Rampage in Kenton City (Hellscream&BeyondPoetry)

[Poe]

His apartment was a dingy excuse for a hole in the wall, messy not unlike most of the bachelor apartments she had ever been in. It was right on the first floor which was risky enough in Daunton, but she assumed he never had a problem defending himself. There were dirty dishes piled n the sink and the walls were littered with heartbreaking words that she could only assume he had written the hundred different times he lost all of his faith in humanity. There were clothes everywhere, beer cans and other unmentionables on the floor. She hadn’t judged him one bit, no, she knew how hard it was living in this world and a lot of times a home wasn’t really a home at all. But it was his words that yanked on the very end of her sanity, eliciting a response from her that she hadn’t expected.


His words about Rico, that pimp of yours, ignited her last nerve and she felt the bile rise in her throat. Every single inch of her skin felt like a million needles, sharp and uncomfortable, and she tightened her hand on the strap of her bag and felt a sharp intake of breath fill her lungs. “He’s not my fucking pimp,” she bit out, her voice sharper than it had ever been before she made her way away from him towards what she presumed to be the bathroom. Slamming and locking the door, she fell against the wood and slipped down to the ground. Her bag strewn and forgotten next to her. At first she was so angry — how the hell could he say that to her? After everything that had just happened, after everything she had just endured at the hands of those men, what kind of person would dig their nails so deeply into an open and fresh wound?


But then, she was just tired. It wasn’t even that — because this man could think whatever he wanted of her. She knew better, she knew who she wasn’t and she wasn’t some whore. What Rico had almost done to her tonight was unforgivable and disgusting, she couldn’t let this man make her feel like she deserved it. Because she didn’t…right? Shaking her head, Maya pulled herself up from the floor and turned on the shower, the nozzle a bit rusted not unlike her old apartment and she stopped off her bloody clothes and tossed them into the trashcan. She grabbed the toiletries bag she’d managed to acquire from her bathroom and pulled out her shampoo, conditioner and soap. The water was scalding hot and nearly burned her skin when she stepped in, but she didn’t care. She wanted every single bit of those men wiped off of her. Her hands were frantic with scrubbing the bar of soap against her skin, the water pink from the blood that came out of her hair alone but not before long it ran clear again. Giving her hair a long and luxurious wash, Maya felt a bit of herself return to the battered and bruised body she inhabited.


It had felt like a lifetime, but only an hour or so had passed since she got in the shower. Turning the water off and grabbing one of the only clean towels, she dried off her hair before wrapping her body in the surprisingly soft fabric. She didn’t have much clothing at her apartment to begin with but she’d managed to grab near everything she owned in the bag. After slipping on a pair of underwear and a bra, she’d found a pair of fabric shorts and a t-shirt that hung off one of her shoulders. She tied her semi-wet hair up into a bun and let out a sigh as she packed her things back in her back. There was no way to know how long she would be here, but Maya wasn’t one to really make home anywhere. That’s how people got hurt — by getting comfortable.


The time in the shower had helped calm her down considerably and even though she had fallen back into hysteric sobs a few times, the water had washed most of it away. Now she just felt a bit numb and her spine had managed to straighten considerably. She never wanted to feel that helpless again and she wouldn’t. Even if it was the last damn thing she ever did. Making her way out of the bathroom, it was clear the change in the air as the warm and floral scented air billowed out of the bathroom after her. The dinginess of the apartment seemed to break up a bit and the smell of garbage was hardly noticeable any longer. Leaving her bag by the door to the bedroom, Maya made her way over to where the stranger had managed to situated himself on the couch but she could tell from a mile away that her words had hit him.


“I’m sorry,” she said, sitting beside him but leaving a bit of space as not to overwhelm him. Her legs were tucked up underneath her and he had her full undivided attention. “I didn’t mean to snap earlier about Rico, I just —“


Maya took a deep breath, “I’m not that kind of girl. That night in the restaurant…Rico used to have me go out with business prospect to persuade them to do business with him. It was never more than dinner and when he first found me, I was drowning. I had no idea how to be on my own in the real world, I couldn’t afford my apartment and I couldn’t walk home at night or else the guys down there would try things and…it wasn’t pretty.”


“He never touched me,” she said adamantly. “Not once and neither did his men. Not until you found me in the alley that night and then today he just…I’ve never seen him like that.”


