What the clouds are made of...

A Chapter by Arsenic Nemesis

Sometimes when she woke up, she would feel strangely hollow; as though a dream stole away with yet another piece of her. Sniffling, she pushed herself up onto her elbows, staring vacantly at the pale twisted sheets below her. The air about her was stale and reeked of sweat. Lingering in her mouth was a horrid taste, one that she would wash out immediately. Well, as soon as she and the hour had become acquainted, anyway.

Shuffling about in her bed, she swung her legs around and caught a glimpse of her alarm clock, perched on her smooth, wooden bedside table. No light came in through the windows and her curtains were little more than thin, white veils. It wasn’t surprising; since her clock had educated that the hour was that of four in the morning.

Then, why did she wake up? Why were her bare, fair legs swinging over the boundary of her sleeping place, when she could be tucked away in a silky shell and left to the stars of her own imagination? Just as she groaned, moving to dive under the covers, she noticed it. With an arm coiling around her stomach, she got up from her warm cavern and onto the icy flooring. She winced and her toes danced for a moment, before she dragged her feet towards her chest of drawers. Again, she’d stained her sheets again; it was about time she started paying attention to her calendar.

Mumbling a string of vulgar curses to herself, she waded from her spring green themed room and across the hall, toward the bathroom. Reaching up, she flicked the light on and skulked inside, remembering to lock the door behind her. She did not care if everyone else was asleep, she did not want to risk her cousin walking in on her again. It was the weekend where they came to visit, right? She didn’t know, she couldn’t remember nor be bothered to even try to recall she was still so tired.

When she finished about her business, which also involved cleaning cherry stripes from the inside of her legs, she approached the mirror on the tiled wall with slow, drowsy steps. Her delicate hands found each side of the sink and she stared, blinking hazily; was that really her?

Lately, her skin had been growing paler and she’d began to develop bags under her eyes, ones that would only turn slightly grey under the influence of makeup. She’d lost quite a bit of weight now too, not that she wasn’t eating it was more that she wasn’t eating enough of the right things. Pre-prepared meals and packets of crisps (of which were mostly air) didn’t really satisfy her nutritional needs.

Tentatively, she reached up and played with a strand of hair. She’d always received comments about it and was quite proud of it herself, especially since she had to trust her semi-crazy best friend to do it for her. Dyed a deep plum and cut oddly, it crawled down to her breast on one side, slick and shiny, whilst the other side was short and choppy, cut back behind her ear. She licked her dry lips and gave a weak smile. Now was time to crawl back into bed, where the white rabbits would be in line, each waiting to take her down a new hole.

Of course, she would much rather stay in the netherworld, away from the harshness of reality. Sometimes, it was the ideas of unicorns galloping toward her and fairies paying fees for fallen goods, that would keep her bound to this world; in hopes of finding them. Yes, she would never admit to this, but secretly she would always hope that her knight would take her away, and save her from the scaly claws of Earth-hood life. Just like a lot of people in this world, she simply did not believe that she was made for it. Maybe for somewhere else if not at all...

From the bathroom she took an old, scratchy towel and spread it out on her bed over the tainted sheets. She took at step back and regarded her nest for a moment. Still, something was missing. For her life she could not pinpoint just what that something was, she just knew that it was absent.

“Maybe,” she mumbled under her breath, daring a stride towards the bed, “I’ll find it again someday”

That same morning she had decided to sneak out, rather go out down the town for a while than speak to her overly silent cousin. For a seven year old, he wasn’t as nearly as boisterous as she would have preferred. She did not like quiet kids, it didn’t fit right for her. They should be out in the woods exploring and pretend to be bear hunting, not cooped up indoors, colouring by numbers.

So, with a blue knitted scarf about her neck and her long �" warm �" tartan coat buttoned up, she took off. Puddles of murky fluid splashed about her squeaky, red boots and soaked into her tights. She shuddered against the autumn breeze. She and the cold never got along, even in the early stages of the season of change.

The very walkway was littered with the crisp crunch of brittle browns, yellows and burgundys. Her street was sat across the road from a cemetery, which was hidden by a wrought iron fence and a line of grand oaks, all shedding their skin for the upcoming winter.

Suddenly, a bell chimed through the air. Gasping, she dropped her bag, letting it clatter uselessly onto the floor, spilling stationary and financial innards. The plum haired girl tutted and crouched down, scooping up the mismatched items and stuffing them back into the plain, worn leather pouch. Quite often the church bell would scare the living daylights out of her. “That’s fine,” she said in an undertone. She glanced at the cemetery. “It’s only over the road...”

