The Zone of Spirals

Chapter 10

"But I trusted her... I thought she was my friend." Tears strolled down her cheek, she never felt this betrayed. Mary collapsed and fell into the deep slumber.

..........

Airi was slowly becoming more and more depressed as time went on. It wasn't that helpful that she had sleepless nights. Without Matthew though, it has become unbearable. "Hey Airi!" Janet called from behind while twirling her warm black hair.

It was no secret Janet never cared about her friends. "Oh hello, how are you today?" To be honest Airi was starting to become annoyed with her.

"I want to hang with you, is that a problem?" She asked waiting for her response. "Actually I'm terribly sorry but I promised uh..." she stopped for a moment to think, "Aito to go to the library with him, alone."

She turned around and walked towards the school. "That is total rubbish." Janet muttered under her breath.

Injuries were common for Aito so when his shoulder was 'dislocated' he had some medical aid in his bathroom. "Hello Aito how ar-"

She gasped from seeing a cast and bandage over his left shoulder. "Now tell me what happened and don't you lie to me."

"Mary... when I entered The Zone of Spirals."

Olivia walked into the library and overheard their conversation. "Wait... Aito!" She ran over to them with Airi shushing her to be quiet. "The the the zones of whatever! How did you know about my dre- your shoulder! What happened to your shoulder!?"

"Uh what do you think? Mary! With a fucking butcher knife." He snapped obviously stressed out.

Aito rubbed his temple, "This is going to be a while to explain. Airi, will you do the honor and explain." She nodded her head and took a deep breath, "we have night terrors each night. Our dreams are completely connected which means we dream the same thing."

"But that..." she was quickly hushed so she continued with a whisper, "that doesn't make sense!"

"If you die in your dreams..." Airi looked at her light green dress. They waited for her to continue but she didn't. "You die in real life too." Aito finished.

Olivia head was pounding; death... She remembered Mary and quickly jerked it out of the thoughts. "So... I killed Mary..."

Airi looked up at her as she was spacing out. "You... murdered Mary? That poor girl, she was stuck there twenty-four hours a day..."

She glanced at his shoulder, "Why did she attack you?"

"I... don't know. I was too shocked to ask. Without Oli I would probably be dead." He tilted his head with a smile, "I owe you my life."

She was about to say it was no problem but the bell rang to get to class. Luckily all three of them have the same first period together.

They entered the room and Olivia was a bit disappointed she wouldn't be able to sit with them. She sighed and took out her a sketchbook. The thought of Mary intrigued the teenage girl.

So without another thought she started to draw the structure of her face.

Aito's shoulder was in excruciating pain. He was torn between two options: stay awake but stunt the healing or sleep and have a chance to make it worse.

He decided the latter was a better choice. Though his mind started to have second thoughts when Airi's eyes were underlined with black and was always spacing out.

"This is harder than I thought..."

"What was that?" Airi asked by accidentally hearing his whisper. "No I was just talking to myself." She smiled but it looked fake.

Usually she was great at producing artifical smiles... when she wasn't dead beat tired. Now it was so noticeable that she was distressed.

Class went by quickly for Olivia because she loved drawing her experiences. Most of the times it's drawing places where she went to like witnessing Big Ben or going to Utah's forest. Sure she drew people but more fictional ones then actual people she met.

That was probably why Mary stretching her hands out while burning was quite difficult to create. However one thing about her was that she never gave up or that's what she kept telling herself. By the end of class her body structure was finished.

"Oi American what's that?" Janet asked while packing up her belongings. "It doesn't matter."

Janet snorted, "wanker, I wasn't asking if it was or not. I was asking what it was." She grabbed her sketchbook, "are you stu-"

"Give it back." Janet turned around to see Aito glaring at her. Out of fear Janet dropped the book. "Hmmph, whatever. I don't care about her pathetic drawings anyway."

Olivia immediately grabbed it back and sighed, "thank you, you saved me there." She looked up to see herself in an empty classroom, alone.

With a sigh she walked out of the classroom to English.

Aito touched his shoulder slightly but jerked it away. Wounds from The Zone of Spirals healed faster but it would still take about three months if he showed his parents. Six if he continued to lie that he dislocated it. Again he chose the latter because of the situation.

He didn't even want to think about their reactions if they found out. It was hard enough to convince them not to take him to the hospital. To be honest he didn't want an investigation to happen where they're trying to find the person who stabbed him. Then realize there is absolutely no evidence that it had happened.

His strategy was less complicated and less stressful on everyone's part. A part of him though wanted his parents to coddle him; tell him that everything was going to be okay. Yet he knew that was just a dream... a dream that could never happen. His trust in his parents was too low for it to ever happen.

Well he trusted his mother more than anything but that's because she was ignorant. Not even realizing her own husband's breath. Not even noticing the extra underwear in their bed. Maybe she did though. Maybe she did know all the flaws about Hwan but decided to turn the other cheek.

That thought enraged Aito. He clenched his fist and breathed in slowly. For a distraction, he knew that passing notes to Olivia was the best course of action.

That wouldn't destroy the anger inside him though. If it was one thing he learned it was that 'you resist anger but can't obliterate it.'

"You resist..."