Project Nebula

To Scavenger

Despite the eventual cold of November, something told me it would be fairly warm. The warmth of a damp April. As I predicted, temperatures rose from 46 to 60 degrees. Didn’t need to make some excuse for why I left the house, but just because I wanted to enjoy the environment. Helix’s windows were rolled down in his car and his hair rippled in the wind. I continued to write in my leather notebook. A story to be specific, only with no name. Xander’s house rolled into view.

    “His house is creepy-looking,” Helix took a sip of his Hershey coffee. “Why’d you want me to drive you here?”

    “I felt sorry about what I said last week,” I said, knowing I told a partial lie.

    “Is this about the video? Sorry I didn’t show you yet.”

    “Don’t be sorry.”

We parked in the driveway, hoping it didn’t seem too suspicious. Driveway? We weren’t relatives, but I wasn’t going to leave that soon. And I didn’t want our meeting to be quick and to the point. Finally, his cryptic wording would come in handy. Helix left out once I approached the door. Every corner trapped in darkness and the only one who wasn’t, I couldn’t see if I tried. Xander forced the door locked behind us. He was dressed in a velvet ruby robe and wore a less than interested plastered grin. Without any further speech, I followed him up the stairs. Photos I didn’t notice before aligned the walls of the staircase. One of them blinked, I believe.

Unlike the distress of the downstairs, Xander’s bedroom was brightened but dimmed with a dying bulb in a lamp. The walls were tinted with a deepened blood color, so the chemical scent collided with the burning of candles. Am I supposed to sit somewhere? I wondered. Xander sat at the edge of his bed, where a cluster of papers and folders piled up. He stared with eyes that almost looked made of glass and asked, “Are you going to sit?”

    “Sorry for coming,” I panicked through toying with my hands and found a seat at his desk. “Can I ask you something important?”

    “Is it about my plan?”

    “No.”

He looked into his chest and started biting his nails, whispering to himself, “No plan. Why is he here? Just looking. Don’t look at me.”

I flipped through my notebook and pretended I forgot what I wanted to talk about. It’s like after every interaction, we forget we ever met and have to start over. Stuttering from inhaling candle smoke, I broke the silence, “You’re talking out loud. You know that?”

    “And I don’t need Castor Vega to remind me.”

    “Xander, I know it was you. Or I think so.”

Guilt was all I felt. First, he sifted a stray paper onto the floor. He crept his fingers up to a binder. One step closer… every heartbeat. Every unassured heart, that is. With his right hand, he poked his now sharpened claw into his lower eyelid. Sliding from was a piece of clear plastic I think. A contact lens. And out came the other. “Is that why you’re here? You want my eyes? Take them, too!”

He flicked both lenses into my forehead. I pocketed them and stood. Nothing I did, not even sitting there with him amidst the binders and papers calmed him. I felt burning through his hand, second to the popping veins. His hand reached the binder… launching it into the carpet with printed articles and signatures flying above it. The spine, even the cardboard within the plastic, tore along the seams. His hand jerked like a second, violent being. I took his hand, but the twitching got to his other hand, too.

“You think I forgot what you said?” he suppressed his rising tears from anger. “You basically said I killed you!”

    “I know… I was frustrated…”