Sure to Shine

"Put the gun away," Skylar commanded, and Eric, in a daze, slipped the gun into the inside pocket of his trench coat.

He and Skylar were crammed into a dark storeroom, huddled at the back, waiting for a chance to get out. Skylar had explained that the time frame would be incredibly small. They would have to move while the cops were inside, but only in one area of the school.

"They’ll have dead and injured to deal with," Skylar said, as they sat there. "And they don’t know where you shot yourself, so they don’t yet have any proof you’re alive."

"Why did you make me do that to Dad?" Eric asked, his voice catching at the end. Skylar fixed him with a look that told Eric he thought he was an idiot.

"Do I have to keep explaining?" Skylar asked. "You’re doing this. Not me. You."

"I don’t understand," Eric muttered, sniffing and wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He didn’t think it was possible to feel this bad. He was distraught, the guilt eating away at him.

"Eric," Skylar sighed. "Don’t you ever wonder why you’re the only one who can see and hear me? Why you’re the only one I appear to? Why you’ve never seen me around other people? Have you not noticed I always pop up when no one else is around?"

Eric thought about it, and then nodded.

"I just thought you were a bit crazy," he muttered. Skylar let out a genuine laugh.

"I’m crazy?" he asked. "You’re crazy, kid. I don’t exist. I’m a figment of your sick imagination."

"That’s not possible," Eric muttered. "You do things independently of me. I don’t even know where these guns came from."

"Look in your left pocket, Eric," Skylar muttered. Eric obeyed, pulling out a driver’s license. It had his picture, but the information stated that he was named Skylar Mitchell.

"What?" Eric asked, looking up at Skylar quizzically. "Where’d this come from?"

"For months you were subconsciously planning this," Skylar explained. "When I came on the scene, it was easy to make you do as I wanted. You used that fake driver’s license to get those guns. And you paid for them using your father’s card."

Eric paled as a memory came flashing back to him. First, his father finding out that he had been robbed. Then, Eric saw himself using the card, taking the money. He saw himself leave the bank with nine hundred dollars, though he didn’t remember buying the guns. However, in this memory, he was dressed how he was now. He had been Skylar.

"How are you here, then?" he asked softly. "I’m imagining you. I don’t understand."

"Eric, you’re a nutcase," Skylar said bluntly. "You hate this place, and you wanted to shoot the place up. You just couldn’t. Somehow, you stopped yourself. When a desire or an urge is repressed for too long, dangerous stuff can happen. I’m merely you’re your subconscious mind telling you what you want to hear. You needed encouragement to do this, and you knew you wouldn’t get it from anyone you knew. So, you created me. I was here to help out, to tell you the things you knew but didn’t use, to get you to this point. And, I was fortunate enough to be able to take you over when you did it, so I got all the fun, as well."

Skylar grinned, as though this happened every day. Eric, meanwhile, was slumped against the shelves of spare books, drained, as memories came flooding back to him.

He saw himself the first day at the park, talking to an empty swing.

He saw himself buying the small handgun using the fake license, chatting away boldly to the salesman, talking about how he and his father had bonded over their love of firearms.

Eric saw himself talking to no one on the road that night, and then saw himself press the gun against his own chest and force himself to walk to the graveyard.

"How did you put the gun in my bag that time?" Eric muttered groggily. "How did you beat me up and kick me?"

"Sometimes, you did it yourself," Skylar explained. Being the same person was coming in handy, Eric thought. Skylar didn’t need a lot of explanation to follow Eric’s erratic train of thought. "Other times, you just imagined what it would feel like. You projected me outwards, I acted out, you reacted accordingly. All the pain was in your head."

Eric nodded slowly, feeling incredibly sick.

He saw himself chatting away to himself by Ben’s grave, telling himself those things that had sent a shiver up his spine.

He saw himself stealing the money again, and buying the shotgun. Then, he saw himself poking around the old asylum, sitting in the big hall, sawing off the shotgun and practising concealing it and pulling it out quickly. He saw himself firing it in the hall, getting used to the feel of the gun, getting used to the recoil.

Then he saw himself amazed when Skylar brought him there, not remembering anything. He didn’t remember at the time, all the hours he had spent in that creepy old place by himself. He saw himself up in the day room, threatening himself with the gun, gripping nothing as he imagined Skylar standing on him. He saw the trap he had rigged for himself in the other room – the dummy positioned to fall as he nudged past a pile of old papers on the floor.

Eric squeezed his eyes closed.

"I don’t know how I could do all this and not know," he muttered.

"Self-defence," Skylar replied. "Your brain knew you wouldn’t be able to comprehend what was happening to you. You knew you wouldn’t be able to accept that you were a monster. That’s why you hated me for some of the time. You hated what you were; I was the projection for the anger. Keep remembering."

