Chapter 3

Jude awoke with a jolt, there was a sharp ringing sound coming from his right ear, and it felt like

someone had slammed that side of his face against a wall. He was more aware of his cracking

headache than the layer of dehydrated saliva that coated his cracked lips. He could feel his

bones ache and his muscles throb like he had been beaten to a pulp and placed in a paper

shredder afterwards, so much so that he could barely identify nor control any part of his body,

his limbs felt too heavy, and his head felt far too light to be right. Cold seeped into his chest, and

he wondered what had become of his shirt last night.

He could still feel the residual taste of cheap vodka and perhaps a bit of vomit at the back of his

throat. He couldn't remember half of what had transpired the night before, last he recalled, they

had been waiting in the car for Philip to complete his dare, so they could finally head on home.

Everything else was a blur, but that wasn't an entirely unfamiliar feeling for him. He started his

day with a hangover every other day and still barely made it through the day sober.

Jude forced his eyes open, wincing as the bright rays of the midday sun temporarily left him

blind. He squinted, his dry mouth sticky with thick saliva, and moaned before forcing his eyes

open again. This time he finally took notice of the canopy of trees and the rough granules of

sand and dew covered blades of grass scratching against his back. He could make out the

cacophonous sound of dozens of wings beating against each other to form an incessant

buzzing. Jude forced himself to sit upright, confused— how on Earth had he ended up in the

middle of the blasted forest. He cursed at Matt, for giving him so many bottles of vodka and

tequila and even convincing him of a good time. It didn't feel like he had a good time. Besides,

he wouldn't put it past Matt to have left him there as some sort of repercussion for not agreeing

to bully a girl who had refused his advances.

The strong stench of rot hit him square in the face when he sat up, it left him winded and

gasping for fresh air. His eyes roamed the ground to search for the cause of the assault on his

olfactory senses.

His eyes zeroed in on the gorged out ones of an animal, a few feet away from his foot. It was a

deer, or at least what remained of a deer; in place of its stomach was a hollow concave, to him,

it looked as if it had been torn open by a rabid bear with the Jaws of a crocodile. There were

claw marks on other parts of the deer, and matching ones on his biceps. From where he sat, it

seemed like something had sliced off the head of the animal from the rest of its body in one

clean strike.

“Oh god…oh god…oh god…” He muttered as he struggled to put as much distance between

himself and the decaying carcass as possible. He struggled to stand, once on his feet,

everything swayed, causing him to lose balance and reconnect with the ground in a puddle of

stale blood. His body reacts before he has time to process, he heaves, upending the contents of

his stomach, which in turn is also a bloody mess.

He attempted to stand again. Terrified and confused, he stumbled away from the corpse,

screaming “Help! Help me! Please, somebody!”

He started to run. To where that might be, he didn’t know, his destination was unnecessary, all

he knew was he needed to get out of there. He spent what seemed to him like hours sprinting

through the forest, huffing and panting as he forced his bare feet to move faster. Fat droplets of

sweat travelled down his forehead, into his eyes and down his tear stained face, the trees

blurred around him and the steady pound of his footsteps echoed in his ears accompanied by

the distant sounds of his screams.

His body finally gave out on the highway. He barely noticed the sting when his knees made

contact with the hot coal tar. A few cars drove by, but he was too exhausted and too weak to flag

them down. After half an hour of kneeling and panting underneath the scorching sun, a small

car pulled up next to him.

A small old woman rushed out of the driver's side, shrieking in horror. He recognized this

woman, Mrs Stevens, she had been his arts teacher in junior high and had taken it upon herself

to always make sure he stayed out of trouble. She was also one of the few people who bothered

to vouch for him whenever he got into trouble with his reckless behaviour; she'd always tell the

other teachers and students and—on rare occasions— the police, that he was nothing but a

troubled child whose response to trauma was distracting himself by constantly being active.

“ Oh dear lord, JJ, what happened?” When they locked eyes, Jude couldn't help the tears that

sprung out of l eyes. She helped him into the car, cooing and assuring him that everything would

be alright.

“Oh love, you're fine now, you're safe, let's get you to a hospital.” At the clinic, she stood next to

him and held his hands to calm him. She even winced as though she were the one in pain when

the doctor inspected the wound on his arm. At a point, they had to put him under to keep him

from writhing and thrashing whenever he saw something remotely similar to blood.

When he did wake up he was surrounded by medical personnel, Mrs Stevens and his parents

who looked for all the world like they would rather be thrown into the sea than learn what new

form of disgrace he had brought to their doorsteps; His mother, ever so pristine with not a lock

improper, held her head in her hands and muttering to herself. He imagined she was praying,

like she always did whenever she had lost control over a situation—or in most cases, his

emotions. His stepfather couldn't be bothered with praying, the furious look on his face was

probably from calculating the medical bills he would have to settle at the end of everything— not

that it would have placed a dent in his pocket.

“Mr Carson, could you please tell us what happened to you last night?”

Jude stared at each person in the room one at a time. He'd known these people for as long as

he could remember; they in turn had also known him. He knew, as he looked into each face,

that not a soul would believe the words at the tip of his tongue, and why should they? Furthermore, he had stolen from them, vandalized properties and lied each time because he

had found it amusing. Now more than ever, he knew no one would believe him, but he stated

the truth anyway;

“I don't know, I can't remember.