Crazy and Me

When John woke up the next morning, he smiled at the amazing dream he had last night.
He sat up on his bed and walked over to the curtains. He quickly opened them, taking in a deep breath. Still smiling, he looked up at the sky before looking down on the window sill.
Carefully placed on the white painted sill, was a note on a small piece of cream parchment.

It was nice talking to you last night. You're a great kisser. ;-) X

John instantly recognized the writing as Laurence's. He held to the note close to his chest and closed his eyes.

'So I wasn't dreaming then...' He thought, letting out the breath he forgot he was holding.

He walked over to his bedside table where he placed the note in a small wooden box, the box contained all his best memories.

**********************************************

John walked out of the front door and was greeted by Simon and Jamie walking up the street and waving at him.
He shut the door and walked out onto the street just as the other two got to him.
"Hi, Bumble Beeeeeeeeeee!" Simon grinned. "You didn't answer my text last night..."
"Yeah, sorry 'bout that." John said nervously. "I was a little.... umm.... busy, I guess."
"Oh, okay then. Sooo what's up?" Simon said, still beaming as always.
Nothing much..." John suddenly smiled, making Simon give him a weird look.
"What's with the sudden happiness?" He asked.
"Oh... nothing..." John was blushing now, which only made Simon want to know more.
"Ooooooh! What's her name?!" Jamie giggled.
John laughed. "Umm... 'her' name?"
"Sorry, his name then!"
"Umm.. Laurence..." John blushed redder than before.
"Laurence, what?" Simon said through gritted teeth.
"Umm... René?"

Simon and Jamie stopped dead in their tracks. They looked at each other, a horrified look on their faces, before looking back at John.
"What the fuck did you just say?" Simon snarled.
John knew this was rhetorical question, but if he didn't say something soon, Simon would probably bite his head off. Right now, he wouldn't care if his head was bitten off...
"I said, his name is Laurence René." John calmly replied.

Big mistake.

Simon exploded into a fit of anger. Jamie desperately tried to calm his friend down, but alas it was all in vain.
"You sick fuck, John!" Screamed Simon. "How the fuck could you say that?! He was my best friend! Don't you know he fucking died a few months ago?!"
"Yes I do know! He told me! But I didn't think he meant literally! More like died on this inside.. bu--" John cried, holding back tears.
"You know what?" Simon whispered. "I thought you were cool. I thought we could be friends. But you fucked all that up!" The anger was now returning to his voice tenfold.
Simon grabbed Jamie's hand and began to pull him to school. "Come on, Jaim." He said. "We have no time for sickos like him " He hissed. Jamie looked back at him, giving him an apologetic glance before shaking his head and following Simon.

John was rooted to the spot. He couldn't believe it. He had only been there for one day and had already lost all the friends he had just made.
Finally, his feet obeyed his mind and he began to walk. He had no idea where he was going, but for now, school was not an option.

After about 15 minutes of aimlessly walking around, John finally found a large, deserted park.
In the middle of the park was a large oak tree. John smiled again as last nights events came flooding back.
The blonde boy sat under the tree. He pulled his sketch book and a pencil from his bag and began to draw some birds. He didn't know why, he just felt like drawing birds.
Time passed. Not a single soul had walked by. Not that John cared. He wanted to be on his own, as clearly he did not deserve friends as he was quite insane, seeing dead people and such.

"You're a beautiful artist you know."

John looked up and sure enough, Laurence was sitting on the branch above his head.
"Go away, Laurence." He sighed, continuing his sketch.
"Why?" Laurence frowned. "I thought you liked me..." He jumped down from the branch and sat next to John, who just turned to face the other way.
"I do.. But you're not real. Purely a figment of my imagination. And later on, as I am apparently insane, I shall seek professional help and you will be banished from my thoughts. So you may as well go away now and save me a lot of money."

They sat in silence for a while, save the screaming children in the primary school and the scratching of John's pencil on the paper.

"I saw what happened between you and Simon."
John sighed again and slammed his sketch book shut. "And your point is?"
"I'm sorry I couldn't have helped... They can't see me so... what could I have done? I'm so sorry..."
The tears came back to John's bright green eyes, making them look like shiny emeralds.
Real or not, he loved this boy and he was gonna do what ever it takes to prove that he wasn't insane.

