22nd of March, 1988355Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrHwoFdP1Y0
His left temple exploded with pain as the little, sharp rock burrowed into the soft flesh. The quiet boy startled but managed to regain his balance quickly. He was used to it. Looked up, looked at the teacher. She head turned her head away, ignoring him. Everybody always did that. Turned their head and pretended it didn’t happen. So he too did. If he ignored the other children, maybe they would lose interest in him eventually. He opened his schoolbag, handcrafted from battered, dirty gray cloth, and pulled out a paper tissue, pressed it on the wound from which a narrow stream of red had begun to emanate. A dark spot of blood started to spread on the thin fabric, staining the innocent white color of the material. Once again, the quiet boy reached into his bag, revealing a bulky book in a black and red binding. “The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe”, the ornate printing on the cover read. He found the thin bookmark, woven from white yarn, and opened the page which it marked. The lesson was nearly over anyhow so what difference did it make if he spent the last few minutes of it immersed in a world more exiting and thrilling than his own reality could ever even come close to being.
The quiet boy jumped as one of the other kids tore the book away from him, pulling him violently from the fictional universe and back into the real world which was so much more harsh and unforgiving than even the twisted tales of horror he was so passionate for. The boy, older and far taller than him, tossed the item onto the marble tiles of the floor, creasing and even tearing some of the pages. His lips were moving but the quiet boy, in a state of shock, couldn’t make out what he was saying. Before he could open his mouth to utter protest, he could feel the older child's fist in his stomach. He hunched with pain, unable to breath. He tried his very hardest to keep on his feet but ultimately sank to the ground, kneeling before his bullies. The next hit hurt even more than the first one. You stop feeling the pain after a while, they say. You go numb. They lie. The quiet boy cannot recall how he managed to fight his way up or for how long he had been on the ground, the next thing he remembers is running. Covering his face with one arm in a futile effort to protect himself from the stones. Running. Slipping through the main entrance’s heavy oak doors into the rain. Running. Past the little shops and the wooden houses, through a crowd of people hastily making way for the staggering boy. Trees and more trees and fewer houses. The forest.
As he had reached the thick forest bordering the village, he finally allowed himself to catch his breath and sort his mind. The other children were looking for him, he could hear them calling for him in their spiteful voices. They would find him eventually, he knew that, and yet he tried to delay the inevitable by every moment he possibly could. He started moving, slowly at first but picking up pace quickly until he was running again, looking at his own feet. Deeper and yet deeper into the forest with its dark and cyclopean oak trees. When he finally lifted his head and faced what lay before him, the quiet boy did not feel fear. He sensed that the thing would not only leave him alone, it would shelter him and guard him from the bullies. It would protect him.
Only little time later, although he could not tell how much exactly, the other children, following his little footprints, really did find him. When they laid their eyes upon the scenery in front of them, a sense of protection was not what filled their young minds. The last impressions racing through their heads were those of sheer terror and panic. The blood of three school boys mixed with the pouring rain, drenching the thirsty grass of the glade.
17th of August, 1993
I always wanted to be a good kid, but these kinds of propositions quickly fade when you are confronted with something you have been desperate for your entire life. Friendship, people you belong to, people you can turn to when even your very own family turns their backs. I don’t enjoy sinking my foot into the soft tissue of the other boy’s body, I really don’t. But I am scared. Scared they’ll reject me if I don’t do as they do. Scared I’ll be alone again. So I too suppress my emotions and kick against the head of the boy on the ground. Kick again and again until he stops moving, a faint whimper that could just as well have been the wind being the only sign of life left in him. I barely know the boy. He goes to the same arts class as me, I think, but I have never spoken a word to him before. The others told me to act this way and I did not ask the reason, did not need to, for I know I just need to follow their rule in exchange for their friendship. When I notice they too have let go of the limp piece of bruised flesh on the ground, I do not know whether it is due to a quantum of human kindness and mercy left in their wicked hearts or if they merely got bored of their plaything now that it stopped screaming. I don’t really care, as I am just glad it is finally over. I hurry outside into the bright and friendly late summer sunlight that shines especially beautiful today, as if to mock the horrid scene that had just taken place inside the school. I see the others slowly follow suit, self-confident, knowing they would face no punishment. Who could prove anything after all, if everyone had turned their heads? A feeling of nausea starts to overcome me and I raise my arm to wave them goodbye, explaining I feel sick and would like to go home already, as the oldest kid stops me. “We are friends, are we not? Friends spend their free time together, am I wrong?” I don’t even need to agree, the way he asked implied that the question was not one in need of an answer. “How about we go swimming in the lake? The lake in the forest.”, he suggests and we all know what he means by that, I think. I do, anyway. In the forest by the village, there is a lake in which the other children often go swimming in summer. I don’t like swimming and still I agree. What choice do I have, after all? The road to the forest leads past little shops and wooden houses and a marketplace with a big crowd of people until the number of houses starts to decrease and more and more trees start to appear and before you know it, you are already deep in the woods. The lake lies roughly in the centre of the rather small area, so we should have reached it soon. When I hear a crackling sound behind me, I don’t even register it at first. I don’t connect it to those four boys who went missing more than five years ago. How could I? I walk with my eyes locked to the ground, my mind lost in thought so I don’t even notice when the others suddenly start running. I’m only violently pulled back into reality by a sharp explosion of pain in my right shoulder. I instinctively turn my head to make out the source and find it penetrated by a sharp claw that initially must have had the colour of rust but was now stained and tainted with the red of my blood. I jerk around as far as the object in my shoulder allows me and stare at a bizarre, almost dreamlike scene. The creature’s orange-brown skin which indeed reminds me of rusted metal is covered with lively green grass, moss, vines, tendrils and flowers in red, white and yellow. It’s rather large body is supported by four extremely thin but enormously elongated legs which are held together by two knee-like joints each. The head of the creature is reminiscent of a human skull but instead of a jawbone it ends in a row of spikes of various length. But the most interesting aspect of the picture lies not within the creature itself but below it. There sits a human boy, staring at me with spiteful eyes. I have seen him somewhere before, but cannot recall exactly where. A newspaper article, maybe? Despite the hate written in his face and the skull-like head and the sharp claws of the creature, the scenery seems oddly peaceful. Even with it’s claw sunken into my body, the beast doesn’t strike me as aggressive, instead it evokes the image of security, as though it was shielding innocence itself, symbolised by the child beneath it. It suddenly becomes very clear to me that the creature would not tolerate any offense towards those it lived to protect.
I do not struggle as it picks me up by my shoulder injecting an even deadlier dose of pain than before, for I know it would be fruitless. I know I will not survive tonight and I have accepted this fate. After all, I have tortured an innocent soul. So it is not this realization that takes away my breath and drives hot tears to my eyes, nor is it the wound through which my life slowly leaves my body. The creature will catch the others too, I am sure of that. But that doesn’t comfort me for I know that they abandoned me, left me to die.
For I know that in my last moments I am completely alone again.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
