more like the Dough Boys every day, feeding off of my depression and getting stronger as it grows." He looked up, his eyes crazed as he stared back at the figure. "How long will it be until you start walking, too?"
"Nonsense!" The voice growled. "Don't relate me to them, they were weak! Nothing but a piece of styrofoam that gets stuck in you're hair! You were able to kill them off with a knife to their heads, because their voice was in fact them. I know they claimed to be a part of you, a part of you're 'brain', they lied. It's me who is in you're brain, the one that you can't get rid of unless you were to change, which will indeed never happen." It grew to a whispering hiss. "Just like Nail Bunny, that voice speaks to you less and less because it's given up on you, you're good side has died and now I'm able to step in." Johnny hated to admit it, but Reverend Meat was actually making some logical explanations here, just as well as he was able to explain it to himself, actually. "I like the sound of that. You're good side, stepping in. Don't you?"
"Maybe you're right. I guess? I don't even know..." Johnny sighed, a tone of uncertainty hidden in there. "Perhaps Nail Bunny has given up on me? But if that's a part of me, then wouldn't that mean that I'm actually giving up on myself? A part of me, I mean, destroying itself just to get away from me." He continued staring at the ground, his eyes filled with endless worrying, it had been stuck there for years. "Damn... Am I that fucked up?"
The conversation was interrupted by a loud banging at the door, it made Johnny flinch from how sudden it was. He looked up, glaring at the door with his eyes narrowed as if he was just simply hearing things. He waited for a moment, staring at the wooden plank to see if it would talk again. And surely it did, and Johnny let out an irritated growl as the knocking came again. But he forced himself to stand up, opening the door slowly, just enough for him to poke his head out. "Yes?"
A short, plump, rather old, lady with tied-back hair stood on the mat just outside the door that had printed in bold black writing 'Oh no. Not you again!'
"My daughter told me about you." She croaked, squinting an eye at him with a glare, then grabbed Johnny by the shirt and pulled him closer. "She said you're a freak. That you hide dead bodies in you're basement and steal children off the street."
Johnny pulled away, scrunching his nose in disgust at the smell of her breath. "Well, that's uh... nice." He said awkwardly as he brushed off his shirt, then shrugged down at her. "But I don't do either of those things. Personally, I hate children, why would I dare bring those revolting things into my house? And I think the rotting smell of dead bodies would surely make it's way up the house within a weak, carrying nausea with it, I wouldn't stick around if that were to happen." He explained, glancing over the woman's head to see a young child staring at him. Johnny motioned with a single hand for the kid to shoo, then returned his gaze back down to the lady. "Look, I really should be going now. I have guests to attend to."
Johnny began closing the door, but two little fingers poked through the opening, forcing it back open as the stranger welcomed herself into the house, stepping onto the creaking floorboards and staring in disgust at the walls around her.
"Well... what a lovely home." She said sarcastically, tapping on the blood-splattered glass table next to her. "Could use a bit of tidying up."
"Well excuse the hell out of me with my sincerest apologies. I'll try cleaning the house the next time a stranger barges down the door." Johnny snapped, glaring at the woman who was going through any loose papers that were on the table. "I really do suggest that you get out of here while you're still breathing." But the lady just motioned with her hand for him to silence as she continued inspecting the house. Finally, Johnny was pissed.
"Might I rephrase that, perhaps?" He snorted, pulling a bloodied knife from one of the sliding drawers in the desk nearby, one that had yet to be cleaned and sharpened. "Get the hell out of here before I throw you out piece by piece."
- Devi's POV -
"So what made you change you're mind, hmmm?" Tenna said with a smile, keeping her eyes on the sidewalk ahead of her. She pulled a dog-toy out of her purse and started squeaking it. "Was it Spooky? Did you want to talk to Mr. Spooky now?"
"Tenna, I hate Spooky. You know that, it's just a dog-toy." Devi sighed, shaking her head in disappointment. "You need to get out of that 5 year old stage, honestly."
"And you need to grow out of that cranky 50 year old stage, Devi." Tenna snapped back, gently setting the skeleton toy back in the striped zebra-purse strapped around her shoulder. "SooOOo, you never answered my question, why'd you decide to follow?"
Devi hesitated for a moment, lowering her gaze to the ground that had begun to darken with rain. "I just wanted to take you're advice for once. You know, that I need to get out a bit more, meet some new people."
"So I see." Tenna giggled with a smirk as she shouted at the top of her lungs. "Tenna strikes victorious again!"
"Tenna!" Devi shout-whispered, punching her arm with a glare. "You're gonna wake the whole damn neighborhood. I thought we were just gonna go down to that store, weren't we? Not announce to the whole world about you're stupid advice."
They walked for awhile, silence loomed over their heads as they walked on the never-ending sidewalk that led through a strange neighborhood with a bunch of speed-limit signs that had most likely been crossed out by some teenagers trying to act cool or some other crap. Tenna skipped over the tiles that passed over the yard of a tall, yet haunted-mansion looking house with crows sitting on the roof, pecking at whatever they could.
"Why do you hide in you're apartment anyways?" Tenna asked, looking back at her friend with a brow raised. "I know you've told me before, but..."
Devi silenced her with the wave of her hand that told her to just forget about it, closing her eyes as she walked and stuffing her hands in her pockets to save them from the cold, crisp, air of rain. She wasn't ready to go over it again just yet.
