IN THAT CITY, no one is distant from another.
In the dark recesses of someone else’s apartment, Isaac laid bare on the bed with some guy he goes to after-school tutor with.
“Are you coming to my 18th?” Gio Mendel asked.
“I don’t think so, Gio. And, I don’t want to.”
He was silent for a moment.
“Is it because of the other day?”
“Because of what?”
“Because I told you, you know?”
“Because I told you, what?”
“Jesus Christ, Isaac. Stop acting so obtuse. You are fucking hurting me.”
Gio looked at Isaac directly. He did seem hurt.
“I have nothing to do with your feelings,
BACK WHEN EVERYTHING was slightly off the status of okay,“Shit! I got foundation on my shirt, man!” a heavily blushed and contoured Isa Marie whined.“Oh, girl…” Christie Claricel tried rubbing the brown liquid but it further smudged the suffragette white uniform they both donned.“One chance for a great juniors yearbook and I effin’ ruined it.”“Turn that frown upside down, girl, here I’ve got an idea.”Quickly, Christie grabbed Isa’s arm and ran through the red forest of metal lockers in the corridor up to the dingy restroom at the end of the hallway. She propped herself up on her knee, trying to catch her breath.
AGATHA LEON HAS ALWAYS been swallowed by forests her entire life.She was a baby Moses left in a nest on the ground in 2003 at the western ridge of town by Hailey’s creek. John Webcracker, who was a Parisian at the local church, was going on a week-long Lenten meditation in the forests with noting but a knapsack of non-perishables. One afternoon, he heard the cries of a lone infant in the wilderness of leaves and branches as the crackling of the river’s water crashing along the jutting rock outcroppings harmonized with the baby’s cries.The Parisian was at the brink of fainting upon the sight of a Moses as if God itself has sent an infant to salvage right in front of him. Like his Lenten rituals in the forest and his unexpected finding of the baby was no coincidence but a message from God in a bottle.Soon, the heavens started to
IN A LUNCH SHADE in the furthest of the campus sat Isaac Acaban and Mickey Conan, both seemingly in a competition of who had the baggiest under eyes. Neither had enough sleep for the past weeks.“What do you need from me?” nagged Isaac.“I just wanted to apologize for whatever happened the other night. To be honest, I’m still all loose from you saying that…”Mickey paused for a moment, arranging his thoughts. He closed in.“…it could be one of us.”The two were silent for a while, picking at their lunches but not really eating any of it.“Could be. Listen, Mickey. I want you to go through this in the most rational way. Your fears won’t do anything. Your smarts would. Think about it.”
YOU’RE NEXT.Agatha showed Mickey and Isa a piece of cardboard with stenciled letters, a note which signified that anyone of them could be the next Dean or Gwy at any moment in time.In front of them is a plot of land in the courtyard of Agatha’s apartment that was recently dug up. A small bonfire made of sticks poked in the burial site lit their faces in oranges and yellows. The late afternoon breeze swayed the colors like waves in the ocean.Mickey, Isa, and Agatha stood in one row behind the bonfire.“They killed my fucking dog,” Agatha whimpered in grief.“I found this cardboard next to his body when I woke up. Someone must have slipped poison in his meal. Why did they have to include him? This is so fucking unf
ALL I DID WAS RUN.Sweat dripped down my temples and stung my dry eyes as the piercing darkness of the alleys came rushing at me. Its footsteps lacked faster and faster in a tempo so horrifying that it was about to swallow me raw.Guilt-stricken minds felt nothing but fear today.As I ran and ran, I snatched a look from my peripherals to see a horrifying vision so clear and distinct that I could not have been mistaken. It was the decaying body of my sister coming at me at lightning speed, rotting flesh flying through the breeze created by her run. Her mouth gaped open like the blackness of the abyss of the ocean trench and her left eye dangled down like a swinging pendulum, leaving a hole in her skull that seemed as if it was staring back at me with a menacing glare. Her hair flew in strands all over the place as it decayed from her scalp and the wind blew them away, leaving a bruised brown spot like a chemother
ALL I DID WAS RUN. Sweat dripped down my temples and stung my dry eyes as the piercing darkness of the alleys came rushing at me. Its footsteps lacked faster and faster in a tempo so horrifying that it was about to swallow me raw. Guilt-stricken minds felt nothing but fear today. As I ran and ran, I snatched a look from my peripherals to see a horrifying vision so clear and distinct that I could not have been mistaken. It was the decaying body of my sister coming at me at lightning speed, rotting flesh flying through the breeze created by her run. Her mouth gaped open like the blackness of the abyss of the ocean trench and her left eye dangled down like a swinging pendulum, leaving a hole in her skull that seemed as if it was staring back at me with a menacing glare. Her hair flew in strands all over the place as it decayed from her scalp and the wind blew them away, leaving a bruised brown spot like a chemot
THE WHITE CLOUDS in the heavens were smeared with a dirty pale color that it overcast grey shadows all over the town as if a storm is brewing.The air was thirstily dry that day.Meanwhile, somewhere across the grey suburbia, in a high-end apartment complex sitting in the heart of town, Isaac felt the slippery satin covering of the lush chair he slumped on—trying so hard not to make his gasps for air audible.“So, what seems to be the problem, son,” a woman in her late-40s with dusty bobbed hair asked while tugging her white coat. She sat on a faux leather, filthy red recliner chair opposite where Isaac was slumped.“I did not come here for therapy. I just need the prescription,” he replied, about to be anno
THE FOREST IS CUT OFF BY multiple creeks and rivers along the walls of the suburb which enveloped the whites and greens of the town on the map. The suburb sat on a depression in the land’s topography surrounded by ranges of hills and forestry—like a salad bowl from above. It promised a lux life away from the Kafkaesque nature of the city. But neither the gods know what sinister mysteries lurk in the quiet, lush town, hiding behind the endless sea of weeping willows and towering mahoganies. Today is the day that the Midnight Club goes on yet another one of their pretentious adventures; leaving behind Isaac who was still high on alprazolam, Gwyneth who was still in dreamland, and Dean who has unfortunately passed off. The sun is just starting to shed off its blankets at 7 in the morning. Dew on the shrubs and bushes along the stree