Chapter One: But I'd Rather Be Here“Reece? Hey…Reece?” a soft female voice whispered lightly into my ear. “You have to get up.”
A hand, her hand, grasped my shoulder tenderly and shook it gingerly like a mother would when rousing her child from sleep. Her hair grazed my stubbled cheek sending a small shiver down my spine. Her hand moved to my taupe tousled hair which she stroked once before pushing it out of my eyes. I stared up into her Cambridge blue eyes with a half-hearted frown before pushing her hand away forcefully.
“Nine, I have literally just gone to sleep.” I’d finally dozed off at my desk around 6 in the morning. Lately I haven’t slept much and I had permanently had large bags under my eyes to prove it. I was practically living off of coffee and energy drinks among other things.
“You should have thought about that when you decided to stay up all night.” Her voice was no longer soft and sweet, it was now thick with attitude and sass. She always seemed to get that way around me lately.
She knocked my head lightly as she walked away with a smug smirk on her face. Dragging myself off my desk I stood and stretched my arms up as I glared out at the stunningly bright world outside my window. My back seemed to revel in the freeing feeling as the stiffness slowly turned to a dull ache.
My gaze wondered over to Nine as she strode over to my kitchen and straight to my coffee machine. My eyes trained on her small petite figure. Nine had hair similar to mine, dark brown and somewhat curly except hers was longer, significantly longer. It covered almost all her back in thick tendrils that seemed to dance as she walked.
“Your eyes are getting darker,” She said as she stood in front of the counter wagging a finger at me in a circular motion at my face with a scowl on her face.
Nine, at first glance couldn’t be more than fifteen years old because of her pixie-like appearance. In actual fact she is only twenty, one year younger than I am. She also has about fifty times more money than I have and zero tolerance for my bullshit.
“Gee, thanks.” I yawned rubbing my eye as I dragged my feet towards her.
She placed a medium-sized white mug under the machine and switched it on with a sigh. Her eyes after watching the cup fill up cautiously looked over to me and her nose immediately scrunched up.
“You look like a hobo.” She said before retrieving the milk from the fridge.
I looked down at my worn out navy blue fall-out 3 shirt and arctic camouflage flannelette pyjama shorts. I rubbed my head mechanically as I stared at the ground. She was certainly on a roll with insulting me this morning, more so than usual.
She closed the gap between us with the coffee mug in her hands and held it out for me. “Drink you’re coffee.”
I did as she said and sat at my cluttered dining table that was littered with papers with half finished drawings and sketches on them. They were never going to be finished anytime soon. I face planted the table feeling like absolute crap from my lack of sleep and sighed then reluctantly took a sip of the moderately hot coffee.
“So how are you doing?” Nine said as she sat down at the table with me shoving the papers out of her way. She grabbed a few and slowly leafed through them one by one as she stacked them in a neat pile.
“Yep.”
“That’s not an answer, Reece.” She didn’t look from the drawings as she scolded me.
“Nanine, I don’t want to talk-”
“Are you still using?” She cut me off abruptly, she was never one to beat around the bush.
“What does it matter?” I peered up at her lazily through droopy tired eyes with my chin on the table. She tossed my drawings onto the table and crossed her legs and arms simultaneously.
“Seriously?” She questioned glaring coldly at me.
I peeled my chin from the table and took another sip of my coffee avoiding eye contact as a wave of guilt washed over me. Nine had always been there when I fell off the wagon, but despite her best efforts I would always leap off that wagon and into the inviting arms of my dexamphetamines’.
In a huff she launched off the chair and over to my desk that I had been sleeping on. I watched over my shoulder as she pulled open all my drawers and rummaged through them in search of the small bottle of white pills.
I continued to drink my cooling coffee as Nine practically destroyed my apartment trying to find them. She went through all my drawers and tossed the blankets from my bed as she searched vigorously for the bottle that I knew she wouldn’t find.
“I leave you alone for one weekend and you go back to those stupid pills!” She shouted as she collapsed on the floor with my blankets pulled close to her.
I finished my coffee quickly and walked to my kitchen cupboards staying silent the entire time. I pulled open the doors to the cupboard above the sink and on the top most shelf sat the pill bottle. The bottle sat alone in the empty cupboard, beckoning me to close the cupboard and leave it alone. Despite my guilt I couldn’t let Nine see the bottle so I pushed it to the very back knowing that she wouldn’t be able to see it from where she sat let alone when she stood either.