Eric took a shuddering breath, feeling as though he were drunk.

He saw himself arguing with himself in the car, before jerking the steering wheel. Now he realised why Skylar had forbidden him from mentioning the presence of a passenger in the car. He got what Skylar meant when he had spoken of making his job easier.

Worst of all, he remembered the shooting now. He saw himself open fire at the memorial assembly, he saw himself picking off students, taunting them, murdering them.

Eric began to sob again. Skylar rolled his eyes.

"Get a grip," he muttered. "You’re such a pussy. It’s hard to believe I’m so fucking badass."

"You’re a monster," Eric hissed. "I’m not a monster."

"You have no one to blame but yourself for this," Skylar told him firmly. "This was your secret desire, Eric. I just hope the whole damn thing was worth it, and that it taught you at least something."

"I’m going to spend the rest of my life in fucking jail," Eric spat. "How has this helped?"

"You’re insane, mate," Skylar laughed. "It’ll be the loony bin for you."

"No it won’t," Eric muttered. "Not if I end it now."

"The way you were blubbering over your father earlier, I doubt you will," Skylar muttered. "Come on, get up. We need to get out of here."

"If it’s so useless, why are we escaping?" Eric asked.

"Because, there are still some things I want to explain to you," Skylar said. "And I need a little longer than what we have now. Come on."

Eric stayed where he was.

"You’re my imagination," he muttered. "I can’t trust you. I can’t trust myself after this."

"I’ll take over, if you want?" Skylar asked, shrugging. "You’re not much good for anything at the moment."

"Take over?" Eric asked bluntly. Skylar sighed.

"It’ll be me in control," he said. "That would probably be best, actually. You’re much too distracted to deal with this."

"And how do we do this?" Eric asked, and Skylar chuckled.

"Just relax," he muttered, which was something which Eric was finding impossible at the moment. There was a long silence, during which Eric could only feel his heart thumping against his chest. Eventually, everything went dark, and when he opened his eyes again, they weren’t Eric’s tear-soaked, horror-stricken ones. They were Skylar’s bright, excited ones, with the trademark mad glint.

Skylar quickly stood up, brushed himself off, and got his gun ready, just in case. Of course, there was a high chance he would be killed, but he wasn’t too bothered about that. He was having fun.

Quietly, Skylar slipped out of the storeroom and crept down the corridor, keeping to the far side of the halls from the corner and keeping his finger on the trigger. He snuck out of a back exit after creeping down a flight of stairs, and headed for the trees on the opposite side of the grounds. There were no police around the back, from the looks of things, but Skylar knew there would be a slight time period where he would be in view. He just hoped everyone was still too transfixed with the school.

The ground was hard and frosty, but Skylar was so warm that it was a relief. He quickened his pace as he entered the visibility zone, and as almost at the trees when he heard someone yell something.

He turned and didn’t hesitate – immediately, he began firing, while backing towards the trees.

He felt no fear as bullets slammed into the ground all around him, but then, quite abruptly, everything went black, and Eric was hitting the floor, blinded with pain, blood pouring from his shoulder.

He gasped, trying desperately to work out what had happened, when he heard Skylar yell at him.

"Get the fuck up!" he screamed.

Eric tried to move, but he couldn’t. Instead, he gasped in agony, black spots appearing in his vision. He could hear someone yell that the shooter was down, that he had been hit, but things were swimming in and out of focus.

It was the worst pain he had ever been in, but Eric felt no fear, and for the first time he was truly grateful for Skylar’s teaching.

"Get the fuck up!" Skylar screamed again, and Eric pulled himself over onto his stomach, dragging himself towards the trees. Skylar grabbed his arm as Eric reached the cover, and using strength Eric didn’t know that he still possessed, hauled Eric to his feet and shoved him into the trees.

"Go, come on!" he yelled, and Eric forced himself to keep putting one foot in front of the other, Skylar shoving him and yelling at him to keep moving.

Eric lost track of how long he ran for. He was fading in and out, and he wondered if Skylar was taking over occasionally. It seemed his brain was too weak to keep itself aware of what was happening.

Eric no longer knew where he was. Every time he zoned back in, he was staggering down a different street. Eventually, he found himself crawling up the stairs to the first floor of the old abandoned asylum, Skylar dragging him and pinching him hard, to keep him conscious.

Eventually, Eric felt himself slump where he had fallen after Skylar had beaten him. He could feel his T-shirt and the coat were soaked with blood, and he lay on the floor gasping for a long while.

"I think this might have killed you," Skylar eventually said softly.

"You too," Eric muttered weakly. Skylar smiled.

"I’m not afraid of death," he said simply.

"No," Eric replied, "Neither am I. But I’m not going anywhere."

Skylar laughed.

"Just shut up and rest," he commanded.

Eric slid out of consciousness.