Proof

 

They haunted my dreams. His eyes were always there, inescapable and deep enough to drown in, making my sleep restless. I wanted to see his eyes again, wanted to loose myself to whatever alien charm they held for me. It was almost unhealthy, my desire to see him again, verging on obsessive.

It had been a week since I had first met him, and every day I would wait for him by the doors, in my yard. He didn’t come, and I honestly hadn’t expected him to. He wasn’t like me, it was obvious that he wasn’t human. This strange man had come on his own times, not when I wanted to see him. He would come when he wanted to, if he wanted to. I hoped he would.

I spent the week trying to figure out what he was, since he was so clearly not human. He had said the he didn’t want to have a “bloody kiss”, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. It was possible that he was a vampire and not just hungry at the time. So it was plausible.

I knew for certain that he wasn’t a werewolf or a shape shifter of any kind. It didn’t seem to match him at all, so I rejected that idea, trusting my instincts. He also couldn’t be a ghost, seeing as he had pushed me against a wall and brushed my hair aside. The strange fire behind his eyes was very bright when he did that, it illuminated them from inside…

That was beside the point. Okay not a were creature, not a ghost, could be a vampire. What else was there? He might be a necromancer. …

I sure hoped he wasn't. What would that mean for me if I was his selected one then? Did he pick humans out before they died so that he could have his top choice of reanimated dead? I shuddered at the thought of being market fresh necro corpse. No, that couldn’t be it at all. He wouldn’t have said “I am yours” if he was going to reanimate my corpse. But he might need me for some other purpose that I don’t know about. I don’t really read that kind of stuff, so I wouldn’t know.

I had no clue to what he could be, nothing I thought of seemed to fit him somehow. None of them seemed to click in my brain, nothing made me go ‘Yeah! That’s it!’ So I gave up. I simply contented myself to daydreams and pining away simply for a glimpse of the strange creature.

What devastating power there was in his eyes! Thoughts of him played about the corners of my mind, tickling the desire to know him - everything about him. I discussed him often with my cat, Picky-picky. I had named him after the cat in the Beverly Cleary books because of his need to be left alone. My Picky-picky needed this too, I had understood that clearly when I saw this somber cat for the first time. He didn’t know either, only mewling in response or ignoring me entirely all together.

“Maybe he’s a fairy prince, Picky. He’s so handsome and flawless I’m sure he could fly.” I daydreamed about this lazily, content to let the speculations swirl around my mind. He was bright and colorful with translucent wings like the ones I used to draw as a girl.

A smiling young girl lay on the beige carpeted floor with her cat sprawled lazily next to her, enjoying the heat from his owner’s small body. Working fervently with her crayons she at last cast aside her tools and lifted the paper triumphantly. “Look Picky-kitty! I’m a fairy princess with beautiful wings! One day my prince fairy will come and my wings will finally finish growing so that we can fly up to fairy heaven in the sky together!” The cat made a half-hearted purr and rolled so that his back was to her. Frowning, the girl folded her arms across her chest and pouted. “That’s not very nice Picky-picky! It is true you know! You just can’t see my wings because only other fairies can see them! You have to have the right kind of heart to see the wings, because if the bad people could see them we’d be in trouble. Will you dance with me in the air Picky-kitty?” A shadow falls over the pair and the girl looks up as the cat bolts. “Alula! Really now, that’s not what a proper young lady would do with a cat! Don’t you have any friends to play silly games with?” The girl frowns defiantly at the tall woman. “It’s not silly! I really do have wings, but you can’t see them because all you care about is work!” The woman smiles disdainfully at the child. “I can’t see your wings because they don’t exist,” she bends down to pick up the drawing. She smirks at the drawing, “You can’t even draw proper fairy wings. Those are more like angel wings. Foolish girl, don’t you know anything?”

I snapped out of my bitter reminiscence, casting hateful looks at the empty driveway where my mother’s car would be if she were ever home. “I know more than you.” I muttered bad-temperedly. I shook my head and forced my mind back to my fantasy of the fairy prince. He would wear a long cloak and his hair would float dazzlingly in the breeze. He would smile radiantly…but no, he wouldn’t smile, that’s not in character for the dark man I saw. And he wouldn’t be wearing white like I imagined, no, it would be black. Then he would smile, and he would be the prince of darkness.