I placed my cup in the sink and rubbed my face. What was I doing? Have I really gone so far as to hide them from the people, well person, I love? Am I so far gone I actually need professional help? There’s no way I’m that bad, yet my actions prove different.
“I need a cigarette,” I mumbled with a frown.
Nine had gathered up the blankets and had neatly made my bed when I entered my room space. It was way too neat for my liking but she liked it clean so I let her be as she began to idly fix the mess she had made of my already pig-sty of an apartment.
My eyes scanned my bed side table and landed on the red packet of cigarettes that lay dormant on the windowsill behind my bed. With sluggish movements I grabbed my cigarette packet trying not to mess the unnaturally smooth quilt cover. It looked almost as if it was from one of those furniture magazines with not a single crease or ripple in the fabric.
With cigarettes in hand I made my way to the bathroom only to be stopped by Nine. She glared at me darkly and skidded into the bathroom then opened my mirror cabinet vigorously. Nothing was in there except for unopened toothpaste and a box of panedol and a box of nurofen, other than that it was empty.
Once she discovered that all the cabinets were practically empty in the bathroom she pushed past me and stormed to the kitchen. Rolling my eyes, I propped open the window beside the shower where the fire escape was. I sat on the window sill with one leg hanging on either side of the window. I fiddled with the packet as I sighed again before pulling a cigarette out and lighting it with my fancy flip-top lighter. I took a long deep drag and blew it out the window. I could feel the smoke leaving my lungs as I breathed it out slowly into the crisp morning air.
Below the grated iron fire escape was an empty moderately dirty alleyway that was home to nothing more than the metal bins that the tenants of the apartment building used to throw away trash. Down the back of the alley was a small door, a back entrance or utility shed for that building. Beside it was another dumpster filled with wires and other electrical things.
I took another drag of my cigarette and looked over to the street where almost no people were walking around. Given that it was seven in the morning I was hardly surprised by the lack of people. A flock of birds, sparrows I think, flew down the street singing merrily as they went. One little sparrow stopped and sat on the power line just at the mouth of the alleyway in plain sight of where I sat. It chirped brightly as it looked about the street before it took off again to follow the flock.
I like sparrows. I’ve no idea why but I do. I like birds in general for their ability to soar to great heights; I envied them for being able to fly away.
I glanced about some more forgetting about my cigarette as I took in the early morning scenery some more. My mind wondered to my Uncle Malcolm. It’d become a regular occurrence since he’d died.
I remember when I first met my Uncle Mal. I was around seven years old at the time. We were at my fathers’ family reunion. I never wanted to be there in the first place so I sat grumpily at one of the tables while everyone around me socialised and caught up with the people I thought of no more as strangers to me. Looking around my eyes landed on a young man with similar dark curls as my own. No one seemed to want to talk to him and he made no effort himself to move and talk with them either. Now that I recall he looked a lot like my dad, more so than I realised. Feeling like we were drifting in the same boat I dawdled over to him and sat down resting my head on the table to look at him. When he saw me he looked surprised and a little scared as he looked around for something. I muttered a hello to him and introduced myself and he did the same. We had only been chatting for five minutes until my parents dragged me away from his table. They whispered angrily that I was to never speak to him again. After my parents dragged me away I watched as he got up and left without a single goodbye to anyone. Not even me.
Still lost in my mind I didn’t notice the ashes of my smoke were getting longer and longer until it dropped on my hand. I lazily flicked it off once I felt the small amount of heat then took one last puff before I put it out using the windowsill.
There was a loud bang from inside and I catapulted off the windowsill to investigate the sound. When I entered the kitchen I saw Nine holding her head kneeling on the floor. I cocked my head to the side and smirked at her tiny frame.
“Having fun?” I asked bemused by her persistence.
“Oh totally, I love trying to find something so small in this pig sty of an apartment!” She growled at me. She pivoted on the floor still on her knees and looked up at me with her big blue eyes. “Why won’t you give them to me?”
I rolled my eyes at her attempt to act cute. “Take a wild guess.”
“Ugh! ******** you sometimes, Reece!” She shouted throwing her arms up in the air.
I gave a shrug then went over to my desk that I had previously been sleeping on. The paper and pens that had been scattered over it were now neatly stacked aside leaving an open space in the middle. I leafed through some of the sketches and came across a few I never remembered drawing. Puzzled I placed them aside and sat down grabbing a blue pencil and retrieving some thick paper from the drawers. Nine came into my view as she leant on the wall with her arms crossed keeping a watchful eye as I sifted through the drawings till I came across an unfinished sketch of a stag.
