"The reason I talk to myself is because I'm the only one whose answers I can accept."
- George Carlin

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I had to force me feet to stop when the foliage and trees thinned came to an abrupt stop. Mikey was still whining as he failed to pay any attention and crashed into the back of me. We both fell to the ground in a heap groaning from the force of the fall. Mikey rolled off me throwing more curses my way while I picked out the pine needles that had stuck into my skin.

“Fuck you Frank, I’ve got a cut over my damn eyebrow! They’re going to be asymmetrical now!” Mikey grumbled before punching me in the arm.

“Get a new pair of glasses to cover it up then, and don’t punch me, that actually hurt,” I may have been childish, but currently blood was seeping out from the holes in my hands and my arm really did hurt.

Mikey scoffed a little and re-arranged his glasses tilting them a few times to make sure they were straight. He got on his knees and crawled forward so he was directly behind a thick shrub. I shuffled forward and kneeled next to him as he pulled the branches apart slightly and allowed us to have a perfect view of the house, minus the risk of being caught trespassing.

I hadn’t been out to the house in a few years, Mikey never wanted to come out here, Ray was never available after school or on weekends to do anything with anyone and I was too, dare I say, afraid to come out here alone. Simple building or home to monsters and ghouls, either way this house was pretty fucking scary.

It was rotted, or rotting, the wood was in pretty bad condition, and had a blackish tint to it. Same as the windows, they were filthy, thick with dirt, dust and grime and had a black tint disallowing anyone to see in. The roof tiles glimmered a little in the light and came up a gunmetal colour with streaks of silver. Any other distinct feature of the house was either covered in moss or ivy that had begun to strangle the wooden beams or was in such a dilapidated condition that details were undeterminable. And yet, despite all these flaws and obvious elements that would cause anyone to turn up their nose in disgust all I wanted to do was get closer. I wanted run my fingers over the dampness of the moss, let the small flecks on paint crumble and disintegrate with my touch as my hands slid along the wood and watch the heat of my breath form a smoky precipitate on the tar black of the windows.

Mikey’s hushed words brought me out of my momentary daydream, “Did you see that?.”
I looked at Mikey in utter confusion – oh no, he’s not seeing ghost again is he?
“What are you talking about Mikey?”
“The car, you see it, of course you it, it’s in front of the damn house you can’t miss it. Look underneath the car.”

I won’t admit I was happy to oblige but I looked nonetheless. I looked under the car and could see a pair of feet and legs that stood on the other side of the car, blocked from our view.
“There’s a person there…?” I waved my hands a little telling Mikey to finish the sentence, since I didn’t have a clue what the problem was. We were hidden behind the shrubbery, we were safe.
“Sometimes I worry about your intellectual ability Frank. There’s a person there, and we just fell over making a shit load of noise, they would have heard us.”

My face fell a little, oh shit, if get caught we can be prosecuted for trespassing or worse these people could be crazy, they could shoot us. Wouldn’t be the first time someone was shot in this town for being an ‘intruder’. “Oh, alright, not to worry, we just need to stay still and silent. Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”
Mikey nodded and we both turned back in complete silence to look through the small hole in the foliage we had made for viewing.

The person blocked from our view remained unmoving, that was until the front door of the house swung open and a loud crack echoed through the leaves as wood connected with the brass door knocker. A tall figure emerged from the shadows of the house and stepped into the light on the front porch. He was dressed in a highly formal black suit and had long raven hair. Mikey and I simultaneously froze as we watched him descend the few steps that led from the porch. His skin made us both hold our breath. It rippled with silver as the light reflected from all angles.

“What the fuck?” Mikey breathed out almost silently.

The man’s face soon contorted into a twisted scowl and, even from our distance, the animalistic growl erupting from the back of his throat could be heard. He thundered toward the person hidden from us and we noticed that they were no longer standing, they had fallen to the ground and were kneeling. A bloodcurdling scream ripped through the silence and the body jolted upward. Finally the person was revealed.

A boy. No more than 18, if that. Deathly thin, a sickening pallor coating all exposed skin. The older male cursed and growled at the boy of whom he was dragging up the stairs, his hand gripping tightly in the wild stands of ebony hair atop the boys’ head. Only fragments of what was being said made it to my earshot.

“Pathetic….Worthless….Ignoramus….Parasitic…..I Regret The Day I Took You,” I forced myself to stop listening.

The boy was now facing directly at us. With each word his face would sporadically contort with displeasure, pain, acknowledgment and even a small moment of acceptance of the maliciousness that was infecting his mind. If Mikey hadn’t gripped onto my upper arm, I would have ran forward, screaming with rage, ready to take great pleasure in the pained writhing body of the monster that held the boy. Soon the darkness of the house encased the pair. The pained cries of the boy silenced with the slamming of the wooden door.