I shuddered in fear of that man. Picky laid on my back and batted at my head as if aiming for the clouds of despair orbiting me. “Today is not the day for daydreams Picky-picky. I can’t even control them.” He made a little sneezing sound and hopped off me onto the floor to wash his paws. I sighed inconsolably, hating myself. I leaned over the edge of my bed and reached under the mattress, my fingers groping around blindly. At last they felt what they wanted and I pulled it out. It was the picture I had drawn all those years ago, the one I had recalled. I picked somberly at the cached bits of crayon around the edges and looked.

My wings I had drawn for myself were like an angel’s wings from a child’s crude imagination. One swoop for the top, and several small curving dashes for the feathers. But these were my fairies, their wings looked exactly like that, partially clear, but opaque enough that you could see their color. My wings were a medium blue, like-

Just like his eyes.

The thoughts of my last daydream rushed over me and I shuddered. That, that was no prince fairy I had imagined. That a prince of darkness, king of the night with an aura of death about him. He looked at you and your heart turned to ice and stopped beating, so pure was the malice in his ghostly smile of hatred.

I rolled onto my back and shivered again, letting my picture fall to the floor from my hand. I glanced at my clock. It was already past eleven and I really had to get to sleep to get up on time tomorrow. “I give up Picky. Today isn’t working for me. I’ll go to sleep and try again in the morning.” I turned off my lamp and drifted away.

I was under a brightly lit sky, sunshine falling softly all around me, and my wings had finally grown. Above me, he called. The mysterious prince fairy I had met and dreamt about had finally come to get me. He smiled at me gently, laughing softly, his pale hand outstretched. I smiled and laughed joyously and flew up to him, my own hand outstretched in return. I was close to him and the shadow of his dark hair no longer covered his eyes. They were cold and hate-filled and I couldn’t fly anymore, I hovered inches before this man. He was no fairy. His smile wasn’t so inviting, his laughter not so joyous. Loathing radiated from him, darkening the air, extinguishing the sun. His voice wasn’t sweet like I recalled, more like nails rasping on a rocky surface. “Just a bit closer,” he hissed to me. His hands had cruelly curved nails on them, jagged and black. A halo of darkness and death surrounded him and small bits of this broke off and tore at my wings and I fell. His laughter was the perfect harmony to my screams as the world went black.

I woke to the alarm clock. My back was arched off the bed and my hands were curled into claws as I braced for the impact. My nightgown clung to the icy sweat all over me and I couldn’t breathe. My eyes were wide with terror but I couldn’t see. Slowly, I tried to breath again and I relaxed my body so that I was lying flat on my bed again.

As the panic subsided and I could breath again the nausea that follows nightmares set in and made me weak. I shook, curled into a tiny ball, hoping that someone would come save me from myself as one would for a child. Of course no one came. I had the house to myself, as always, no dream would change that. I snapped my eyes shut tight and my face scrunched up in my effort not to let the sobs escape. Futility, you see, had always been a close friend.

A cold hand gently rubbed my shoulder, sending shivers down my spine, even through the gown. My eyes popped open wide and I stopped breathing again. “Don’t cry Alula, all will be well.” I knew that voice. It was him again, I was absolutely sure of it.

I could feel his cold little smirk behind me. “Of course it is I. No one else would come to your aid. I am the only one who cares for you, Alula.” My body tensed up because I knew that some of what he said was true. No one did care. Even my beloved cat was fickle as the moon. I was alone no matter how many people there were around me. There was only me.

He stopped rubbing my shoulder and said musically, “No. I am here, are I not?” Hot tears spilled over and I gritted my teeth to deaden the sobs.

“How,” I whispered shakily, “Do I even know you are real? People go crazy all the time and hear voices, feel things that they can’t possibly feel. How do I know I am not one of them?”

Then he was in front of me and I looked into his eyes again, the eyes that lured and distanced me from him. He looked at me coldly and I was sure that my dream was a premonition of his wrath. I was going to die, and his eyes would be the last thing I saw as I went. I closed my eyes defiantly, I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing my fear.

“Alula, look at me.” Like I could really resist him. What kind of order was that? Anything he said I couldn’t deny. “You, are different. You see things that other people don’t see, understand things others don’t. I, am real…because imagination doesn’t make things actually happen. Your mind cannot create material things and have them be tangible to others as well.” But there was nothing tangible for me to believe. How could he say that when there was nothing?

He made a little sigh that gave me goosebumps all over and rubbed his forehead in consternation. Then is light, dark eyes were upon my own again. “You…would like proof?”