“He’s a fucking pig and I can’t—“ Maya let out a shaky breath and found herself fiddling with the hem of her shirt. Her knuckles were almost white at the thought of what he’d ordered that night and it almost made the bile rise back up in her throat. “You shouldn’t have come after me.”

 

[Atherium]

Well done, you moron. At this pace, you'll surely have her falling into your arms, confessing how much she loves you. The sarcastic voice commented into his mind upon his behavior after Maya snapped and dissapeared into the bathroom. And indeed, it all made him feel like the biggest asshole there ever was. Remorse bit deeply into his flesh, and for a second, he even considered yelling out an apology. But what use would it be? He now thought of what was going to happen when she will come out of the bathroom and he was almost certain that she will go a long way into taking her revenge for what he has said to her. Humans were vengeance thirsty, and that was the way. And just then was when the poisoned voice finally was heard again, hissing in its so well known style and making him fall again into a deep pit of insecurity and fear.


Oh boy, you do not even understand what is going to happen. No, no. She will hatch her revenge while learning all of your weak points, and when the time for revenge comes, she will dump a whole truck of it upon you. You're fucked and destined to suffer greatly eversince you first let her glance into your eyes and tell you those sweet lies. She cannot mend you, she cannot repair what the others of her kind have broken inside of you. You're only lying to yourself that it will all be better, for it will never be. Get yourself rid of her. She is only a dumpster of troubles and a tramp like none other. She is..." "Shut the fuck up already, go back to your fucking cave and leave me the hell alone." He mentally shouted at the imaginary voice that was trying so hardly to take over his reactions and his thoughts. Enough was enough, and what pain he felt now was more than it. He did not even notice how his hands grasped his own head and how he moved to sit on the couch, applying a heavy pressure to his own head as if to shoo away all the torment in his mind.


And then it all broke down to silence. Only the slight sound of the shower running was audible, as a strange symphony. The man remained there, motionless, staring at the wall across the small room that served as bedroom, with a messy, dusty couch and even a messier bed. One word was clearly thickened out, over and over again. "Broken." And in his mind, the word twisted, and turned, its letters chaotically moving with a frantic despair. He now imagined them, running through a plain of infinite darkness, white as the brides in the wedding day, chasing each the other. It was as if the word as a whole was losing its sense and at the same time, the painful sense struck him into the back of his head, causing his eyes to water. Yes, now the word made so much sense, that it just turned into a mirror in which he could see himself. But not the new face he acquired, not the one before. In the mirror stood a little mannequin of flesh with no face. No eyes. No mouth. Just as his victims were turned when he would steal their faces.


Silent tears broke down as he just sat there. Now the word was overly obsessive, twisting from the form of a mirror into the form of a monstruous mouth full of sharp, bloodied teeth, mouth that opened and welcomed him into a strange darkness with smell of putrid corpses. From afar, from a totally different world, resounded the door of the bathroom as it opened, managing to reel him away from the horrid mouth that was about to suck him in, to pile him up over the thousands of corpses that resided within, staring at new visitors with eyes that were slowly but surely becoming liquid into their sockets, then leaking in the form of gelatinous goo across the cadaveric, maggot infested faces. Before Maya showed up and sat next to him, he managed to quickly wipe away the few cold tears that he shed and hid it all by simply looking into the other way from her, out, on the window. He felt her sitting next to him, and he now awaited for her to punish him for what he has said earlier to her.


“I’m sorry,” he heard, and in that moment, he was stunned. After the moronic way he acted, she was the one to apologize? It felt... it felt unreal. He listened to her words and couldn't feel the least of fakeness ringing through them. Her words, as well as the manner she spoke them into, rang all too real for him, the Broken. After she had finished speaking, he left a minute of silence, so that each of her words could sink in properly.


"Then you shouldn't have hidden my identity." He broke the silence, now turning to face her, certain as hell that she couldn't observe that he had been shedding tears just before she came around. There was another mix of strange feelings biting at his innards, and he now sat there before her, looking her in the eyes and not knowing what to make out of them. And as he watched her, he couldn't help but think of how beautiful she was. "I'm... sorry..." He uttered a moment later, hanging his head dejectedly as he felt he had to do. "I was an asshole earlier. You've been through enough already to have me calling you a whore."

