Buttercup | r. tozier

↠ ben hanscom

The Next Day

It has been a day after I first met Bev. I went to the library as I had planned before. Speaking of her, she was just so beautiful like an angel. Her eyes, her hair, her smile, and everything about her was just lovely. Even if I managed to wipe the goofy grin that I had on my chubby face, I could not get her off of my mind. If anything, she had set my mind and my heart ablaze.

As soon as I entered the library's domain, I proceeded to a nearby table and put my belongings on it. I took a seat and I found a postcard lying down below me. At first, the postcard seemed unassuming until an idea popped up in my mind.

"Your hair is winter fire, January embers, my heart burns there too," I whispered in delight, writing out my heart's confessions on the postcard to the girl who got my cheeks flaring red. I smiled as I ended the poem. I kept on wondering if I was ever going to meet her again, especially in the town I recently moved in.

After quite a while, I stood up to stretch my body and walked to a bookshelf not far away. There was a book titled The History of Derry, and I took the book to read. I flipped through many pages, later stumbling to a section of the book that troubled me. Series of stories about mysterious tragedies and sudden disappearances throughout the centuries were recorded in the few pages I had read so far. I read further into them up until the story about a headless boy from the gas explosion in an Easter egg hunt decades ago.

As I dive myself further into the book, I heard the sound of the wind whooshed from behind. I glanced back to have a look of what it was and saw a red balloon gliding towards a door. Curiosity got the best of me and I followed wherever the red balloon went, only to see an egg in front of my eyes. This reminds me of Easter back in my hometown. Without hesitation, I continued to follow the trail, in which another egg appeared after the other. Not long, I found myself in the darkness that inhabited the basement. Seeing an egg nearby, I got it from the floor before the lights went awry.

I wondered what had gone wrong before seeing a dark apparition passing by the library archives and catalogs. Dumbstricken, I looked back to find a way out before seeing a boy slowly walking down the stairs.

"Hello, egg boy."

It was at that moment I realized that he was the headless boy from the story I had read minutes ago. Explosives were being set up on the stairs as I stared at him with fear quivering within me. He approached me when my feet began to set off in response to my reflexes. I dashed through the shelves as he followed me from behind.

"Egg boy," the boy said when I found a door nearby. I opened it before he could get a hold of me, but ended up bumping into the librarian. The librarian was as startled as I was. I stared back to see if he crept behind me, only to find nothing.

I turned back to the librarian and apologized to him before going back to gather my bag and books and left the library to go home. Man, it had been quite a disturbing discovery to see a headless boy in the basement. I pondered if this day could get any worse.

I continued to walk as if nothing had ever happened, not long before hearing someone asking me, "Where do you think you are going, tits?"

An "oh, no" reflex sparked my legs to run, only running into a boy with messy, black hair. Then two other boys grabbed my limbs and pulled my shirt to cover my face before bringing me to a menacing face with a mullet.

While they made fun of Michael Jackson and blasted a fire from the lighter, I kept on begging for their mercy.

"Get off me!" I repeatedly cried out for help to a passing car. However, no one answered.

The boys kept on punching my face until my nose bled dark red while Henry muttered something to me before he unsheathed a knife.

"Henry, please..." I implored, but had done nothing to stop him from carving the letter H on my belly. I winched from the immediate suffering it inflicted.