Chapter 2

Riding through the familiar suburbs, Rex arrived at the entrance gate to the river just over an hour later, as predicted. Unmounting, he knew it would be easier to push his bike through the usual throng of weekend river attendants, having had way too many close calls to collisions on previous attempts.

Following the path he had taken many times over the years, Rex pushed his bike onwards, passing a group of people sitting at a table and chairs setup. He thought one person looked familiar, even though their back was turned, he was about to have a second glance when a familiar voice made his blood run cold.

“Well look who it is!”

Inhaling deeply in through his nose and then loudly out through his mouth, he stopped and turned to face the owner of the voice, replying in a cold flat tone, “What do you want Dean?”

Dean Symonds was the bully who plagued every day of Rex’s schooling, from the first year he came to this school all the way through to his final year, Dean was unrelenting in his pursuit of Rex’s suffering.

“Oh, Mr no-parents shows some spine does he?” Dean sneered, raising from his seat.

“I don’t have time for you today, go back to whatever hole you and your cronies live in,” Rex sighed, seeing an impending new bout of bruises about to come his way, but turned and rode off before Dean and his friends could react. He would have to be careful when returning to school Monday, he knew Dean would be stewing over his retort.

After taking his well-remembered track to a place away from the main places people used on the riverbank, he had stumbled onto this place at the start of the year, he had gotten tired of so many noisy people in the main areas, so he had gone further than anyone else usually dared to try and find his own piece of quiet heaven to celebrate his birthday in solitude. The tracks were faint from lack of regular use this far out and Rex had fallen off a particularly thin patch of the forest ranger’s motorbike track, coming to a stop on this secluded small beach. He had noticed when he had recovered from his fall that he was surrounded by thin vines that seemed to encompass a beach, and growing from the vines were palm-sized golden petalled flowers.

Recognising the flowers from his dream, he had attempted to pick a flower to bring it back to his grandmother Iris to show her, she was very adept in herbs and their uses, treating many an injury in record times that Rex had received from his years of abuse at Dean’s hand and his adventures on his bicycle. The moment the flower came free from the vine, it turned black and withered into dust in his palm within seconds of being picked.

Removing his backpack from his shoulders and placing it in its usual place in the sand, he opened and removed his phone and floating speaker. Pulling his shirt off as the speaker started up, he started his playlist, dropped his phone onto the top of his pack and made his way into the water. Once he had waded into the water enough to lay back and float, he released the speaker, allowing his mind to drift. He was just piecing together the new parts he had gleaned from his dream and the small breeze that seemed to flow through the gap in the seemingly impenetrable golden door when his music stopped suddenly, pulling him from his thoughts and back to the present.

Rex pulled his head fully out of the water and turned to look at his surroundings. One other time his music had stopped and once he caught sight of his surroundings, he had known he had gone out too far and drifted downstream out of range of the Bluetooth. Seeing he was still inside of the beached area, he turned his gaze back onto the beach, the sight causing the blood to drain from his face.

Dean and his friends had followed him and must have heard the music from his speaker and had come to investigate the sound, finding their target. He was looking down at his feet, a mock look of shock plastered across his features, the expression only faulted by a broad evil grin on his mouth.

“Oh dear,” Dean sneered, “Did I do that?”

As Rex brought himself back to the shore, he was able to see the remains of his phone protruding from under Dean’s shoe. Sighing as he waded up the shore and back onto the beach, he asked, “Why would you do that?”

“You made me look like shit in front of my girl,” Dean seethed through gritted teeth, “So peasant, you gotta pay, you know the rules of your superiors.”

“You are not superior to me,” Rex scowled, balling his hands into fists as he closed the distance between himself and Dean.

“Oh?” Dean asked, bringing his thumb and forefinger of his right hand up to cup his chin in a mock thinking posture. Just as Rex closed the gap, Dean balled his right hand into a fist and brought it across in an arc, colliding it with Rex’s left side of his mouth, sending him reeling backward and falling into a sitting position clutching his face. “I will ALWAYS be your superior you worthless worm. I am surprised I must constantly remind you of the fact, everyone keeps saying how smart you are. Laz, Trevor, get him up.”

The two boys that had accompanied Dean jumped into action, each man taking a side of Rex, pulling him to his feet. They both then changed their grips to immobilise Rex in a pose they had taken many a time, both with Rex and with others Dean had wanted to subdue.

