She Breathes the Stars

Chapter Three

The boy sits perched on my couch, no longer shivering with his legs crisscrossed in front of him. His head is tilted to the side, causing a tuft of his hair to fall over his right eye as he gazes over at me with curiosity.

I shift on the ground, feeling quite exposed and unraveled under his stare, especially after the dream I just had. And I just didn't expect him to be staring at me with...those eyes as soon as I woke up.

His eyes...They're even more colorful than I imagined. They seemed to be at least ten colors at once: Green here, blue there, orange in the center, and even hints of purple can be seen streaked throughout his irises. It's like I'm looking through a kaleidoscope or a child's multicolored finger painting.

No. It's like I'm looking through a galaxy. 

My heart would be beating right out of my chest right now if he wasn't looking at me with such a diminishing glare. It's like he's trying to see through my soul or something.

"Who are you?" He speaks again. I can tell his voice is meant to be stern, but it runs over my body like warm feathers or melted honey. It sticks me to him, even though it's slightly monotone and accusing.

"My name is Tawny." I answer.

I expect him to come back with a response like "I don't care what your name is, I meant what the hell are you?" or some other rude statement like the people at my old school would do, but he doesn't.

Instead, something glints in his eyes, something I can't quite make out, and his hand tightens around his knee ever so slightly. It's like he doesn't want to show that something about my name has disturbed him, but I'm too good at reading people not to notice. It's obvious that he's heard my name before.

"Okay." He murmurs calmly. "Then...who am I?"

"You don't know your name?"

"It's more than that; I don't know who I am."

When he came running up to my doorstep and pounding in it, he did mention that he didn't know where or who he was. But I thought he was just a lost teenager who was delusional with a fever. I thought that surely he would come to his senses when he woke up and remember everything, but this is just odd.

And he's acting so calm too. If I would've woken up in a strange house with a stranger lying on the floor next to me with no idea who I was, I'd be screaming and shaking and threatening to call the cops. I mean, he was screaming before he went unconscious earlier, but now it's like I'm looking at a completely different person. His breathing is even, goosebumps no longer riddle his skin, and his voice doesn't even shake when he talks.

What is going on?

"Do you remember anything that happened before you got here?" I question, carefully observing the boy for any signs of insanity.

He presses his palm to his forehead, his mouth set in a straight white line while my cat circles around his feet when he puts them on the floor. I notice that his eyes are becoming darker the longer he has been awake, and they're more of a purplish-black now than the rainbow of colors they were just mere seconds ago. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that something about the presents this boy has a supernatural feel to it.

"I remember...an ocean." He says, and my eyes widen. "It was pretty, but then it wasn't. It became black like tar and I remember holding something above it. I think I was trying to save someone."

It's like someone has just kicked me and knocked all the air out of my lungs. My breathing wavers and I can feel bile rising in my throat while my heartbeat rages out of control. My hands start shaking and he notices it, cocking his head to the side and raising an eyebrow.

"There's no way you can know that." My voice cracks. "Was I talking in my sleep or something? Who the hell are you?"

My head spins and I feel like passing out. There's just no way that this boy can know about the dream that I just had about jumping off a balcony. And there's absolutely no way that he was the one who wrapped their arms around my stomach to keep me from falling into the black abyss below. There's just no. freaking. way.

"I told you. I don't know who I am." The strange, now black-eyed boy says. "And as far as I know, you weren't talking in your sleep."

"Liar!" I hiss, making both him and Widget jump. "Don't pretend like you can see into my head; you're already creeping me out enough!"

I stand and he looks up at me like I've just lost my mind. But what he doesn't know is that I lost it years ago.

"I don't mean to creep you out." He says carefully, as if I might break like glass if he doesn't. "That's just what I remember." 

I sigh, bunching my hands in my hair beside my temples and squeezing my eyes shut. It just has to be a coincidence. I don't think I'm that insane to start imagining people and dreams quite yet. But the boy in front of me seems so magical for some reason, and if he's real and describing a dream that I just had, then something is really odd here. Either that or I really am crazy and have been in this cabin alone for way too long.

Everything is quiet as I breathe deeply through my nose, count to ten, and then open my eyes again. He's still there. I do the same process again, and again, and then again, but he still stays perched on my couch while watching me with cautious, dark eyes. His gaze is quite haunting.

Wash, rinse, repeat...

After about twenty times of counting to ten, I give up and open my eyes for the last time. I must've been doing the pattern for a while, because when I do I see a streak of sunlight shining in on the patient boy's face. Oddly, he's ducking away from it like if it touches him for too long then it will burn him.

"What are you doing?" I ask, when really he should be asking me that question.

"I don't know." He winces. "The sun it just...feels weird on my skin."

I honestly don't know how much more of his strangeness I can take in one day.

I walk over to the window anyway, pulling back the string to open up the blinds and let the sun in. I can hear him murmuring a few noises of protest, but it is quickly blocked out by the sound of Widgets hissing and then claws on wood as she runs to hide somewhere.

Confused, I turn around to see what's disturbed her and what I see makes me want to run away too.

The boy is bathed in sunlight, from the tip of his head to his toes. His eyes are glowing an almost painful shade of yellow and he's writhing around in pain on the couch like he's being scorched. And the worst part is...

I can see right through him.