 

[Poe]

Maya just simply watched him as he tried to find the words to respond to her. When he finally did, she felt a soft laugh bubble up in her throat and she let it out, shaking her head gently at the thought. “I suppose you’re right, but it’s not my identity to share,” Maya replied, her eyes finding his again. There was a gentleness to his face that she had yet to see and it only solidified in her heart that there was goodness trapped somewhere beneath the hurt and anguish. This person, this man, had once had an identity of his own, a heart of his own and she assumed a face of his own. What had been done to him — it wasn’t natural. It wasn’t right, but he wasn’t gone. The boy behind the faceless mask, he was still there. Deep down, maybe, but still there. She could see it in his eyes.


It was only when he finally apologized that she knew. He was not a monster, not by a long shot, but there was barbed wire around his heart. His humanity only peeking through in moments of desperation but then they were gone. Fleeting like his faces. Maya smiled, her entire posture and demeanor warm and comforting. She had always been that way, more nurturing than destructive, more caring than vengeful. It was dangerous to have a heart like Maya’s in a world like this, but she tried her best to protect it. So she didn’t show it very often, but it always managed to peek through itself, keeping a careful watch over everything and everyone. The world had nearly broken her, but she’d long since forgiven it.


“There’s no need to apologize, though I appreciate it,” Maya tilted her head so that she could catch a glimpse of his eyes as he looked down and away from her. It was almost like he expected her to scold him, to rip him apart with her words and it broke her heart. Had he never had a real conversation before? Had he never gotten to know someone? “You just don’t know me and that’s not your fault. Hell, through all of our strange encounters there’s no way you could have thought any different. But I have a life, you know, outside of Rico — outside all that shit. Or, well, at least I did. I was a bartender and I really like playing the piano. I can’t really draw too well, but I’ve been trying to teach myself. When I was a little girl, I wanted to grow up to be a doctor but I never managed high school — dropped out before I could finish my sophomore year. I like sleeping in a lot and I hate mornings, but I love sunrises so sometimes I’ll just stay up all night.”


“I may not be able to physically change faces, but I know what wearing a mask feels like,” Maya shrugged, her body language becoming more and more comfortable with the conversation. “That girl you saw with Trevor, withRico, that’s the Maya I have to be to survive in this world. I only own one dress, one pair of heels, and that’s it. I don’t spend my nights out or even have any friends, really. I just get by because men see a pretty face and they either make a move or leave me alone. Pretty girls get what they want in the world and I’m not proud of it, not by a long shot, but it’s what I had to do to make sure I survived. I’m not like you — I’m not strong or violent and I’m not sure I would ever be able to kill anyone — so I have to rely on what I know to keep myself alive. That’s just my reality.”


“So no, you’re not an asshole. You just didn’t understand and those are two different things. You can ask me, you know. I won’t bite, I won’t freak out. I would rather you ask than assume because I think what goes on in that head of yours — what you think about people, I mean — is worse than the reality sometimes,” Maya said softly, her eyes finding his to try and root the conversation in honesty and to make him feel comfortable talking to her. “But that’s just me. I’m not a whore, no, but I sure as hell haven’t made the best decisions in my life.”


Maya cleared her throat, realizing just how much of herself and her humanity that she was showing and masked it with a playful smile. “But I don’t even know your name. Should I just go on calling you ‘stranger?’”

 

[Atherium]

As Maya spoke, the man was listening to every word, registering and processing it. The bitter, poisoned voice was at it again, wording lie after each word Maya spoke, in his mind. He wanted so badly to grab his head again and maybe slam it against the wall behind himself, as he usually did when that particular voice was trying to seize control of his mind and his being. But he knew that would scare Maya, and she would think him even more mentally unstable than he already was. He tried, instead, to cover the resonance of the voice with imagining something... an image that would match Maya. Funny enough, all he could think of now was a volcano erupting, seeing as she kept talking, and talking, and talking, setting loose probably each and every single word she had been thinking of during their silence. But she wasn't a violent volcano, neither a harmful one. And now he pictured how from the massive structure of the volcano flowed not lava, but... milk and honey? He managed to contain a laughter that was about to protrude through at the thought. Why would he think of milk and honey?