I didn’t really think about what it would mean if there was proof, the implications. “Y-yes.”

He looked at me seriously, probably reading the blank incomprehensiveness in my mind. “Very well.” And he was gone and it was dark and I was confused.

I sat up and I looked around for him, my room was just as empty as it was a few minutes ago. I hopped out of bed and looked around wildly for this “proof” he had promised me. I didn’t see anything that wasn’t usually there, I didn’t feel any different. I glowered around me intensely. “There is no proof.”

I moved towards my door to get in the shower, maybe wash some of the crazy off me. Something crunched under my foot and I saw it was my picture. I let out an exclamation of dismay and bent down to retrieve the picture immediately. It wasn’t crumpled too badly, and not much of the ancient crayon had fallen off in its harsh treatment. My fairy was okay. No. My fairies were okay. The prince fairy was there too. I thought back desperately to last night, trying to remember if the crude boy had been there then. I couldn’t remember if he was or not and let out a howl of frustration.

“What kind of proof is this!? I can’t remember what all was on there…! This is no proof at all!” I screamed to no one in particular. Yes…no one. I was indeed crazy. Hallucinations, memory problems, yelling at imaginary creature things. Yup. That’d get you checked in for crazy.

Picky-picky poked his head around the doorframe and mewled questioningly, upset that his nap had been disrupted. Such noise never went on in the house, especially in the morning.

I threw the picture on my bed, snatched my uniform off its hanger and stomped downstairs to the bathroom for the shower. It might not wash off crazy, but it would wake me up. Picky, seeing the storm clouds floating around my head, made himself scarce and bolted away. I wanted to get away from me too, but I had no such luck. I was stuck with me.

I got ready for my shower and turned on the hot water, letting it soak into my skin gratefully. I washed the night sweat off and made sure there were no tear streaks left on my face. I scrubbed especially hard at my shoulder where the nonexistent thing had touched me. But no matter how hot the water was, I couldn’t manage to warm it up. The cold had soaked into my and was poisoning my nice warm shower feeling.

Irritated, I got out and toweled off, climbing regretfully into my uniform. Blah…skirts… Succumbing to my usual level of depression, I walked to the kitchen and read my mother’s note for the day.

Surprises of surprises, she wasn’t coming home before midnight again. There were hot pockets and mac and cheese, don’t light the house on fire. Don’t wait up and no watching TV while she was there to explain how to use it. End.

No heartfelt comments, no don’t burn yourself, not even an “I love you” to top it off. She didn’t even bother to sign it. Ironically enough, she used a heart shaped magnet to hold it on the fridge. Whee…be still, my beating heart.

I opened the door up and lo and behold, there was no milk. Another dollar store cereal bar it was. This was really turning out to be a fantastic day huh? And my teachers wondered why I wasn’t a more enthusiastic and optimistic sort of person.

“Mrahw!” I sighed, already yearning to return to bed for the day, and got Picky-picky his breakfast. Okay, maybe breakfast should be skipped, after smelling that. I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with cat food, it always smells like the cat already gave it back. Maybe it’s because we had the cheap stuff.

So I washed my hands and grabbed my backpack so I could get to school early and wait for- oh yeah. I can’t wait for an imaginary guy. Well, I decided that maybe I could, but just so that I could imaginarily yell at him for being a bad proof giver. And scaring me. And for ruining my shower. Yeah.

“Bye Picky.”

He decided not to respond so I closed the door and left for school. My mood was instantly boosted when I smelled the fresh air and saw the leaves faintly begin blaze in the rising sunlight. Deciding to find a few good points to balance the scales, I thought about the good things. At least I had an active imagination. I bet no one else was as good at creating imaginary creepy guys! Yea, all the girls at school would be jealous, maybe a few guys too. Mother wasn’t home to be evil. Umm…it’s…not raining? My, my. That took an awfully long time.

Depressed once again, I looked at the leaves as they skittered away from my shiny shoes. They had anti-leaf powers. Fear my shoes! I let out a heaving sigh and depressed myself again. I had to make up stupid things like anti-leaf shoes to make life more interesting. I had a serious thought of crying just a little bit more. It was all his fault! Stupid whatshisname being a stupid whateverheis!

Oh God…I’m so pathetic and loserly that I didn’t know anything about him except that he’s not human and he’s gorgeous. No Sherlock Holmes medals for me, no sir! How I hated him!

“Can you forgive me?”