Once they got to the store, Devi was already tired and yawning, her eyes red from lack of sleep the last few weeks, she had stayed awake worrying about moving within the next few months. She already had the boxes packed in her room, and the furniture really only had to call a mover and have them transfer it to her new house... wherever that was, as long as it was far enough from here that she was free from the place.
"Kay, well i'm gonna go look at some clothes." Tenna explained with a yip, glancing around to find whatever isle that she needed to go in for the new 'School Girl's' style that she wanted to look at so badly. "You gonna look at the paints or something?"
Devi looked up from the floor, looking right into her friend's green eyes. It was weird to her, so she looked away quickly glancing at all the other stuff in this store. She hadn't made eye contact with anyone for the last month, she'd been trying to avoid it because of memories.
"Oh uh... right, the paints." Devi said flatly, spacing off again. "I was going to look at the paints..." She absent mindedly walked away, beginning to chew her nails. She stopped herself quickly though, it was a habit she was trying to break.
The paint section was the only place in this cheap store that she remembered, so it was easy to find. She never really came here, she just knew from Tenna explaining this whole place so well before. After all, her friend was a daily customer at all stores that had clothes.
The shelves seemed to spring out from the walls like a limb on the trees that surrounded her apartment. They looked weird, almost like they were reaching out to grab her. Was Devi perhaps looking through some kind of Convex mirror or something?
She quickly shook her head from the feeling and blinked a couple of times before she stopped feeling light-headed. The paints were just blue, red, yellow, and green. No fancy colors like beige or maroon, after all, a painting section wasn't very popular in stores like this, so it made sense that it would be small. But shouldn't all stores have enough sense in them to know better than to sell them in tiny little packets?
Devi shrugged, she was just going to have to mix the primary colors and try to see what she could get out of them. Grabbing each color from the $1 shelf, she decided to look for just one more. Where was the white? She guessed that Tenna was right when she said that nobody needed that color.
But what if you're painting on black paper? Devi thought with a tiny chuckle, then grew mad at herself for thinking of such a stupid question. Maybe these paint fumes are starting to get to me...
Turning around, she began to walk out of the annoying section, but slowed down by the glares that everyone was giving her. Was she just imagining this?
What did I do wrong?
"Tenna..." She mumbled, quickening her pace through the store to find her friend. All that was on her mind right now was getting home and staying home. When she found her, Tenna was just looking at the price tag of a green shirt with some white stripes on it, it had thinner black lines in the middle around the waist of the shirt. Tenna slowly backed away as she finished looking at the price.
"Woah..." Devi heard from her friend.
"Tenna... Tenna we gotta get out of here, I really don't feel good about this place." She whispered, tugging on Tenna's sleeve.
"Oh, Devi!" She smiled, turning around as she gave her a weird look from the blank expression in her eyes. "Are you feeling okay?"
Devi started to sway a little, waving her arms around slightly to keep herself balanced. "No, Tenna i'm..." She paused, her vision starting to darken on the sides. "...not. Can be please get the hell out of here?"
"Sure thing!" Tenna exclaimed, helping Devi to keep balance. She was obviously disappointed that they had to leave empty-handed. Even Devi had to drop the packets of paint because she just didn't have to time to pay for them. She was wanted to leave and get back to her apartment.
As they exited the store, the crisp air returned to Devi's nose, making her shiver a bit and try to warm her bare arms up as she covered them with her hands. She was already starting to feel much better, but she still felt nauseous. Devi had to pause by a trashcan just outside the store as she felt that she was going to get sick. But after a minute or two, she was fine again.
"So, should we try again in the morning or...?" Tenna started to ask as she returned, they started walking back to their neighborhood where everything is familiar, the sickened feeling beginning to leave.
"Nah." Devi sighed, looking away for a moment. She just wanted to be alone right now, have nothing at all to do with her apartment, or Tenna, and especially Spooky, who she was about to steal right from Tenna and throw him into the nearby garbage truck when Tenna started squeaking again. But she didn't, it was all she could do to resist it. "I have a really bad feeling about that place, it makes me sick just looking at it."
"I know right?" Tenna agreed, glancing back behind her, when Devi dared not to. "Those prices are so expensive! They dare call themselves 'cheap'?"
Devi ignored her friend the rest of the way, her tired eyes beginning to close halfway there to her apartment. Tenna's words started sounding like mumbling to her, even though she knew her well enough as a friend that she was speaking loud enough to wake the neighborhood again. When Tenna finally asked her a question, Devi didn't even listen, just shrugged and nodded. After all, she knew that she wasn't going to be asked any serious questions, after all.
Though eventually, she asked her a question that snapped her right out of her daydreaming. "We're gonna take the shortcut, is that alright with you?"
Devi nearly screamed as they started to turn down a familiar street, she froze in horror as she remembered this place.
"No, Tenna, actually that isn't alright with me." Devi quickly responded, backing up and away from the doomed street. "No way in hell is that alright with me."
"Devi, you're starting to get that look again..." Tenna spoke, raising a brow at the paranoid Devi. "What's up?"
"We can't go down there, Tenna." She slowly pointed a shaky finger down the street, her eyes growing wide as her vision darkened again. "That's where-"
Her words were suddenly cut off as she felt herself starting to sway, eventually she noticed she was looking at the clearing sky now, and it was the last thing she saw before a black wall started to take over, and she saw nothing.
Authors note
Ooooh, this story is starting to get good 83 Does anyone wanna take a guess at who that old lady was? Or why Devi was starting to feel nauseous, what she was about to say before the blacked out? No? K.
Well anyways, next chapter is coming soon!