Just as she pushed up off her feet, slipping the woven straps up to her shoulder, she could hear the rapid footfalls of another creep up behind her. Her body angled itself round to see the incoming humanoid; a jogger.

The woman in shorts let out a huffed breath, flung her body to the side and darted off, though she did not fully avoid the teen. Beneath her, she could feel the heels of her boots tip and gravity loop unbreakable chains about her structure. “Ah-“she squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself to hit the ground. Maybe this was the part where she would take into account the arms about her waist, clutching her elbow, steadying her by the shoulders? Well, that unfortunately wouldn’t happen as she crashed right into the cold, hard pavement.

She sucked in a breath and puffed her now blazing cheeks out as her left elbow took the blow for her, the rest of her body landing haphazardly, but less harmfully after. “Ouch!” she yelled, grasping the throbbing area, “Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch!”

Tears welled up in her eyes and her bottom lip turned into an automatic pout. On the spot she trembled, body curling inwards inch-by-inch. Who knew pavement was so solid? She was almost certain that she would soon be eaten up by the hot liquid beneath the Earth’s crust; though the idea of her body shape imprinted in the ground, like in many cartoons, amused her.

She hiccupped and went to get up onto her feet, only to fall onto her tailbone with a wail. Tugging at the sleeve of her jacket, she found her skin on her elbow had been shredded. She stuck her tongue out at it, sniffed and rubbed at her eyes furiously. “Yuck,” she groaned, “It looks like I’ve been attacked by a cheese grater”

“Ken!” a squeal ripped through the air, much like a siren. The fallen girl blinked and glanced up, only to be pounced on by a blur of freckled flesh and strawberry blonde hair. She choked and toppled backward, toned arms wrapped in knitted sleeves coiled around her neck. “H-Hey, Jerry,” she rasped, trying to shove the girl off, “Did you know that all humans require oxygen to live?”

Jerry immediately pulled back, her face sceptical before she giggled and yanked at the girl’s pasty cheeks, turning them pink. “Oh, Kendall, don’t be silly! Fish don’t need it!”

Kendall swatted her hands away, or at least tried to, being far too busy laughing at her friend’s antics. “J-Jerry, fish aren’t human!”

Once again, Jerry moved back, emerald eyes wide and lips parting into a gape. It appeared as though Kendall had told her that she was holding her favourite pet hostage, and would not return it unless she paid a vast amount of money... up front.

“You’re RIGHT!” she exclaimed, leaping to her feet. She held her fist up high, a darkened shadow crossing her features as she ground her teeth. Barely, Kendall collected herself at last and stood upright. She was considerably smaller than Jerry; then again, she was so with everyone.

Abruptly, Jerry’s dark demeanour had evaporated and she rested her arm upon Kendall’s crown, bending down to her and grinning. For a second, Kendall was lost, realising once again just how pretty her friend was. Jerry was tall and slender, with glossy, long hair and fresh skin. She could pull off anything clothes wise, including the enormous cream jumper with the penguin in the middle, accompanied by skinny jeans and beige boots that she was wearing at the moment.

“So,” she drawled, breaking the silence. She giggled and flicked the pointed tip of Kendall’s nose. “What you up to?”

Kendall looked away, cheeks tinted as she rubbed her nose, her reply barely coming out as a mumble. “Just going for a walk whilst my auntie and cousin settle in... Yourself?”

With a dramatic sigh, Jerry elaborated on her life so far without the other girl’s permission; something about her annoying sibling and his hogging of the television to play on his games...? She didn’t know.

In the end, the two of them wondered around the estate together, stopping once to take a look in one of the show houses just outside of it. Jerry wondered into the hall, plastic sacks cupping her boots and protecting the cream carpet from damage.

Meanwhile, Kendall was still sat on the front step, brows knitted in concentration as she stuffed her foot into another bag, only for this one to split open too. She cursed. Rolling her eyes, Jerry stepped outside, passing her handbag to Kendall. “Hold this,” she said and picked up a pair of transparent slippers from the box. Innocently, Kendall leant back on one hand, holding her friend’s property in the other as she placed the coverings onto her boots. Then, with a satisfied smirk, she snatched her handbag back and stalked into the show home once again.

The pair continued to wonder about the house, with Jerry frequently finding hiding places and jumping out to terrify poor Kendall, who was lucky to have not died from a severe heart attack that morning. Eventually, it came to a point where the two tired themselves of “play pretend house shopping” and went over to the field just outside of the estate next to theirs.