“Oh you’re ‘working’ now?” She quoted with her fingers then refolded them.
“Yes, I’m working.” I mumbled dryly as I began to sketch out random circles that would later become the stag.
“Mmhhmm..” She pushed off the wall and walked out of my line of sight as she continued her cleaning endeavour.
It was quiet for a while with only the sound of the scratching pencil on the thick cartridge paper and the ruffling of papers as Nine cleared off my dining table.
I drifted into a sort of trance as my hand drew in soft circle’s the features that would soon become the stag. The image was only the bust of the animal with the antlers taking up most of the room on the paper. Perched on the antlers were going to be a few birds each looking out in different directions doing their own thing. It was so simple of me to do but the topic for class was nature and I didn’t want to do something over the top and symbolic. That would have required so much more effort. Not that this required little effort.
“Ree!” Nine called from the kitchen. I looked up in panic. Had she found my pills already? There’s no way she could have. “Where’d you put all your CD’s? I wanna borrow that Sailing Sky album you showed me last week.”
“You mean the ‘Sky Sailing’.” I corrected, letting a sigh of relief. “It’s in the CD player.”
There was heavy foot falls on the wooden floor as she ran over to my large 4 year old CD Player which sat neatly in the corner beside the small 7 year old television. Peering over I watched as she fumbled to get the top open to retrieve the CD which sat tauntingly inside. She groaned in frustration before giving it a light tap with her fist.
“Need some help?” I stood up pushing the chair aside and strolled over to her. She continued to push buttons and tear open the cover but to no avail. I can’t even begin to comprehend how she has such trouble opening my CD player but she did, without fail, every time.
When I reached her I waved my finger in front of her face before pushing the eject button on the top of the player making the top pop open and the CD accessible. The glare she gave me was unexplainable.
“I hate that thing but I hate you more right now.”
“I love you too.” I smiled lazily before returning to my desk.
~~~~~~~~
The rest of the day continued in the same routine of drawing and fixing any problems Nine encountered. Nine had put the ‘Sky Sailing’ Album on and was bopping to the music as she continued her cleaning endeavour. We had only stopped once to order pizza, my shout, for lunch then we went about our own business again.
That’s how most of my days were spent. Nine would linger around the house, never bored, always entertained by something. She would clean the house if it needed to and she cooked occasionally. She wasn’t the best chef but her food was edible so I never complained. I would sit at my desk or at the dining table sketching or I would fiddle with my paintings. I rarely played any music anymore and my piano, left to me by my uncle, sat in the corner near my bed slowly gathering a thin layer of dust.
Completely wrecked with exhaustion from my extreme lack of sleep my mind refused to focus any longer having spent the entire day drawing. All my joints ached from the terrible sleep and my lack of movement from the day. My head ached in more than one place and my eyes stung from the air that was wafting in from the window in front of me.
The sun was just starting to set turning the cloudy baby blue sky a soft peach along the horizon. Shadows became darker yet softer and all the buildings were cast in the orange hue of the sunset.
I rubbed my eyes and leant back on my chair hoping to stretch out my back a little from being hunched over my desk for so long. As I stretched Nine wrapped her dainty hands around my torso and rested her head on my shoulder. I looked down at her with an eye brow raised.
“We should go out tonight, Ree.” She said nonchalantly.
“Why?” I could hear the negativity in my voice about the idea of going out.
Her grip tightened around my and her manicured nails dug into my skin reminding me that my nerves were still working excellently. My jaw tightened as she narrowed her aqua eyes and dug her nails deeper.
“Because you’re a lazy p***k.” She stated as-matter-of-fact. “Besides you’re not going to sleep tonight are you? Might as well do something fun for a change.”
“I think I’ll p-Ow!” her claws dug in even deeper as she stared with a cryptic smile over her fair and childish features. “Fine. I’ll go!”
I practically shouted the words in her face yet she seemed unfazed by it. She just retracted her nails that had left deep crevices in my skin no doubt and gently ruffled my tangled mess of curls.
“Now that wasn’t so hard now was it?” She said mockingly as she retrieved her sand coloured trench coat that had be tossed neatly over the couch. “Wear something warm, I’ll pick you up at 7.”
“I can drive myself you know.” I called over to her leaning back on my chair.
“I’m not letting you drive that death machine on 2 hours sleep.” She sneered and left without another word.
