The Edge

Brian:

I was jolted awake by the creaking of the wood floors and then a soft hand stroking my face. I heard mumbling and my name, which was repeated quietly a couple times before whoever was touching me stopped and poked me square in the stomach. My eyes flew open, revealing a pale boy with wide green eyes watching me closely.

“Brian,” Zacky said, “Mom called and said that she wouldn't be home all night. She said that you could call Suzie and tell her to come over here and watch me and you could go home.”

He sounded rather sad, and I noticed his gaze fall as he said 'you could go home.' I looked at him a moment before looking around. I was laying on his bed in his room (though, I couldn't recall coming back up here) with his blanket pulled over me. He was standing with a pile of papers in his arms. I wondered what they were.

“Do you want me to stay?” I asked rather groggily, wiping at my eyes to try and rid them of the sleepiness.

He pursed his lips and nodded, “I rather hoped you would. I took these down for you.” He used his head to gesture down at the papers in his hands. I glanced at the walls and realized they were, in fact, the pictures I'd seen earlier. Zacky turned and walked over to his closet, stepping inside for a moment before returning without the papers.

“Alright, I'll stay then. Sorry for passing out on you, I don't even remember what happened.”

There was a silence as he sat down on the bed next to me, looking at me slowly, “So... you don't remember kissing me?”

“What!?” I gasped, shooting up in his bed.

“Ya.” He said, nodding sadly, “You said you were gonna fuck me senseless and then you kissed me forcibly and touched me inappropriately before falling asleep.”

I twitched. Like, an actual twitch, “Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm so sorry. Shit. Shit. No fucking way. Holy-”

“Brian, relax, I was joking. You didn't do anything to me. In fact, I walked in here and found you dead asleep, mumbling about your girlfriend. I don't know if you know it, but your reaction was priceless! What would you have done if that actually happened?” He asked, laughter and some other emotion I couldn't identify flashing in his eyes.

My jaw dropped. The little weasel made me think I raped him! He was gonna get it. I didn't respond to his question, instead I asked my own, “Are you ticklish, Zacky?”

“Well yes, but I don't see what that has to do with-”

I cut him off, springing at him and tickling him up and down his sides. He shrieked with a mixture of laughter and fear, but I just kept at it until his eyes were watering and he was writhing with laughter. After about five minutes, I pulled away from Zacky, who was panting hard and brought a hand to his face to wipe away the tears.

“And that, young Zacky, is what happens when you mess with a Haner.” I said proudly.

Zacky just nodded. It was clear to me he was exhausted as he pulled himself up and crawled across the bed and collapsed against me. I patted his head gently, but the boy just wrapped his arms around me and yawned meekly, pressing his face into my faded band shirt.

“Are you tired, Zacky?” I asked quietly, stroking his hair and trying to shift myself into a laying position without jostling him too much.

He smiled a small smile, a secret smile, like he knew something special I didn't, “Ya.”

I stretched out on the bottom bunk of his tiny bunk bed, feeling him worm his way to my side and nuzzle into me like some kind of giant teddy bear. Hey, maybe that's what I am. Zachary Baker's giant teddy bear.

~

If I thought I was in for a peaceful night, I was dead wrong. I woke to a piercing, terrified shriek from next to me. My eyes flashed open and I whipped around to see Zacky, tears running down his face, his fingers knotted with his hair and his mouth open in a second silent scream, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, shaking his head frantically as though trying to clear it.

I sat up, reaching forward to try and comfort him, but he leaned away from me, gasping, “N-No, Brian, don't touch me! I'll kill you! I'm sick! D-Don't....touch... You'll catch it... You'll die! I'll kill you! N-No! I... please! Get away from me! Far away! I... P-People close to me die! I...You can't die! P-Please!”

I felt slightly afraid, but I ignored him and wrapped my arms tightly around his waist, pulling him around so he was facing me and pulling his hands from his hair. Zacky suddenly leaned into me, pressing his face into my neck. But he didn't just cry, after a moment, he released an earsplitting scream into my skin, sending tiny vibrations down my ribcage and making me jump. I kept my arms around him, though, gently rubbing his back and rocking him back and forth in my arms.

He began to relax, that's about when he started apologizing, whispering over and over that he was so, so sorry and that it was all his fault. I tried to ask him what was his fault and what he was apologizing for, but he would just shake his head and whisper, “No, no no...No, no, Brian, I'm so sorry...so so sorry...”