My jaw hung slack and before I knew it my body was already beginning to shuffle forward. Pine needles and dirt covered my hands but I was to entranced to even notice. A hand on the back of my neck swiftly pulled my body back and the air was knocked out of me as I hit the ground and landed on my back.
“Frank! What the fuck dude! We need to get out of here, like now!” Mikey leaned over my body and hissed at me.
“We-he-hurt-help-he needs help,” I stumbled over my words as I tried to fully fathom what I had witnessed.

Mikey grabbed my shoulders and heaved my up onto my feet whilst still fuming at me, “Are you crazy!? That guy, that thing, whatever he was had silver skin, silver fucking skin, and a short temper, he was crazy, mental, psychopathic! You saw what he did to that boy! God knows what he’d do to us, we need to go, we need to get out of here and never, EVER come back!”
Mikey began to storm off in the direction from which we came. I didn’t move until Mikey took hold of my arm and forcefully pulled me alongside him.

I noticed his bottom lip was trembling and his hands shaking as we walked together in an eerie silence. I bit my lip in anxiousness, despite his tough exterior I think Mikey was more afflicted by what just happened then I was.

“M-Mikey are you alright?” I whispered, afraid that if I was any louder he would shatter with my words.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” his voice cracked, he was on the verge of tears.
“Mikey, please,” I stopped walking as I begged, “What’s wrong?”
Mikey stopped a few steps ahead of me and let out a pained sigh, “Something happened, when the boy screamed. I-I don’t know, but I was filled with a sense of familiarity? No, remembrance? Oh god, I don’t know, but it was like déjà vu. Like I had already experienced that whole scene before, I can’t explain it, but I know I’ve seen, or heard that before…a dream, a memory…I can’t tell.”
“Mikey I-.”
“Don’t Frank, really, just don’t. I need to go home, I need to think about this, something isn’t right with that house, and now those people-I just-I just need to think.”
With that Mikey turned away from me and ran, I didn’t even consider stopping him. His figure disappeared through the branches before the crunch of his footsteps subsided and I was left in silence. Maybe Mikey hadn’t lied about that dream…

I thrust my hands into the pockets of my now filthy jeans and played with the small loose strands from the lining. I continued onward along the small path my feet cracking the crisp leaves broke the deafening silence encasing my body. I couldn’t erase the image of the boys anguish from my mind, I could have sworn I saw a tear cascade down his cheek, maybe it was a trick of the light. The malicious sting of the man’s words seemed to hang in air, constantly being whispered into my ears “I Regret The Day I Took You.”

Took you? What does the mean? True, they didn’t look related, but that doesn’t mean he stole the boy, does it? No, impossible, you can’t just steal children and get away with it these days, the police would have caught up with him by now, there’s no way that he wouldn’t have been caught.

My thoughts had been too overbearing on my mind that I failed to realise I had left the confines of the forest. The early afternoon sun wrapped its warmth around my slightly icy body. My shoes scraped slightly against the concrete, once again the streets were scarce of any forms of life. Not even children were out playing with one another.

It was then that the metaphorical light-bulb ignited in my perplexed subconscious. School. The boy had to go to school. And, as there was only one school, which was so small and cramped it was nauseating, I would have to run into him at some point. He didn’t look like much of the conversationalist, so I guess I would have to run a few miles away from my comfort zone and a start a conversation with a complete stranger. It can’t be that hard, right? I mean people do it all the time, they have no problems, so I should be fine…should be.

-X-

Three days. Three whole days of internal conflict, minor panic attacks and bursts of anxiety every time I stepped through the glass doors that led to the underworld, or school as its better known. The boy never turned up or if he did he was extremely talented at going unnoticed. Then again, it’s easy to fade away and go unnoticed in this school, unless your loud and overbearing you slip through the cracks and are mostly left to your own devices. Which I am not going to complain about. I may have Mikey and Ray to keep me company, but sometimes the unrequested ignorance to my existence was quite pleasant.

Mikey was back to his normal self, he hadn’t mentioned anything about what happened, and I hadn’t pestered him about it either. We respected each other’s privacy, and had done so since we met, however we both knew that we would have to talk about it sooner or later. Mikey was hiding something and my business or not I wanted to know what it was. Unfortunately I doubted the doe eyes would work in this situation.

The slap of metal as I shut my locker door echoed through the empty hallway. Everyone would be either in the cafeteria or outside by now, laughing and cackling with their friends as they talked about the latest episode of whatever TV show entranced their attention for long enough. I huffed as I sauntered along the generic white linoleum flooring avoiding the scattered pieces of rubbish and unidentifiable substances smeared on the ground. Teenagers really were animals when it came to cleanliness, at least here they were.