"You know what, Laurence?" John said, turing to face the dark haired boy. "Fuck this. I love you. And I'm not fucked up. But you have to somehow help me prove to everyone that I'm not."
"But how are we gonna do that? I mean, you can't exactly take a picture of me..." Laurence frowned again.
"You can write, can't you?"
"Well, yeah, but..."
"Okay then. Write something on this paper" John ripped some paper from his sketch book and handed it to Laurence along with his pencil. "and I'll show it to Simon later."

A few minutes later and Laurence was finished.
"I wrote a privet joke between me and Simon, so he'll know it was me that wrote it,see?" Laurence smiled.
"Perfect."

*********************************************

30 minutes later and John had reached the school and hunted down Simon who was by the tree that they were always at.
When Simon saw John, he stood up, grabbed his bag and started walking away.
John ran after him and grabbed his arm. "Simon please! Just hear me out!" He cried.
Simon huffed. He supposed he should give him a chance. "Alright. What do you want?"
John handed Simon the paper and the dark haired one began to read it. When he finished reading it, he lowered the paper and wiped the tears from his eyes.
"I don't know how you know this joke, or how long it took you to copy Laurence's writing perfectly, but seriously, stop. This really isn't funny. He was like my brother. You know why we hang out by this tree?"
John shook his head, his eyes facing the ground.
"We do it as a memorial. A rememberance if you will. This is the place he died after all."
Simon furiosly wiped his trears away. 'They say this place is haunted... Haunted by past students....' The dark haired boy whispered, looking down, pulling his hood further over his face.
'Why though? Why can't they leave?'
'Unfinished business I suppose... But it's all bullshit. And as far as I'm concerened, you deserve to be locked up with rest of the fucking crazies who think they see dead people!" Simon threw the paper back at John and ran off back to the school building.

**********************************************

John was relieved when he finally got home.
He once again ran straight to his room and slammed the door. He threw himself on the bed, sat with his back against the headboard and pulled his knees to his chest.
What if Simon was right? What if John was crazy? John began to cry again. His thoughts confused him so much.

His door slowly creaked open as his mother, Sarah, almost silently slipped into his room. She walked over to his bed and sat down.
"John? I heard you crying? You wanna tell me what's up?" She sighed, pushing a lock of dark brown hair from her face and behind her ear.
"Do... do you think I'm crazy?" He whispered.
"What? No, I don't think you're crazy. Who told you that?" Sarah frowned, wrapping her arm around John's shoulders.
"Simon. He said I'm crazy 'cause I can see 'dead people'" John wiped his eyes dry with his hand.
"You can see what?"
"Dead people... well, just Laurence... but... He's like a ghost or something.... I'm the only one who can see him... Now... Now Simon thinks I'm fucked up!" He began sobbing so his mother pulled him in close to her chest. John cried on her shoulder for a while. Sarah stroked his hair gently: She knew it calmed him down. She also knew something wasn't right...

*********************************************

The next morning Sarah quietly walked along the hallway until she reached her son's room. She pressed her ear to the door. Nothing. Everything was quite, so she assumed he was still sleeping. She quietly opened the door and, to her surprise, saw John still fully clothed siting on the bed, exactly were she left him.
"Did you sleep at all last night?" She frowned.
John silently shook his head. He was staring out the window, unblinking and completly motionless, save the riseing and falling of his chest as he slowly breathed in and out.
Sarah sighed. This was gonna be fun...
"Well, get ready. I'm taking you to the doctors." She calmly replied.
"Oh. So now you think I'm fucked up aswell?" He glared back.
Sarah didn't know what to say to this. He wasn't exactly 'fucked up' as he colourfuly put it, but then again, she wouldn't say 100 percent mentally stable either.
"No, honey, it's not that... It's just.... well.. I think maybe you should talk to someone..."

She stood there awkwardly for a moment, watching John stare out the window. She herself then looked out, but all she saw was an empty graveyard. She shook her head and walked out, shutting the door after her.

John stared out at the graveyard. He watched as Laurence sat by a head stone that John presumed was Laurence's own. He noticed how peaceful Laurence looked down there and that, while they only known each other for less than three days, Laurence was the only thing on the green eyed boy's mind, and he couldn't imagine life with out him.