Because her voice is sweet, and admit it, she calms you down just like a glass of warm milk calms children before bed. You can't deny it, the rational voice spoke into his mind, clearing it up for him. Oh, and how he wished he could argue with that, but somehow, her presence was beneficial to him. That doesn't make her less of a whore and a liar, the poisoned voice snapped as Maya explained how she used what Mother Nature had gifted her with to make a living, to benefit from it. But by now, he was almost certain she was not a liar. She was exposing herself so much and she didn't seem eager to hide away any detail. A liar would simply elude the subject and highlight all the good things about himself. No, she clearly was not a liar, and he could see the clear gaze in her eyes. He was still shocked by the fact that after what she had witnessed of him, she still sat there,next to him, speaking of herself so openly as if she had known him for a lifetime. Why even was she doing that? Because she just found a good hound. You see, when she saw you so ready to do anything to gain her attention and saw how hard you fought to protect her, she immediately understood she can use you, as tool and shield. She will probably fuck you a few times in exchange for protection then will leave you when she is done and safe, the poisoned voice barked again, slipping the painful thorn of mistrust into him once again. But he was decided to withstand and get over the immense pain it brought to him.


Should I just go on calling you ‘stranger?’ she asked, and now his mind was catapulted towards a dark side of his own universe. Universe filled with clocks and images long forgotten and buried into thick and frozen ground. He now found himself, a travelling spirit, invading what looked like his oh so familiar room from a past time when he used to have a home and a family. A little boy with no visible features, no older than 4, stood before a mirror. His small hands fiddled with a little, cute bow tie. Bow tie that his parents had bought him especially for the event he was going to assist to. The little boy seemed so proud about his bow tie, that he stood there, silent, before the mirror, admiring and arranging it over and over again like a man of importance who was going to attend a congress of at least the same importance. But the boy's face was hidden in shadows. The spirit could not see if he laughed, or cried. The door to the room opened and a tall, slim build of a woman made her way through, her heels making clicking sounds as they stepped upon the wooden floor. But her face, just as the boy's, was also covered in a thick shadow, a shadow through which not even the eye of mind could see. Oh, honey, you like it so much, don't you? She asked the little boy about his accessory, question that was answered with a small hug from the boy. The scene was soon blurred out and dispersed by a gust of wind, just before the woman was about to utter the name of the little boy. A little boy that was he.


And so he returned to the present reality, reality where no shadows were covering any faces and a reality where, he now discovered, he was nameless. In vain he tried recalling an instance of his name being spoken out loud, for in each, the voices went mute just as they opened their mouths. He was now projected by a slingshot of thought towards another instance, back again towards the memory of the day when the man in white and the men in black came to pick him up from the orphanage. He stood by the window of his small room, room which he shared with three other boys. The room was plain, it only contained two bunk beds with nightstands by each, and nothing more. Everybody aside him seemed to have something of great importance to do outside, exactly what, he couldn't tell, for he stood there, by the window, watching as the raindrops were the only ones that visited him, hitting the window one, then another, making him imagine them as being the countless faces that showed up at the exclusivist parties his father organized back home. The thought of his parents once more made his eyes water and his heart was ripped again, piece by piece, then an invisible hand picked up the chunks and shoved them mercilessly into a meat grinder. What fault did he have in all of this? Why did the two most loved persons in this world leave him this way?


And then he heard it. The voice of Mrs. Alcott, an old hag that loved to torment children in all sorts of sick and twisted manners, such as displaying sweets that they would get beaten up for even trying to get near, or eating steaks at the same table with them, while they ate something that was nothing but a pathetic excuse for food. Mrs. Alcott was evil incarnate, and the boy often found himself fantasizing about throwing her out the window, or drowning her in the toilet. Fantasies that remained nothing more than, well, fantasies. But for whatever reasons, his name was spoken with a deep, muffled voice, a voice crippled and ripped to the point that his name was not even surely his name anymore. The scene dispersed again, leaving him defenseless in front of Maya's question. What even should he tell her? He honestly felt afraid of opening up to this girl. She would be, as he discovered, the first person he had ever opened up to.


"Um... my... name... I..." He stuttered, trying quickly again to recall something, anything at all. But nothing slipped to him. "I... I don't have a name..." He finally sighed as if he has thrown off himself a rock that was applying heavy pressure to his chest and heart. "I lost it... they made me lose it. I lost it once with my identity. I just take whatever name my victim had, and go with that. I am no longer an individual person, I am everything and everyone I come across. I don't exist as a person. Even if I probably wish... It's sometimes a heavy pressure being a constant runaway with no face of your own. With no past... or well... with no past you'd wish to remember. Call me what you may... My name remains yours, and you can forget it whenever you feel like it's too much a burden for you. My parents have probably forgotten it, as well..." He uttered the last words with a thick, heavy and pained voice, and turned his gaze away, feeling again what he vowed then, in the day when they stripped him of his identity, that he would never feel again. Pain.

