smiling critters

chapter 12 - good news

Camila stared at the blank paper with a pencil in her hand. She didn't know what to draw, but drawing always brought her a sense of serenity. It calmed her down. But how could she calm down if she couldn't think of what to draw? She picked up her phone and went to Neil's contact to ask if he had any ideas before remembering why she was stressed out. She decided to scroll through their chat logs to see what he said before whenever she told him she didn't know what to draw. She noticed he always asked the same thing, 'what usually inspires you?' and she'd always reply with something along the lines of 'the stuff around me, family, friends, school drama, etc.' and he'd ask 'what was the most noteworthy thing that happened to you this week?' from there, camila finished the conversation on her own; neil getting hospitalized. That was probably the most noteworthy thing that happened to her that week. So the subject of the picture would be Neil, but how would she draw him? She thought about it for a second before getting two ideas. She put on poppy, one of her favorite singers, and got another piece of paper before she started drawing. She drew Neil as some sort of priest or prophet doing a belphegor pose in a large throne with his legs crossed. His eyes were tired and sunken in like they were when she last saw him and he had a sinister ear-to-ear smile on his face as a dense red gas leaked out through his teeth. The main inspiration for the piece was, yes belphegor herself, but also the Lowlife music video from 2015. The red gas was inspired by what Bryson told her about a month ago. She never replied out of worry and a loss for words, but if that was what was happening, she wanted to vent that in her work. Every color but the gas, which was bright red, was dulled and fairly dark, she wanted anyone who was looking at the piece to notice that before anything else. Once she was done, she signed her work with a white acrylic marker and hung it on her cork board before moving onto the other idea she had; Neil relaxing in a tree, like he was a few months ago. This time, she wanted the background to pop instead of Neil. She decided to scratch out his face to emphasize her feelings of never really knowing him. She thought she did, but the fact he was lying about being able to talk made her wonder what else he was keeping from them. Once she was done for the night, she flicked off her lamp and started getting ready for bed. When she left her room, she ran into her older sister who was about to knock on her door.

"Oh, i was just about to get you, dinner's ready, i tried calling you from downstairs, but you never answered," she told her.

"Ok, sorry I had my headphones on," Camila smiled before leaving with her to the kitchen to eat.

neil POV:

Neil was well enough to walk around on his own. It was around 2 am when he randomly stood up and went into the bathroom with his phone. He wanted to document the weight gain and overall health progress he makes, and that would have to start with taking a picture before he made any progress to compare to. He took off his hospital gown and took as good of a photo as quickly he could before hastily putting his gown back on and exiting the camera app and going back to bed.

It was almost the end of July, school was set to start in mid-September, and there was still no sign of Neil getting out of the hospital anytime soon. Dylan was starting to lose hope he'd even be available for visitors at this point. He woke up to mom gently shaking him awake.

"Morning baby, I have good news. Come out to the kitchen," she smiled and stood up.

"Is it about neil?" he asked as he propped himself up on his elbow.

"No spoilers, just come to the kitchen and I'll tell you," she nodded her head to his door before leaving. whenever she said something like 'no spoilers' when he'd ask about something she was going to tell him, he was right. He quickly sprung up and got dressed before rushing into the kitchen where mom was busy making plates for herself and her son.