So that was that. Nine and I were going to go out tonight. To where, I had no idea. Nine constantly surprised me when she picked places for us to go. She rarely picked over-priced expensive places, she tended to pick places where there were lots of people and we’d undoubtedly lose each other within the first few minutes. I guess that was her way of staying under the radar.
After a moments silence with nothing but the melodic tunes of the ‘Sky Sailing’ playing through the apartment, I lifted my shirt to inspect the damage to my chest. Nine’s talons had created dents so deep in my skin that a few of them were a deep indigo and one was bleeding.
That was nothing compared to what she had done previously. Once, when we were still in high school, she had clawed all down my back and it looked like I had had vigorous sex with a tiger. It took about a week to heal over and I have slight discolouration where the wounds were. Nine felt so guilty she would buy all my lunches and take me out after school. It wasn’t her fault though. We were playing that wrestling game in the pool where another person sits on your shoulders and you wrestle to push the other person off. Anyway Nine, being the size of a fourteen year old at the time, flew off my shoulders at a slight touch and somehow managed to drag her freshly manicured nails down my back. I still don’t know how she managed to scratch me so bad when she fell backwards.
I lightly rubbed my fingertips over the indentations; they were already starting to look better. I tossed my fall out shirt back down covering my slim figure.
“What to do for another two hours…” I wondered to myself as I looked around my now almost spotless apartment.
The puffy cushions on the couch looked almost inviting as my eyes drooped from exhaustion. As I dragged my feet over to the couch my mind was completely numb. There wasn’t a single thought that I was actively thinking. My feet knocked the side of the couch and I felt myself plummet; face down, onto the comfy couch. I relaxed into the comfort of the couch and slowly gave into the darkness called sleep and the nightmares that came with it.
~~~~~~~~
As I lay paralysed, unable to move anything except my eyes, I stared up at a pearl white roof. The room was illuminated like a hospital corridor yet I couldn’t see any lights on the roof or the tops of the walls. There was not one single mark on the roof, it was like a brand new blank canvas waiting to be turned into a masterpiece.
I felt at ease in the brightly lit room yet I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling in the back of my mind. The feeling that this room wasn’t as it seemed, that there was something else in this room that was out to get me.
My paranoia escalated slightly as my eyes trained on the slighted greyed off corner of the roof. It was like fuzz or the beginnings of mould in a bathroom. I could feel my relaxed heart beat quicken as I squinted trying to figure out what the grey mass was. The more I stared at the blemish on the wall the more I noticed it start to envelope the white around it.
Whatever it was, it was spreading faster than the plague as it ate through the glistening white leaving it a hollow black. The now black mass clouded the corner of the roof and branched out towards the other corner which had the same sizable black mass growing from it.
It felt like only a few seconds later that the black mould in each corner connected and spread down the walls toward the floor. It had created a ring around the now almost completely black ceiling.
As the black dripped down the wall I felt myself begin to panic and struggle to move my limbs but still nothing. My mind no matter how loud it screamed could not move my body which sat completely still. My chest wasn’t even rising up and down with the breaths that were drawn in from my nose.
The darkness had devoured almost all four walls completely when I finally gain control of some of my body. I could move my head around to look behind me, I hoped to see a door but there was nothing. My face, etched with fear, looked and followed as long black tendrils escaped the darkness and wormed their way towards me.
The bright light of the once white room was almost gone except for the small circle surrounding me. Still unable to move I willed my body to listen to me. I begged them as I felt the sting of tears fill my eyes. The black mass had caught up with the tendrils as they wrapped around me.
Just like a blanket, I was engulfed by the darkness just as a howl of fear tore its way from my throat.
~~~~~~~~
I shot up from the couch in fear with the same raspy howl escaping from my mouth as in the nightmare. A thick layer of cold sweat had formed over my body and I could feel myself quivering from the vivid chilling dream. Running a hand through my tangled hair I looked at my feet as I pulled my knees close taking in long even breaths trying to calm my racing heartbeat.
This nightmare is a prime example of why I refuse to sleep, no matter how tired and run down my body is. My nightmares were never over-complicated filled with horrific or brutal events that left me scared for my life. They were bone-chillingly simple thrillers that revolved around me being helpless and unable to stop whatever happened.
It was always the darkness I found that was the cause of my distress in the nightmares whether it was like the mould in this one or in the form of a clouded human form or even a dark mist that followed me endlessly. I was always trying to escape this darkness but to no avail every time.
The small wooden clock that hung on the wall that separated the kitchen from the lounge room chimed annoyingly signalling it was something o’clock. Holding my legs close to me I listened to the droning bells toll out the hours.
