The Song Of His

5. Frying my brains

I shut the door of my house and silently climbed the stairs to my room. Mom was in the kitchen, busy talking to someone over phone. She had just lifted her head and smiled at me before resuming her discussion with the person on the other side of the line.

My mind was revolving around Ronda's strange behaviour. Though she had composed herself and said that she didn't know anything related to the bizzare incident that had occurred in this calm place, my gut instinct told me otherwise. I had seen the same type of behaviour from my mother whenever I raised the topic of my father. She would never meet my eyes, always evading the topic and trying to sidetrack me. And I let her believe it when she clearly wanted to stir clear of it.

The only thing I learnt about my sperm donor was that he was called as River. No idea about his real name or surname. He left my mother even before I was born. It always made me wonder where he was, what he was doing at the moment and even why had he left us.

Was he even alive? Would he ever think about us? Want to see us? See me?

Sighing out loud, I turned to my side to get some sleep. It was useless to think about him. He had left us to fend for ourselves. If he really had cared, he would have had come back to stay with us, after his so called mission. But since he didn't, I didn't get to care about him, think about him.

Closing my eyes, I let the sleep succumb me into it's magical realm of fairytale.

Carlene, come to me...

I looked at my reflection in the water and it stared back at me. The dark sky made the ocean darker, just the moon illuminated my face making it appear pale in the water. Not even stars twinkled in the sky. The ripples in the surprisingly calm waters of the ocean disturbed my reflection making me look for its source. A few feet away from me, a fin disappeared in the depths of the mysterious water.

Carlene... I am waiting for you.

The same manly, mesmerizing voice echoed making me drastically whip around looking for the person but I wasn't able to pin point from where I was coming from. My stomach contracted while my heart raced.

"Who is there? Come out so that I can see you," I shouted at no one in particular still trying to find any other living being in the line of sight to no avail.

There was no reply.

"Who are you?" I tried again after a while when nothing happened.

I need you, Carlene. Won't you come to me?

And before I could respond or comprehend what was going on, I was caught by my feet and dragged into the water, drowning me into the eerily quite ocean.

I sat up straight, breathing hard. Hungrily gasping for air, I looked at my surroundings to find myself in my room. The sunlight was creeping through the tiny spaces between the curtains indicating that it was already morning. My alarm had yet ten minutes to go off.

Groaning at my luck of waking up with an nightmare just to be deprived of my good ten minutes of sleep, I got up to get ready for the school. Fifteen minutes in the shower helped the headache that had started forming for no particular reason. It was like one of those days when I had to suffer from a heavy head all of a sudden.

Another five minutes later I was standing in my faded jeans and an unbottoned dark green plaid shirt over a black tank top before the kitchen island, working over my breakfast. It was nothing fancy, just some serial with milk. Mom's bedroom door was closed indicating she was still asleep.

I was chewing the last bit of my serial when the light knocking on the front door made me swallow the roughly chewed bite and put the bowl into the sink before rushing for the door. Not forget the bag waiting on the sofa for me.

"Right on time, Vini," I breathed as I locked the door behind me after getting out. My best friend was busy staring at her mobile screen, typing something really furiously. I couldn't help but peep at what she was doing. Louis Herring's fan page on friendsbook was open and our little Lavinia was busy typing a huge story message on his page.

"Is it his birthday today?" I asked teasingly as we started towards our school. Lavinia was oblivious to everything except for her favourite rockstar.

I couldn't help but roll my eyes, "Lavinia, look forward if you don't want to hit a pole."

"Hardy har har. There are no poles around here, Ms. Sarcastic pants."

I just smiled at her words, at least she did keep her phone inside. And then she started with her chatterbox. What she couldn't type on her phone, she unleashed it on me. Repentance suddenly engulfed me, "I wish I hadn't stopped you from torturing the cyber world with your neverending tales, even if you would have broken your head on a pole. At least, you won't be frying my brains at the moments!"

And she laughed at my retort. She always did because she knew that I would always joke regarding her unstoppable mouth.

"But you love me anyway", she gave me a superior smile and I couldn't disagree. It was a relief when we reached school. Her talk had caused the already present headache to intensify, not a very nice thing to feel.

I let her fry what was left of my brain as I took out my books and kept my other things in the locker. Anyway, she would be parting ways really quick for the first period, so it didn't matter how irritating she was getting on my nerves.

When the warning bell went off, she waved and rushed towards her class while I made my way towards algebra room hoping that Mr. Stanley wouldn't give us any surprise test today. He did it too often this year.

I hadn't stepped my foot into the classroom when I heard a voice call out for me, "Carlene!"

Looking over my shoulder, I found Duncan swiftly covering the distance to stop behind me. Out of courtesy, I turned to greet him with a smile, "good morning, Duncan."

"I'm happy to see that you remember me," he smiled sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck.