It came to me, hard and fast, hitting me hard. The realization of why he was acting like this. He draws what he dreams. He draws those pictures. He just woke up. He's been dreaming of something horrible, terrifying and disgusting and now he's petrified.

“Zacky? Honey, please, tell me what you dreamed about.” I whispered to him, trying to get him to tell me.

He shook his head again, mumbling, “No...no, no, no, no...N-No...B-Brian....no...”

“Shh, please, Zacky, I want to help you. I can't help unless you tell me. Please, you can trust me, I'm your friend, Zacky please...”

It was almost as though there were two Zackys. This one, the broken, defeated and scared one, and the other, normal, okay, witty childlike one. What could have happened to him to make him like this? What could have destroyed him to the point that he dreamed like that and woke up in metaphorical agony? Yet to anyone just meeting him, he was perfectly normal. Here was me, knowing him for a night and uncovering he was a torn and destroyed boy. Was it my job to fix him, to put him back together again?

“It was h-horrible... So many, Brian... So, so many... They... You were... So much blood... Everywhere... I could taste it... It was... yours... N-No... I let them kill you! I let them! I'm horrible, and I deserve to die! I-”

I placed my hand over his mouth. I had definitely heard enough now. I stared into his watery green eyes, trying as hard as I could to portray with my own that he was safe with me, that those dreams wouldn't come true and that I would try my hardest to protect him. After a moment, he nodded minutely, his eyes falling closed. He whispered something against my hand.

“What?”

He rolled his pretty eyes and yanked my hand from his lips, “I'm tired. Can we go back to sleep?”

I watched him carefully, still worried, “Will you-”

“Dream again? No. It never happens twice. I think I'm alright. And Brian... I draw the pictures because if I don't, the images stay with me, haunting me like the most evil and heinous of ghosts. Its all I can do.” he whispered, pushing me back onto his bed and curling his body up against him rather like a cat would.

“Oh...” I said, releasing his body and stroking his hair lightly, “I'm sorry, Zacky. I'm sorry you suffer. I'm sorry any boy has to go through this, let alone one as remarkable as you. You deserve better than this, you shouldn't have to deal with this pain. Even when I'm not here with you, I'm always here, okay? Always.”

He mumbled something, something I couldn't make out. I asked him to repeat, but he shook his head before whispering, “Night, Bri.”

That wasn't what he said though. It ate at me for about five minutes before I was dead to the world once more. This time, of course, I was visited by a dream:

I rubbed at my eyes, trying to sharpen my vision. Maybe everything was just blurry here always. I wouldn't know. I was sitting in the center of a beautiful glade, surrounded by thick oak trees that were so close together no one could get in except through one space. It was an amazing place, the grass was so soft and the sky was a gorgeous blue. Birds sung quietly around me, lulling me into a false sense of security.

A scream sounds behind me and I whip around, staring at the gap in the trees. A form is struggling through it. A form, ragged and panting, collapses into the glade, repeating my name over and over again, struggling to its feet and stumbling towards me. I make it out as an older Zacky, shaking and drenched in sweat.

And something else. Something bright and crimson is staining his clothes. I back away from him slowly, but he shakes his head, falling to the ground and begging for me to hold him. I was terrified. Whose blood was on his clothing? No person could spill that much blood and survive.

He whispered my name again, telling me he was dieing, telling me to hold him and love him as he went. I didn't understand him until he ripped the shirt up to reveal to me a jagged cut that had torn the skin on his body into shreds.

The light in his green eyes was dying. The glow was going, fading into nothing just like his soul. I lunged forward as his body fell, catching him and holding tightly, feeling the tears escaping and falling down onto his blood soaked body. A smile flickered across his face as he slowly left me.

One hand brought itself to my face, stroking my cheek and whispering, “I love you, Brian Haner.”

And with those words, Zachary James Baker died in my arms.

~

“Brian! Wake up! Are you okay?”

My eyes snapped open, blurred with tears, and I hastily wiped at them, but it did no good. I was in full front break down mode, and I blamed the twelve year old who was shaking me gently, trying to wake me up.

“I'm f-fine, Zacky,” I croaked, “Just a bad dream, that's all. I'll get over it.”

Zacky pressed his palm to my face, causing me to glance at him, confused. He smiled like he did in my dream, a sad, understanding sort of way, “I know. I'm here, Brian. I'm here for you, always. Just like you are for me.”