The Lost Boys

Light.
That was the first time that he had seen light in what felt like days. Dustin slowly pried his eyes open as he got accustomed to his surroundings. The cool steel that touched his arms instantly became warmer as the light glared off of the table and the bright walls. Three men had joined him, each sitting across from him in chairs talking to themselves as they spread out massive amounts of paperwork.

Dustin averted his eyes from theirs and instead looked towards the mirror. It was the first time he had caught a glimpse of what he had looked like. He knew how bad it was from the pain that he felt but looking at it in the light was a whole different story. He could see the bruises now which had begun to make them ache. His face was a sickening shade of yellow that was only made worse by the blinding light and his eyes a deep purple that was accented by the deep dark lines of stitches on the right side of his forehead.

Dustin closed his eyes again and stared at the back of his eyelids which had turned a nice glowing shade of pink. When he opened them once more he tried to imagine who was behind the mirror. Maybe the officers who had found him or the lawyer he had been assigned, but Dustin knew his parents were there; staring out at their son horrified as to what truths the light had uncovered.

Voices.
Breaking his imaginary eye contact, Dustin turned his head to the three who had joined him. His hands were fidgety on the cool exterior but inside he still remained calm. It was as if after everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours he had lost a piece of himself and in return he had heightened all of his senses.

Their words flew at him in crisp sounds. Vowels were round and accentuated while each "S" left a linger in the air. He stared blankly back at the three waiting for their introductions to end and for his cue to begin. He had spent the last four hours figuring out whether or not he wanted to give it all up, to bring down his empire. He had thought of what to say, what to withhold, and what to lie about. But all of his planning had gone out the window as soon as the middle man, a guy with whitening hair and dark eyes spoke the words he had been waiting for: "Go ahead."

"No one..." he started, his voice hoarse and barely audible as he strained to form the words that had flooded his head, " really plans on entering The Draw. It's just something that happens. You never know when you will be in or when you will be out it is all up to chance. Some kids enter into The Draw to impress someone, usually, only to get beaten out five seconds in. Some kids enter with pent up aggression and have a chance to finally blow off some steam. Some try to prove themselves, because here out on the streets a good rep can lead to open doors. But then some..." he stopped to cough and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, "were born for it."

The men held expressions of concern and confusion all wrapped into one he knew he sounded delusional. In fact at the hospital one of the things he remembered hearing was he had "delusions of grandeur." They didn't understand, they didn't get it. In contrast with the confused faces the middle white haired man stared back at Dustin with an unreadable expression. He spoke again which echoed throughout the steel room, "How did everyone who attended this draw know where to go?"

Dustin sighed and swallowed. "We had a code. It was our own language. The Draw was not just an event that would occur once in a while it was a way of life for us here. Each time a number would appear on a building we would know where to go." Dustin stopped suddenly and swallowed again. Everything he had said was true, but he wasn't going to talk about the code. He wasn't going to talk about all the hoops you had to jump through just to gain access, and he sure as hell wasn't going to talk about how easy it was for him to jump through those hoops.

For the next two hours Dustin had answered question after question: How many kids knew about this? Which kids in town were involved? Where were the common locations that they were held? Was money involved? Were drugs involved? Was alcohol involved? and who started it all? Dustin reluctantly answered each question with short answers, telling almost the whole truth. He could feel his impartial state growing into a hostile one as he saw how easy it all was for him to give up every secret that he had harbored for two years, every victory now all for nothing, and every person who was closest to him.

The middle man spoke once more as Dustin's eyes kept fluttering slowly closed. He had been drowsy for some time now. Maybe it was due to the amount of questions he had been answering or maybe it was because of the concussion he currently had. "So why did you partake in this draw if you knew how dangerous it was. Why did anyone get involved. I understand honor and pride, but was it really all worth it?"

"People have died in the past," Dustin said stretching his vocal chords raw as he had to reduce his voice down to almost a whispering level, "Myths had started about how long The Draw had been around, about the legends who had made their mark and set their records, and of course about those who had lost their lives. There was Bobby Parker in '05 and before him was Mikey Biggins in '98. I never knew if those deaths were real, but fake or not their lives lived on in The Draw. We were a new generation, a generation of kids striving for more. It was much more about just honor and pride it was about leaving our own legend, making our own mark, amounting to be somebody. Somebody that people wanted to be, somebody that people revered. And we were the best..." Dustin let out a raspy laugh as he said this, "We really were the best. Our plan was to be unstoppable, invincible, to live forever. And that's what we did."

"Who is... we?" asked the one to the left of me, a red haired younger man who had cold features but kind expressions. He flipped through his notepad filled with everything that I had said and went back to an earlier page as he struggled to read his own writing, "You, Malcolm, Carter, James, and Louis?"

Dustin let out a soundless laugh, it was weird hearing his friends' birth given names said aloud. It was strange when he had given it up, but it was even more foreign as the man before him said them. His friends sounded like strangers, and maybe now they would become just that. "Yes," Dustin spoke softly, "We did this because it gave us meaning, a purpose, a way to not have to conform to all the responsibility that was about to be thrown our way. We didn't want to grow up... we wanted to live forever." The word forever caught in his throat as something hit him like a ton of bricks square in his chest. "Well we thought we would... I don't know.. we felt like we could."

"Live forever?" the middle man asked in an inquisitive tone, "How well did that work out for you?"