This stretch of lush, green land was what separated this little gathering of housing estates from the town by the sea. Living by the sea was the greatest in Kendall’s opinion; she always enjoyed diving into the ice cold sea on Boxing Day for charity. Shameful thing was she ruined her favourite necklace by doing that, with it ending up all rusty and pocketed with sand that would not move for weeks; not to mention the yellowed grains seemed to stalk her for days on end afterward.

They sprawled out on the ground, bags tossed idly aside as they watched scattered clouds drift above. In the distance, they could see tall, red brick buildings sprout out from the ground and, behind them, the vast sea of diamonds. Not too far from them, they could hear the irritated yells of young boys as they played a game of football. Beside her, Jerry pointed at individual clouds; “that looks like a kitten... A turtle... A feather...”

The list was endless. A sigh escaped the Kendall’s lips, though it came out more of a whistle as it broke out between the gaps in her teeth. Her stomach stabbed slightly and she rested a hand across it. She had a painkiller before leaving the house, and, normally, pains did not affect her after that for the remainder of the time. Hm. She thought. How odd. As the twinge cleared, she rested her palm onto the bouncy grass once again.

Unlike Jerry, or most people that she knew, Kendall did not see shapes in the clouds. Well, she did, only she could see stories with them too. To her, that kitten, turtle and feather was a story board of a princess with a pointed nose and hat, in the clutches of an enormous dragon, which only meets the slick blade of the courageous being in armour. At least, that’s what she saw. Ever since she could remember she could not tell the pictures apart, she could only ever have them as one, collective flow; was that strange?

“Hey, Ken...” Jerry muttered after a while.

A green eye glanced at her, hidden by a slight wave of plum. “Yeah?”

“When you were little, yeah? What did you used to think that clouds were made of? I used to think it was candy floss, and my brother used to believe that every time an old man shaved his beard it would fly up into the sky,” she grinned and rolled onto her side, “he’s a daft one, eh?”

Kendall snickered and matched her friend’s smile. Then, she dragged her eyes up to the space above them. “Actually, when I was little, I used to think that they were made out of stars” she whispered, a distant tone in her voice.

Jerry cocked a brow at her. “Eh?”

Kendall stretched her arm out, up towards the air of blue flight, fingers separate. “At night, I used to think that the stars waited for everyone to fall asleep and then they’d get together in a huddle to keep themselves warm during the day. Since it’s blue, I used to think that the sky was very cold and that the stars need to preserve their body heat” she explained, a small smile crossing her lips.

“Oh?” Jerry pressed, slumping onto her back again, “What about when it rained?”

Curling her fingers into her palm, Kendall’s hand inched its way down to the ground. She was silent for a minute, face a void of emotion, until, finally, she answered. “They were sad... Because they could not grant someone’s wish, so they cried for that person, who unknowingly got on with their life, totally unaware of how sad the stars were that they could not and never will grant their wish”

Jerry smirked and then crawled over to her friend, digging her finger into her ribs. Kendall snorted and turned on her side, trying to escape her friend and defend her sides with her miniature hands.

“You sure can be weird at times, eh?” Jerry chortled, tickling her friend who now had tears pouring down her cheeks and was barely breathing through her laughter.

Eventually, the morning turned to late afternoon and the two were forced to part ways. Well, Jerry was forced anyway. The entire journey home, she was clinging onto the back of Kendall’s coat, trailing after her like a lost child, quietly coming up with several excuses for her not to leave. Kendall grumbled her promises of taking her shopping one day, going round her house to watch movies, going out to the beach...

She then settled on a whole bucketful of activities and then skipped merrily to her own house, somewhere out there in the maze of streets. Kendall came up her front lawn, walking across the small stretch of pavement that crossed the pond of green like a bridge. Next-door, a shabby looking dog yawned and glanced at the young teen as she injected her key into the lock. “Mam,” she yelled, pushing the door open and scraping her feet against the welcome mat, “I’m ‘ome”

“Oh, honey, just in time. We were just about to have some tea, do you want anything?” came a muffled reply. The rest of the conversation was deafened by the slamming of the front door.

Oh... He thought to himself as he sat, tucked away in the corner of her garden, hidden by the shadows. She didn’t notice me... again.

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© 2010 Arsenic Nemesis

Author's Note

Ah, at last I have finished this chapter! As normal, there are probably some mistakes here and there, feel free to point them out and all that jazz. Hmm... my shoulder is hurting... How odd for someone from another dimension, eh? Well, enjoy, mortals~