 

[Poe]

Every word she spoke hit him and she could see it in his eyes. He was hurting so deeply that she could reach out and touch the hurt in the air. It was palpable, hanging like a thick fog between them as his eyes went in and out of what she assumed were painful memories. For a moment, Maya wished entirely to be inside of his head and to know what was mulling around, but she would not intrude. His thoughts were his own, his memories — no matter how painful — were also his own. Maya had no right to know them, to ask about them, but it did not stop her from being curious. He had stripped himself so raw in front of her that she felt both honored and a little taken back, but she did not falter. She listened with a heavy heart but kept her face kind, her eyes gazing on him because she didn’t want to miss a single second of what he was privileging her with seeing.


“No name, huh? Well, then it makes it difficult to properly thank you,” Maya quipped, a soft laugh on her lips to break the tension. With a gentle hand, she reached out and touched his forearm ever so slightly as not to scare him and smiled the most genuine smile she’d managed in the last few days. “But, for what it’s worth, I think you’re wrong.”


“You exist,” she said softly, “Just as much as I am, just as much as anyone does — and maybe you don’t believe that, but that’s okay, because I do. Because pasts? You’re creating them every single day. Every day you go on living is another day in your past, so no, maybe you did throw away who you were, but you’re here. You’re someone and I won’t give you a name, because it only matters how you identify yourself. I will go on for the rest of my life calling you stranger if that’s what you want, but I’m not going to take that choice from you. You’ve had too many choices taken away from you.”


“Whatever they did to you was fucked up and I can’t even imagine that pain,” Maya applied a bit more pressure with her hand, her thumb rubbing comforting circles on his skin as though to anchor him to their conversation and out of his own head. “But you are not a burden to me. If anything, I’ve managed to fuck up your life pretty royally. The truth is, identities aren’t something that are created by birth certificates or families. Look…” Maya did not think before she stood up, grabbing her bag from the far wall and pulling out a manila folder with papers inside. With a slight hesitation, she ran her hand over it before making her way back towards the couch and sitting down a bit closer so that he could see the contents of the folder.


“This was me,” she said softly, as though she were reading a picture book to a child. She flipped the folder open and there were files on her, a few pictures taped and paper clipped to the inside cover. The most prominent was a shot of a much younger Maya, bruises littering her face and a few cuts on her forehead. She recognized the picture immediately though she hadn't looked in the folder for a long, long time. It was years ago, back when she was hardly thirteen and it was in her last foster home. The father drank a bit too much and the mother was too quiet to say anything. There had been too many situations like that, too many terrible homes and too many rejections. They’d sent her back to the orphanage when the police found out what had happened and they’d apologized for not getting there sooner. As if it mattered.


“I like to think I’ve let go of it, but when push came to shove and I had to run again from my apartment — I instinctively grabbed it. This isn’t who I am anymore,” she sighed, her hand pulling out other pictures — younger pictures. One of her as a baby when she first showed up at the orphanage, saved from the streets by a passerby as an infant, and another of her missing a few teeth and smiling even though it was clear from the background that her living conditions were less than ideal. “I left this life behind when I ran from the orphanage. Maya Renee, that was what they called me. I didn’t have a last name, so they gave me a first and a middle. Told me that it was beautiful and someday I would grow into it, but I hated Renee with every fiber of my being. They’d named me Maya after an old movie star and pulled Renee from one of the older women who worked at the orphanage. She was harsh and terrible, with an awful face that would make you sick just looking at it. So when I ran away, I kept Maya and threw away everything else.”


“But this isn’t me, anymore, and I choose to let go of my past because it hurts too much to hold onto — but that doesn’t make me any less of a person. It makes me lost, yeah, and unsure but I’m still someone. Whether you call me Maya or Maya Renee, whether I have blue eyes or green. No matter what, it doesn’t change what I feel and who I am inside.”


“And yes, your story is different. You’ve gone through a hell I can’t even imagine, but you talk like you’re dead and you’re not. So long as your heart is still beating and you feel that pain I see in your eyes, you’re not dead.”