I didn’t even bother to look up that time, the only person on the face of the earth that would talk to me was him. “No.”

“Why not, Alula? Am I truly that terrible to you?”

“Yes,” I said simply.

“Don’t be angry Alula-”

My head snapped up and I stopped walking. Shouting in an early morning kind of way I said, “Stop using my name you creep! Stay away from me with your “proof” and cryptic answers! You make me sick!”

Tears threatened again so I stuck my nose in the air and started walking again. I could see out of the corner of my eye that he was still walking next to me and blushed fearsomely. I was really like a little kid. I was ashamed of myself for the last thing I said to him, it made me sound like a four year old.

Silence hung, thick and heavy while I thought my thoughts and he…did whatever he did.

We reached my school and I sat stubbornly on a bench to wait for the doors to be unlocked. The parking lot was deserted because it was so early, therefore he sat down too. I clenched and unclenched my fists beside my legs, waiting for the beat down or sudden death stroke of his hand. Neither came, and after a while I looked shyly up at him through my bangs. He was staring at my face. I quickly dropped my head again and turned crimson.

I didn’t move, hoping, almost praying that he would go away or disappear in a puff of smoke. “I’m sorry.”

I looked up, mouth gaping at the unexpected statement. That was not what I was expecting at all. “W-why?” I asked stupidly.

“Why do people apologize?” he asked with a hint of a smirk.

“Well…because they feel bad for something not good that they did to someone!” I spluttered. He asked some questions!

He nodded. “I feel remorse, therefore I made the proper reconciliatory statement to the one I harmed.”

Oh. I had almost gotten excited to think that he had feelings and could actually “feel” things.

“You do not believe me.”

I jumped at his right on accusation and stared intently at my hands again. It was eerie how he could tell exactly what I was thinking. “Do you actually…have…”

“Feelings?” he finished. He looked off into the distance at the sun cresting the trees’ skeletons as he answered. “Yes. I feel as you do, though perhaps not as much. My feelings are base whereas yours are complex.”

Wow. He had actually given me a straight answer for once and not danced around it to taunt me. I decided to go for it and push for a little more information. “What’s your name?”

His face was blank. “Why do you wish to know this?”

I looked at his empty face in surprise. What was that supposed to mean? “…because I keep calling you ‘guy’ because I don’t know what to call you.”

“There is…” he hesitated. “There is no going back, if I answer this question for you. Do you understand that, Alula?”

“Sure,” I said.

Then he looked at me coldly. “Merely being ‘sure’ is not enough. You must be devoted entirely in your heart to stepping deeper into the matter. There is no return.”

“What do you mean?” He was creeping me out with this ‘no return’ business.

The light behind his eyes blazed bright. “You must know this for yourself, and find the answer within you.”

I looked away from his face so I could speak my mind without being brainwashed by him. “Could you please stop giving me crap answers out of a magic eight ball?” Having said my piece I glared up at him.

Of course, he was gone. The doors made a whirring mechanical click and swung open as the clocks turned to seven thirty. They were automatic open, so no one had seen the guy. Some people were starting arrive, so that’s probably why he booked out. I growled in frustration. I had finally said something snappy and witty to him, and the jerk had the nerve to up and vanish! That’s probably the only reason that I was even able to look away from him.

I could tell that today was definitely not going to go well.

Reviews

[James Watts]

“What kind of proof is this!? (avoid this. It is either an exclamation or a question mark, but never both. It is a mistake we have all made at some point, but should be avoided)

Not bad. Again I advise against the -ly adverb as it weakens prose. There are times when they cannot be avoided and must be used, but for the most they can simply be omitted or the sentence rewritten.
I like the story and the concept and you have me curious as to where this is heading.

[HorrorMaster]

nice chapter, very good

[The Perfectionist]

'lose' only has one 'o' in it.

2/3 of the way down, "The cold had soaked into my and was poisoning my nice warm shower feeling." my should be me

Okay, I'm still not hooked, but damn I am amused. This is genuinely funny (and more importantly still genuine).

One thing I do find curious is the paradox of her wondering. In most other supernatural stories, humans seem to have no idea what creatures exist, and have to be convinced that they are real. Often, as viewers and readers, we find ourselves angry at the characters for not figuring it out. Yet here, Alula speculates, and I find myself feeling it unrealistic. Not really a complaint, but something to think about.

Your dialogue is great, and I really wish I did have something else to complain about besides the fact that you are in desperate need of a hook soon, but this is actually pretty damn good.