********************************************
'Doctors?!' John thought as he and his mother walked towards a large white building, with two huge glass doors and hundreds of perfectly alined windows everywhere. 'More like mental hospital. My own mother sending me to the nut house!'
Once inside, john began to take in his srroundings. Not that there was much to take in, apart from the sickly amounts of white everywhere. Whites tables, chairs, walls, floors....
Sarah walked up to the reception desk and began to talk to the receptionist. John didn't bother listening to them. Instead he put his head phones in and pressed play on his iPod.
Emilie Autumn
Gloomy Sunday
Opheliac the screen read.
John rolled his eyes. 'How typical.'

As the violin kicked in, John began to feel much calmer, until Emilie's voice came in.
"Sundays Gloomy, my hours are slumberless.
Dearest the shadows I live with are numberless.
Little white flowers will never awaken you.
Not where the black coach of sorrow, has taken you.
Angels have no thought of every returning you,
Would they be angry if I thought of joining you?
Gloomy Sunday..." She sang, her beautiful angelic voice almost sending John to sleep.
Yet, he was filled with a sadness that kept him wide awake.
"Sundays Gloomy, with shadows I spend in all.
My heart and I have decided to end it all.
Soon, there'll be candles and prayers that are
Sad, I know.
Let them not weep, let them know that I'm glad to go.
Death is not dream, for in death I'm caressing you.
With the last breath of my soul I'll be blessing you.
Gloomy Sunday....."

Before he knew it, a dozen nurses were grabbing his arms and pulling him along somewhere.
He looked back at his mother, who was crying his eyes out. It broke John's heart to see her like that: She never cried, always smiling.

******************************************************

After a while, John found himself in the underground part of the hospital.
It was much different from the upstairs part.
It was dark and dingy, not a speck of white to be found. The rooms became padded cells with iron bars, like cages. The pristine tiled floor became dirty old rocks and the walls matched, too.
The nurses took away john's iPod, jacket and boots. (incase he 'tried to strangle himself with his laces.' Seriously?)
Suddenly, john's head was filled with images of Laurence's limp, lifeless body hanging from the tree in the school field, blood gushing from the dark haired boy's mouth.
John began twitching violently his pupils became nothing more than tiny black flecks in large pools of emerald green. He was screaming bloody murder until his throat was sore, like swallowing tiny razors He could taste the blood on his tounge and it made him sick.
He felt a small prick in the back of his neck before everything went black....

**************************************************

"Miss Sarah Be?" A nurse said, pulling Sarah aside. John's mother looked up, as if to show she was listening, the last few tears rolling down her pale cheeks. "Did John ever talk about two people called.... Laurence and ....... Simon?" She asked, checking through her papers.
Sarah nodded. "Yes... he often talked about them....."
"Well." Continued the nurse. "I've been doing some research, and I must tell you something..." Sarah was giving the nurse her full attention now.
"Laurence and Simon never exsisted."

******************************************************

When John woke up, he noticed he was wrapped up in a straight jacket. He crossed his legs before uncrossing them again. He tilted his head to the right and stared hard and the rusty iron bars concealing him in this padded cage.

"It's about time you woke up."
John sharply looked around. Sitting in the bottom left corner sat Laurence. But despite everything, John was happy to see him.
Laurence stood up and walked over to John. He then sat down right infront of him and crossed his legs. He gently pressed his lips to John's and they stayed like that for a few minutes. The Laurence pulled back and carefully produced a sharp, blood stained knife from his back pocket. "You can move your arms now." He smiled. John slowly placed his arms by his side, only for them to be taken in Laurence's free hand. "I love you... so so much.." Laurence smiled again. John smiled back.
"I love you too..." he whispered.
Laurence let go of John's hands and gave him the knife. "You're gonna need it...." he grinned before vanishing into thin air.

John pressed the knife against his throat.
The blood splattered up the wall and the only sounds that could be heard was the sound of metal crashing to the ground, followed by a dull thud.

*****************************************************

The rain pelted down over the school and it's grounds.
It was Gustav Wood's first day in his new school. As he walked up the school path, he couldn't help but notice a large oak tree.
Sat on a thick branch of said tree was a small boy with a long black fringe covering his pale face. He was wearing a black hoodie and had the hood up so it nearly went over his eyes.
In his hand was a thick blood soaked rope.
The boy looked up at Gustav and quietly giggled...