I made my way out the back of the rusty coloured brick building and found Ray and Mikey seated in ‘our spot’ under the only willow tree on the school grounds. It was the perfect spot really, the branches hung low and so encased us with a shelter of leaves that almost hid us completely. We found the tree freshman year when we were trying to hide from a few juniors who took the liberty to beat us senseless because Mikey had a Star Wars shirt on. Ray and I probably didn’t help our cause much as he was wearing an Iron Maiden shirt and I a Green Lantern one. I thought we looked fine, but the juniors didn’t seem to agree with our sentiments.
I moved a few hanging branches and leaves out of my way as I stepped into the green enclosure. Mikey was laying on his stomach flicking through a comic while Ray sat against the tree munching away at a sandwich.

Ray stopped chewing and smiled at my presence, “Hey Frank.”
Mikey looked at me and smiled too, “Hey.”
I dropped to the ground and landed on the grass with a dull thud, “Hi.”
Mikey presumed reading, Ray presumed chewing. It wasn’t an awkward silence, but it was uncomfortable.

Maybe Ray had seen the boy? Mikey and I hadn’t told him about it yet, but he was our best friend so he did deserve to know.
“Hey, Ray, have you seen a new kid around here? Average height, longish black hair, really, really pale?” I asked as he dusted crumbs from his sandwich off his jeans.
He bit his lip a little in thought, “Hmm, uh no can’t say I have. We usually get told if a new student starts and I haven’t heard anything, why?”
Mikey shot his head in my direction, “We haven’t talked about this Frank.”
“Exactly, that’s why I am telling Ray, he deserves to know what we saw, don’t you want him to know?”
“I-no, I mean I don’t care if Ray knows, it’s just we haven’t even discussed it yet.”
“You never came to me, I assumed you didn’t want to talk about it.”
Mikey shrugged and sat up, crossing his legs and shuffling closer. He gesticulated for me to continue with my story.

“Alright, so Ray, you heard about the new people that moved into that old house in the forest right?”
Ray nodded fervently, his curls bouncing slightly.
“Well Mikey and I went and had a little ‘inspection’ of the house and you won’t believe what we saw, there was this guy, he would have been early forties maybe dragging this kid, our age, into the house by his hair. The kid was screaming and he was in obvious pain, that’s why I wanted to know if you’d seen him, I assumed he would turn up at school.”
Ray’s jaw had dropped a little, “whoa,” he breathed out. “Maybe he’s home schooled?”
Mikey pondered the statement for a moment, “that would make sense, buy a house in a secluded location, home school your kid – it’s like they don’t want anyone to know they exist.”
“I don’t think that boy was his son, remember when he said “I regret the day I took you”, took, he took that boy, there is something not right with the whole situation, maybe we should go to the police?”
“NO!” Ray burst out a little defensively, “I mean, we don’t know all the facts, what if you heard wrong, or got the wrong idea, we can’t just assume the worst.”
Mikey nodded his head in agreement, “Ray’s right, we can’t just make assumptions, we should just forget about what we saw, it’s not our problem and let’s keep it that way.”

I was almost shocked, how can someone, especially Good Samaritan Mikey so easily turn his back on someone who needed help? It was obvious that boy was in danger, and needed someone to do something because he obviously had no power over that beastly man that had taken him. I decided that with or without Ray and Mikey’s help I would do something, I had to do something.

The boy was just so helpless, so alone, so afraid. He had a defiance to him, something alluring and intoxicating about his aura yet he was being subject to such mistreatment. He was obviously abused, and starved, his bones were visible through the pasty white of his complexion. And, his eyes, hey were sunken and dark, but glimmered when the light hit them in the right spot.

I was taken aback at how much detail I had put into the boy’s appearance. I couldn’t have possibly noticed all that in the small time that I saw him, I mean he was so far away after all. But I did notice. I noticed and more importantly remembered these little and commonly overlooked and unnoticed features of his person.

“Frank, Frank!” Mikey shook my shoulders pulling me out of my tranced state.
“Huh, what?”
“You’re not planning on going back to that house are you?”
I avoided making eye contact and kept silent.
“Frank I am being dead serious here, don’t you dare go back, he could be anything! A sadist, a psychopath, is he got his hands on you who know what he could do. Stay away from that house. You understand me?”
I sighed, “yes Mikey, I understand,” my face was deadpan but subconscious was smirking as I let the lie slip off my tongue, “I won’t go back, I promise.”
I was going back. I was going back as soon as I could.

Notes

Hey guys! I apologize for my tardiness, however I hope you like this chapter! I am not happy with the length especially considering the time it took to write, sorry to disappoint....but nevertheless please feel free to leave comment, tell me what you like, don't like etc and subscribe and rate! :D
sorry for any errors x