Magicians Secret // Big Mouth

1.9 Guns And Violence

"Jess!"

I'm running after her now, down the street, calling her name. But fuck, she's on the track team, and I'm a smoker. This is my version of the Hunger Games. 

"Jess! Please-- let me-- expla-" I'm spluttering as I pathetically try to chase her, when she suddenly whips around and storms toward me, so forcefully that I have to take a couple of steps back cause I think she's about to swing at me.

"Explain what?" she crosses her arms, furious. How is she not out of breath at all?

"How you're fucking the man I've been in love with for six years?" she's hissing at me now, trying not to yell at the top of lungs.

"It's not- like that, Jess." I'm still spluttering, my hands on my knees trying to catch any breath I can, but I can't stop wheezing. It doesn't help that I'm losing this fight.

"No, it's exactly like that. Jesus. I can't believe you. You are such a- a- double-crosser! What ever happened to the fucking girl-code, huh?" she's upset, near tears, her eyes are full of emotion, and I can't summon the strength to look at her. I can already feel my cheeks get wet with tears. I feel a shadow loom over me and encompass me.

"All your fault." it whispers as it swings around me and sweeps me up in its chills. I try to break through.

"Jess, I thought you- you were over him! You had a crush when you were 12!" I say, instantly regretting my tone, and she scoffs, covering her mouth.

"Un-fucking-believable. You knew how much I liked him. You even helped me to try and get him. And then- oh my god - that's why you tried to turn me onto Nick! You wanted to stop feeling bad about stealing Judd and make me like his brother!" she's getting louder now, and the whispers of the chill are crawling into my ears and up my nose, I feel them tickling every sinew of my body.

"Jess, no, Jess-" I'm trying to think of something to say, something to make things right, but she's already given up on me, and she's walking away again. Not running anymore, because she knows I can't chase her. There's nothing more to say.

"Well, well, well-" I hear the whisper say again, this time louder than a whisper, in an elderly British accent. 

Suddenly a form appears, like a ghost, something haunted, an old man draped in black robes and swarmed with dark green and grey shadow, with a cruel grin and thin white hair slinking down his gaunt face.

"Who are you?" I say in fear and disgust.

"Oh, how I've been waiting to meet you, Nina. I-" he pauses like it's some dramatic reveal, but I'm just upset and annoyed at this point; he extends his arms and bellows, "am the Shame Wizard."

I want to walk away from him, but I can't see straight. All I can see is this ghost, and a dark painful shadow pressing down on me until I almost keel over, and am shrinking into some shrivelled version of myself.

"What do you want?" I almost whimper, not out of fear anymore, but exhaustion.

"Nothing more than your shame. I mean, I really thought I'd meet you earlier, but then I didn't, and I thought you were almost immune, but then- oh, well, this is wonderful. You are just about the most horrible person in the world right now." he keeps saying, as I start to walk jaggedly down the sidewalk to school, sniffing, trying to minimise the tears streaming down my face.

"I'm pretty sure there are worse people, man. Like, you know, war criminals." I spit at him.

"I bet even they wouldn't sleep with their best-friends crush, though. Wow, you really are heartless." he says, crushing me.