A Project Human Story: A Dead One

Things have changed.

For the worse, of course, because that’s just the direction that this path will run while I’m sleeping on it. Even while the dusk has faded behind the horizon to leave the lights of the rides to run wild, the thoughts of my nightmares were eating me up inside. More specifically, the ones of that red head. I cringe at the thought of her toenails against the floor, making a shiver run up and down my spine.

For all the years that I’ve experienced nightmares such as these I know, whether I want to fucking admit it to myself or not, this girl is haunting me for a reason. Premonitions happen to me like breathing happens to everyone, but ones about death do not.

I’m not dense and I’m not stupid, nor am I oblivious. But being skeptical is necessary and a trait I do have. I fear that the man with the red eyes has everything to do with this. The way he catches my gaze with his energy flaring towards me like a child’s greedy hands reaching for anything with their eyes sparkling wide, makes every part of me fear his existence.

The last time someone showed up to screw with my life like that, people died.

“You need to stop it before I stop it for you.” My friend, Isabel, spoke up. I gazed thankfully, but silently into her dark glossy eyes reflecting the colorful lights of the fair.

“I know you are having nightmares again. Your entire body language screams it.” She spoke into the cooling night, the first one in many days during this hot and boiling summer. I hated summer. It was hot, sticky, and pathetically unbearable.

“I wish I could say you were wrong.” I mumbled without caring whether she had heard me or not.

I heard her sigh, “We are here to have fun. You’ve kept your self cooped up in air-condition walls for too long. Tomorrow I plan to take you out for some sun.”

My glare never faltered as her smirk never wavered.

“The sun is a demon.”

“That, without it, we would all perish.”

The silence between us was always comfortable, but with those nightmares still nagging at the back of my head it was hard not to bite the skin around my nails. Isabel too seemed nervous and concerned for me and I felt the guilt. I’m never going to be the only one that suffers.

“I’m glad I don’t know anyone here.” We closed in on a short line for the little kiddy roller coaster, happy that the conductor isn’t a grumpy asshole to deny us our childish fun.

“If you weren’t completely a loner, you wouldn’t know me either.” She pointed out, and I giggled. Her words were too true. Without Isabel I might as well be a snail that desires no contact with other beings what so ever. Isabel, however, was not a loner.

We’ve already passed by many groups of people that shout her name and wave ecstatically, because just like me, those people love Isabel to death. She was a people person, someone who could easily stand up in front of a large group of people and speak and share jokes with ease. While I would probably pee and shit myself twice before I passed out.

Between her and I, smiles were shared when a pressing energy fell upon me and mine faded. Worry was on her face the moment my eyes slowly started to look for him amongst the throng of people. The cause of most my distress appeared before us with a smug expression in his deep red eyes. They burned so brightly, they themselves could be mistaken for the blinking bright bulbs of the fair if seen from a distance.

His stared me down, a smirk tugging at his lips, when he paused before us with nothing to say.

“Now, who in the hell is this?” Isabel asked with a territorial tone.

That smirk was no longer just tugging at his lips, it spread across his whole face as he replied with his hand out for her to shake it, “My name is Alex.”

A smile breached across Isabel’s face as she shook his hand with enthusiasm.

“It’s nice to meet you. How do you know my little short one here?” Isabel patted my head as a growl escaped my throat before I could bite it back.

“We work together.”

“Really? At the bookshop?” She shouted out.

His energy swirled around me with the glance we shared before he continued to practically woo my best friend without struggle. Not before long we had caught up to the front of the line and I didn’t bother to look if Isabel had been paying attention. My mood dropped from sour to downright depressing when, what did he say his name was? Alex? Yes, when Alex showed up.

I wasn’t surprised or stunned by his appearance because I half expected him to come out of no where because that’s just what he does; he comes out of fucking no where.

When I sat in one of the small carts by myself I noticed Isabel sticking outside the gate with that googly eyed smile and a giggle with him beside her, running his mouth like I’ve never seen him run it before. It took a sigh to swallow my disappointment and waited as the conductor with his goofy, narrowed eyes and round face checked all the carts to see if they were locked properly. When the ride started, I looked back to see Isabel still distracted and those red eyes glancing back at me with a smirk hidden inside them.

He was not only toying with my best friend, but with me as well.

My glare was worth nothing as the cart went around the corner and his energy came following after me, like a soft black mist twisting and pushing itself around my arm where I could feel the cold, bitter sting of the same feeling, that same stench from my nightmares. Like rain and death pounding against my senses.

Not even a shake of my head or a shudder could suppress his energy, and I knew it wouldn’t, but I could at least try. When it had completely consumed me it was far to late to even think about shielding myself in the bright white light that my mother had taught me to use so long ago. The mist entered through my nostrils and choked me as it filled my lungs. I opened my mouth to scream, to cry out, when it disappeared and all I found myself doing was openly gaping like an idiot.

From the outside looking in it seemed as though I was afraid of a kiddy ride.

It was an anti-climatic end as I jumped off the loud metal stairs and walked over to the two of them with weak knees. His energy has left me drained.

“Oh no!!!” Isabel screamed when she took notice to where I had just came from, “I’m so sorry I-“

“Forgot, right.” I interrupted her and turned away to walk in the other direction, my face heating with a bit of frustration. Right now I hated Alex with all of my internal organs.

But that didn’t stop him from following after us as Isabel had caught up with me alongside her apologies and my refusal to speak to her. I was being childish, I know, but even if I couldn’t tell her what he had just done to me I felt I still couldn’t help but act this way. He had violated my space and my safety while simply being able to put his energy into my body. If he could do that, he could drain someone soulless.

My breath hitched in my throat.

Soulless…

Was he warning me that I would be the next to make headline news in our small town?

With the shock of this new thought still etched into my mind all I could was stare at him for the rest of the night while I tried my hardest not to break down from the fear.