“It seems like this is a speech I have told you many times,” Dean frowned, closing the gap once more to Rex. “You are so worthless, I feel like this is more a punishment placed on me instead of you. So worthless it seems even your parents dropped you off and bailed. Such is the burden of great men, I must teach the lowers of their betters.” After his speech he brought his fist up and into Rex’s stomach, smiling when hearing the wind leave Rex’s lungs in a loud exhale.

Not fully doubled over because of the boys holding him upright, all Rex could do was groan, noticing a small tear had leaked from the corner of his eye. A small burning sensation seemed to be rising slowly from the pit of his stomach, ‘He must have really hurt me this time’ Rex thought to himself, his mind already thinking of excuses to tell Iris as to why he may need a visit to the hospital. Noticing the intensity of the burning still increasing, Rex’s brow furrowed in panic.

“Ah, so you ARE a fast learner,” Dean said, seeing Rex’s facial expression change. “I usually have to remind you a few more times before we get to this point.”

Feeling an intense heat start to rise through his body, Rex started to buck against the boys holding him.

“Well maybe not as fast as first thought then,” Dean sighed, his evil smile returning once more.

Seeing the intention behind Dean’s eyes, Rex started to buck once more, feeling the heat had almost fully consumed his body. He could also swear he was now able to hear the loud gruff breathing that followed him when he walked through the stone corridor in his dreams.

 “Dean!” the boy named Laz said, his face starting to change to a strained expression, “Something is wrong. He is getting harder to hold onto! Hit him, quick!”

Looking up Dean noticed both Trevor and Laz both seemed to be straining to hold onto Rex as he bucked and twisted his body. Clenching his fist to deliver another blow, Dean faltered for a second, seeing a strange expression on Rex’s face. He knew fear, he had seen it in many boys he had bullied over the years, but Rex did not seem to fear him as usual. He was looking around wildly as if something was coming to get him and wanted to break free to escape it.

“Dean! Hurry up!” Trevor groaned, his hand slipping from Rex’s shoulder.

Snapping his head back to attack Rex, a sudden force on his jaw sent his vision to stars and then to blackness.

Panting with clenched fists, Rex looked back to Laz and Trevor, who stared at him, eyes wide in surprise and fear. As his thumping pulse receded, Rex’s senses came back to normal and he looked around, his eyes falling onto Dean’s crumpled form laying sprawled a few feet away from them.

Thinking back to what had happened, Rex looked back to Laz and Trevor, who both flinched as if expecting punishment. The intensity of the heat in his body and the breathing changing back to a growling chant of his name had brought Rex to fear of wanting to escape. His body reacted in flight mode to escape, and he had broken free from the two boys somehow but did not remember what had happened to Dean.

“Don’t hurt us,” Laz said, raising his two hands in surrender as his eyes focused once more on the two boys who had started to move over toward Dean’s unconscious form, the faintest sound of snoring escaping his mouth. “We just want to get him and go, please Rex. We didn’t mean it.”

Nodding to allow the boys to leave him alone with his thoughts, he turned his back to them and sat back on the sand, hearing the boys grab a groaning Dean and drag him away. Looking down at his hands, he could see he had broken the skin on one knuckle, which meant he must have struck out at Dean. He knew that was a mistake, striking the son of the mayor was going to have him suffering doubly for the last few months that remained of his school days.

Looking up to gaze back across the water, a flash of something moving quickly caught his attention, “What was that?” he asked, squinting against the glint of the sun that slightly hindered his sight.

Standing slowly, keeping his eyes firmly on to opposing shoreline, he looked left and right, trying to see what had moved. Having a low skill in sneaking from his years of the game with Iris, he knew fast movements caught the eye faster than slow deliberate movements. Still feeling strange from his encounter with Dean, and now exhausted from the effort and drain on his mind, he sighed, dressed himself and turned his bicycle back to head home.

“What a waste of what could have been a good day,” he said, stopping when he heard a crunching sound under his foot. Looking down, he noticed one of the flowers that grew on the vine had not been picked but had turned black and had become dust under his foot. ‘Strange,’ he thought as he turned his bike back down the path.

He was going to have to tell his grandmother about the cut to his lip, the bruise that had no doubt turned back under his shirt by now and the skin missing on his knuckles. He grimaced at the reprimand he was going to receive as he rode onward and away from the river.