Encounter

Encounter (Preview)

Her question didn’t catch him off guard in fact, she asked often; his eyes were different, and he had grown up knowing that. He’d been asked too many times if he wore colored contacts-because people didn’t believe in natural genetic beauty. He already knew he was unique, especially with his anti-tanning skin and too bright teeth. It wasn’t that he was pale, not even fair toned; he just had an average skin color that never changed. Even when he was a newborn baby his skin was light olive. His teeth didn’t change color either, even after drinking southern sweet tea, wine, or even coffee. Even when he was little his dentists tried to frame him as their prize accomplishment, in posters and online ads, even though they really had no effect on him whatsoever. His body refused to conform to normality. His hair was the only thing that would change, aside from his height and body shape, with age; he would cut it medium length, dye it black, and let it sit in a mess on top of his head. He liked the way it made his eyes stand out. 

                “I’ve done been blessed m’friend.” Kyan waved over the waitress and paid the bill with a worn ripped up five and tipped generously. He left his tea cup empty and headed out the door with Relia. He towered over her by almost a foot, given that she was barely past five foot two. “Where to now?” He loved loaded questions, and when he asked them he loved the answers even more. He knew where they were going, they went every Friday night to the lake for another underage-above-sixteen drinking party that they stayed sober during.  

                “The Shades, you knew that.” The name came from the idea that all people desiring to become more drunk than a back alley redneck watching NASCAR in his trailer, would put on sunglasses so everyone would know that person is about to get crazy messed up. One would be surprised by how many sunglass wearing idiots there were for Relia and Kyan to make fun of. For some reason they kept going back, he thought it had more to do with tradition than fun. They’d been going for almost a year now; their Fridays couldn’t be filled with anything else. The first time they went, they tried out the sunglasses deal, and Relia ended up being too drunk to function while Kyan’s body still resisted the alcohol. He was forced to take care of her and hold her hair back for the morning ritual of throwing up. He didn’t have a problem with it though, she was a lightweight and that was her first time drinking. He, on the other hand, had tried countless numbers of times just to feel tipsy, but his body would just not allow it.

                They walked down the cobblestone path stopping here and there to look at street shop windows. The block was lined with small businesses, mainly retail, and it seemed like each door had a bell on it. The whole street looked like it came from a Hollywood set, the short buildings with their Spanish style exteriors. It pulled in tourists more than a heat lamp attracted moths. They’d parked a good distance from the café because of the crowded and busy streets. Cars were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic with each driver leaping to get a spot another car had pulled out of only seconds prior, not caring how far their true destination was. People were clustering the sidewalks and running into other people; it was difficult keeping Relia by his side. He looked over the crowd in an attempt to find his car, one glance away and she was out of his sight.

                “Ray!” He shouted for her after furiously searching through the crowd, “Relia!” He was feeling even more flustered. People from all sides seemed to be pushing him and running into him, he started getting angry, his skin felt hot, really hot, and his blood began pulsing through his veins at rapid speed. He closed his eyes and breathed in an attempt to focus. Upon opening them, the world blurred, people turned into almost transparent shadows and time slowed down, literally. He stood dumbfounded at what was happening, and then out of the corner of his eye he saw a red glowing figure. It was Relia looking over the crowd to try and find him, only she was close to frozen, her movements slowed down so precisely it felt as though he was watching a movie frame by frame. He couldn’t help but gape at what was happening, even animals were blurred. One dog shook mud off of his petite body; the little drops froze in air, slowly being flung away from his fur. “Whoa.” He let the words escape his mouth, blinked, and everything was back to normal, people were hustling and bustling their way around him and around each other. “…the hell was that?”

                “Kyan, I’m over here!” Relia pushed through the people and grabbed onto his forearm, after realizing his mouth was open, he shut it quickly. “You look like you were just punched in the gut, you alright?” He shook his head quickly to clear it and nodded for a response. “Let’s go.”

By the time they reached The Shades the music was blasting and the party was in full swing. More than half the people there were wearing sunglasses. This ought to be fun, Kyan thought silently. Already, there were teens attempting to jump over a small Toyota. One of the boys was about six feet tall and heavy set; his thick hands gripped a beer bottle so tight it could pop. His hair was soaked with sweat and his eyes looked hungry, his friends resembled this same look. Blue plastic cups littered the ground along with chip bags and cigarette butts. The air stank of beer and sweat, along with most of the people. The trunks of the trees all around seemed to curve upward and out, repulsed by the stench. It was one of those this place just smells dirty kind of things. A girl wearing a bulldog mascot head was wobbling around running into people, she looked unstable.

                “Excuse me?” Kyan half yelled over the music at her, “Yes, you with the giant head!” She staggered over to him, dropping her half empty cup, and lifting the mascot’s head to reveal her dark almost black eyes. She widened them then squinted to focus. Kyan knew instantly that she was wavering on the line of extreme intoxication and death.

                “Angelo? Is that you?!” She smiled widely and nearly slapped his arm with her uncontrollable hands. “I haven’t seen you in forever! How’s Prague?” She stumbled over every word half screaming at him.

                “Oh you mean Purgatory?” He waited for her nod, “It’s pretty great, and there are a lot of monsters that look like oversized bugs and a lot of weird things happening like people being stuck in boxes and being stretched into odd shapes. You should visit me sometime, yeah?” She looked at him for a second too long before responding.

                “Yeah dude that sounds great, we should catch up.” She stood on her toes in attempt to drunken kiss him, but fell right over and onto her mascot head. He knelt down beside her to grab her car keys, stifled his laugh, and thought for just a second I’m so cruel.  Then he shook his head in disagreement, stupid people deserved to be made fun of sometimes, only in harmless ways.

                He looked over to see Relia flirting with another sunglass wearing tool; he kept watching as she slipped her hand into his back pocket after fake falling over. She pointed off in the distance behind his head; after he turned she grabbed his keys, spun around, and waltzed off. The man didn’t know what hit him. Kyan waved her over and pulled out the plastic bag he’d brought to hold the collection of keys.

                They didn’t steal any cars; they just collected the keys of the too-drunk-to-drive people, and hid them for the night. After Kyan’s parents were driven off a bridge by a drunken driver two years ago, he decided it was best to keep people like that off the streets. He felt that no one deserved the kind of loss and pain that followed a tragedy like that. Not even the worst kinds of people.

For the longest time he refused to leave the pit he was inevitably sucked into. Nothing seemed to work to drag him out, and it was as though the insides of him died alongside his parents. He became a lost person who would go about the day seeing everything under an ominous black cloud; he ultimately became depressed and emotionally tormented. Time was the only thing that brought him out of that darkness. Emotional scars still littered his heart from the months spent feeling isolated. He’d resented the man that drove the other car almost to the point that he wanted to kill the drunk himself to make him suffer. The only thing that stopped him was a relentless gut feeling inside of him, hidden deep in his soul, which told him he couldn’t kill a human being. He reluctantly listened to it.

                While Kyan was attempting another key steal, a black shadow crossed his peripheral vision. He glanced up to see the shadow cross a different side; he then whipped around and saw the shadow cross behind him again. He left the drunken boy and headed over to the place he saw it fade. Leaves and twigs crunched under his feet as he trudged over to the tree the shadow disappeared into. He glanced back at the party still going and decided Relia could handle herself for just a few minutes while he checked the tree out. It had to have been an even crazier drunk trying to pull a fast one. After about five minutes of wandering around trees, he decided to give up. He heard a branch in the tree above him snap; he looked up as the shadow came down right on top of him knocking him out with a slam to his temple.