It was 7 O’clock already and Nine was bound to be on her way already, if not, just leaving her house now. If I was lucky I would be able to weasel in a shave between my shower and getting dressed.
~~~~~~~~
In the space of 15minutes I had erratically shaved, more like trimmed, my growing beard to a neat stubble and showered to rinse off all the suffocating sweat from my skin. Just as I left the shower there was a knock on the door, no doubt it was Nine, so I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my waist and proceeded to answer the door.
“Nine, you’re fifteen…” My voice trailed off as I realised it was my neighbour, Jason, from across the hall. I could feel my body grow rigid from embarrassment as I stood holding the door wide open in nothing but a towel.
Jason studied at the same college as me so we often saw each other in the halls and only rarely did we ever exchange words with each other. On certain occasions our mail would get mixed up though I don’t see how, my guess is the postman doesn’t pay attention. Either way every time I had Jason’s’ mail I mentally thanked whoever the postman was because it gave me an excuse to converse with my charming neighbour across the hall.
He was just shorter than me by an inch or two with dark blond hair that was kept short and a broad yet soft face that almost always looked as if he was calculating or making sense of something. Although at this moment he was looking me in the eye with his stone grey gaze with a look of surprise on his face.
“I’ve got your mail again.” He said bluntly as he held up the two envelopes to support his statement.
I took them from his hands with a quaky smile. “Uh… thanks. I don’t know why he keeps doing that.”
“I’ll let you get back to your shower.” Jason promptly folded his arms with a smirk before he returned back to his room across the hall.
Once his door was closed I felt an unwilling smile spread across my lips as I slouched against the door frame. I stared at the door across the hall for a second longer before seeing Nine, dressed in a black halter neck mini dress that lightly caressed her body and over-the-top red heels, standing on the last step with a look of knowing on her face.
“You’re smitten.” She said tossing her long straight locks over her shoulder with a devilish half smile. Her laughter filled my ear when I saw her eyes trained on my bare torso. “And you just happened to be getting out the shower?”
“Hi, Nine.” I pushed off the door frame and walked inside leaving the door open for Nine behind me.
I knew for a fact that now she knew I had a crush on someone she would be nagging me about it throughout the night and into the early hours of the morning if she didn’t pass out tonight. Not that I minded at least now I had someone to talk to about Jason.
“Go get dressed you smitten kitten.”
“I’m going!” I threw my arms up exasperated as I walked over to my oak wardrobe.
Once I reached the large wardrobe I pulled it open lightly and peered inside at the array of natural colours. Blacks, browns, blues and greens lined the hangers and folded neatly on the bottom, beside three pairs of shoes (the only three I happen to own) was my underwear.
Nine must folded them and put them there when she was cleaning earlier today. I’d told her time and time again that those don’t sit in the bottom of my closet but now I’m beginning to think that she does it on purpose just to aggravate me.
I turn to glare at her but she is already watching me warily with a sly cat like grin on her face. I shake my head as I squat down in front of the small pile and gather them in my arms. Nine watched me, trying to suppress her giggles as I tossed the neatly folded undergarments on my bed.
Nine didn’t speak a word as she watched me pull on a pair of baby blue boxer shorts underneath my towel. She just continued to stand with her arms crossed with a half-smile that was fading as her red shoes tapped the floor in short intervals showing her growing impatience.
It didn’t take me long to get ready, I wasn’t one to dwell on my looks especially when I was going to be standing next to Nine who, without much effort on her part, was a gorgeous woman. Chances are I won’t be the one people are going to look at.
I had settled on a semi-formal look with charcoal grey slacks, loose button down shirt and worn-out dress shoes that had long since lost their lustre. Compared to Nine, who looked like a model, I looked messy and unkempt even though I was wearing neat attire. I guess I just paled in comparison.
“Well you’re awfully dressed up, you look good.” Nine smiled lightly as she turned on her heel.
That was a little too nice of her to say.
“Looks as though someone’s trying to get laid.” She added looking at me over her shoulder with a sly grin.
That’s better.
In all my years of knowing Nine she has never once paid me a compliment. She got close to it once but I’m pretty sure she chocked on the words. I don’t know if it’s because she chooses not to compliment anyone or if she is actually incapable of saying something nice to someone.
“Yes.” I replied bluntly as I pulled my black waist length trench coat off its hanger and pulled it on. “Let’s go.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day!” She shouts excitedly and loops her arm around mine and drags me out the front door without so much as a second thought.
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