"Of course, we just met yesterday."

I gestured towards the classroom getting in making Duncan to follow suit. I noticed that he occupied the desk before me which already had a bag placed on the desk.

"Isn't someone already sitting there?" I asked sitting down and raising my eyebrows at the bag that was present.

He followed my gaze and hugged the bag claiming, "this is my bag." Then keeping it down, he asked, "did you think that I was claiming over an already claimed place just to sit before you?"

He wriggled his eyebrows playfully earning a chuckle and a punch from me, "gosh, the way you think." I couldn't help but shake my head.

"I know I am a pro," he winked earning another hit from me making him laugh out loud. I rolled my eyes smiling when I saw West. He looked as unapproachable as he usually did. A bunch of girls drooled over him from distance. The messy dark hair bounced slightly when the cool breeze kissed them, letting them shine in the sun rays.

The high cheekbones made it look like he had been cut out of the marble, so did his angular jawline. For a guy, he had perfect white skintone, as white as a plain sheet. Snow white white.

"Does he use all the fairness Cream from around the world?" I heard Duncan comment sarcastically under his breath, enough for me to hear. I didn't acknowledge it, instead I continued to observe the green Adonis. His perfectly full lips turned down a bit in grimace. It didn't help at all with that little natural pout he had, especially when those lips of his were cherry red.

Putting his bag on the ground beside him, he sat on the empty chair on the other side of me. And then he started to stare at his desk as if it was the most interesting, alien object that had fell from the sky before him. Unlike two days ago, no one surrounded him, let alone surround, no one approached him. They stopped flocking like mosquitoes when he had rudely asked his fan following to leave him alone, of course, with bone chilling glares.

Nevertheless, the girls still didn't give up stalking and following him, even when they couldn't approach him.

"They are really weird," Duncan's voice made me blink, breaking me out of my trance of tracing all the features of West from my eyes.

"Huh?" I asked turning around to find Duncan frowning at West.

When he didn't reply, I asked him, "what do you mean?"

Without looking away from West, he leaned towards me as he whispered, "All the three of them are really weird. Not only are they antisocial but they also don't respond when called by their last names. Like it isn't their names at all. Makes me suspect them for hiding something."

"That's really absurd, Duncan! You must be watching a lot of Sherlock Holmes," I chuckled a bit after whispering back to him. I didn't want to be loud letting West know that he was the hot topic for our little debate. It would be totally awkward, both for us and him.

"No, really. Let me show you a demo, since you don't believe me." Duncan moved forward, sitting on the edge of his seat as he called out, "Zervos."

West didn't look up from the desk. It surely was weird. But even the point that Duncan hadn't been loud enough could be considered, since the class was damn concert at the moment. All sorts of noises could be heard in here.

"If you call out in that volume even a dog can't hear your voice," I retorted with a smug.

Taking it as an open challenge, Duncan called out louder this time, "Zervos!"

And immediately West whipped his head in our direction, looking straight into my eyes. I unintentionally sucked in a breath from my mouth as my heart pounded in my chest. From the corner of my eyes, I found Duncan swiftly sit back straight, facing front as if he had no hand at all in this event. But most of my focus had been occupied by the slightly elongated black holes present in the green forests of West's eye. It was strange to see a human with pupils which weren't exactly rounded like the rest of us. His pupils looked like a cat's for a second before transforming into an oval and finally a circle.

It happened so beautifully and fast that it looked like my eyes played tricks on my mind but I knew! I knew that it had happened!

"What was that?" By the time I realised that I had spoken out my thoughts, Mr. Stanley walked in attracting all the attention but West and I continued to stare at each other.

As if being called out of our little staring match, West narrowed his eyes at me before turning ahead to look at Mr. Stanley. Simultaneously, breaking me out of my trance. I blinked a couple of times trying to digest what I had just witnessed before turning to face Mr. Stanley but not before casting another look at mysterious new student that had looked into my eyes not a few seconds ago. People were busy interacting with the math teacher making me glad that no one had paid any heed to us.

Discretely, I looked at West once again, noting that he was staring ahead like a statue.

What was that that had just happened? What had happened with West's eyes? I am sure it wasn't a trick on my eyes but it wasn't everyday normal thing that happened. Was Duncan's suspicion real? It sure was weird...

I couldn't help but look at West for one more time while he was busy writing something in his book. That stern look etched on his perfect face while the light glistened in his eyes making them shine. The eyes that hypnotized everyone from just a glance. The eyes that spoke millions of thing yet never reveling any secrets. The eyes that looked like a jungle with a mystery behind. The eyes that had filled me with questions.

Why were you here West? What do you want West?

You can't just transfer after the term had started, all of a sudden! There was a reason for him to be here, and I was sure about it.

Who are you West? Or rather I should be asking, what are you?