 

[Atherium]

Again, he found himself watching her as she spoke so openly, whole heartedly, managing to slip each of her words deep down into his conscience, just like a skilled tattoo artist managed to imprint images upon people's skin, forever. Her words rang in his mind and invaded his being, to the point where even the poisoned, hissing voice, that was now openly protesting her speech just like a demon protesting exorcision, became suddenly silent. Her kindness and her way was causing his mind to get itself rid of the malevolence and maleficence it once held. As she touched him ever so gently, his first reaction, quite honestly, was to back away, not yet prepared for this type of approach. His arm remained in the air, slightly above the couch seat, as he looked Maya in the eyes, all while she continued speaking and held her hand against his arm, seeming unwilling to break this connection. Moreover, now she ran her finger in circles around a small portion of his skin. And he did not know why, but this was slowly calming down the fast beats that settled unknown in his heart. He was beginning to understand why so many men fell for her, she really did know how to approach even the most reluctant of persons. She seemed to have a natural skill at that.


The contact was soon broken as she stood, and the man watched her with curiosity as she walked to her bag, allowing himself to gaze for a second upon her silhouette from behind. She was, indeed, something most men would go for. He was almost embarrassed as she turned around and feared that she might have noticed his indecent gaze, while also questioning how the hell did he even get to actually feel ashamed for so little, when murder was an occurrence on his daily basis. And murder was so much worse than just gazing at a woman's ass. But for whatever reason, his cheeks caught a red tint that was luckily covered by the shadows that were dancing upon his face, twisting his features with the playful moonlight. He dedicated his attention now fully to her as she sat down and began showing him pictures of her past, a past which she, just as he, didn't seem too fond of. Now she spoke to him of an old hag named Renee, and he couldn't help but remember Mrs. Alcott, the horrible, hateful and disgusting piece of shit that played the role of an old woman who loves children. If anyone knew what that sick fuck actually did to children. Even with the constant presence of Maya, and her constant talking, he couldn't help but catch a glimpse of the dreadful past.


Everyone had heard that somebody, a little boy named Smith, was sentenced by Mrs. Alcott to a day in the Room. Poor boy was only 5, and what he had done was drop his glass of water and make a puddle in the middle of the lobby. But he spoke to none of it, and simply ran from the 'crime scene'. It only happened that Mrs. Alcott passed through the lobby half an hour later, and accidentally stepped into the water, wetting her shoes. All the children have been immediately called out and lined up. Little Smith did his best to hide himself into the crowd, but as Alcott's voice thundered in rage, he began shaking. He knew to what lengths the monster of an old woman would go to achieve a confession from the 'criminal' as she referred to the one who had spilled the water she stepped in. The tension was growing, and Mrs. Alcott was becoming more and more furious, now slapping random children as she passed by them, causing most to burst out in cries which she then forced them to suppress at the point of a taser. Not being able to withstand anymore of the pressure, Smith stood out of the line and confessed to have spilled the water, and he was immediately taken away under the collective gazes.


Nobody knew what had happened to the little boy during his stay in the Room, but the very next day, the police and an ambulance arrived, and Smith was being taken away, badly bruised and near death. All while Mrs. Alcott was talking to a police officer, putting up her innocent old lady behavior as she did when speaking to authorities. "I swear to God, officer, i have no idea who did this to him... we have here a boy, ten years old, victim of sexual abuse from his father. He had been sodomized countless times, maybe you should speak to him? You know, abused children tend to become abusers at a point..." She said before bursting out in tears, faking a crying scene oh so perfectly well it was sickening. But nobody spoke of the Room. The children were threatened before the police arrived that if they dared to utter a single word, they'd suffer incredible punishments. So nobody spoke.





Surprised, he discovered he had registered each and every of Maya's words all while a part of his mind travelled far into the realm of thoughts and memories, pulling the flashback he just had out of a dusty drawer. Maya's last words struck in the back of his mind, and again, it took him a while to process them, and, when he finally did, he was left speechless, again. What should he say to all of this? How should he react? He wanted to say and do a thousand things, but he couldn't even bring himself to picture a smile, or a frown, for that matter. This girl... where did she come from? He knew already so much about her from herself, but he now was eager to find out more. But could he ask for it? She had opened herself so widely to him, like a book, while he uttered no word about himself. It almost made him feel bad.


"I... I don't know what to say... Nobody has ever approached me so much. I don't even know why are you doing this in the first place. I am probably one of the worst persons you could open yourself up to but still... ugh... Why?" He questioned as he shifted, his sitting position suddenly uncomfortable, as if the very couch grew thorns that were slowly but surely piercing into his sides. Nervousness bit at his heart as he looked at the girl, awaiting a response and fearing yet the worst to come.