Universe

Cruel World

This is actually the first part of something I want to make into a larger story, based on a comic series that I wrote and designed for A Level media studies.

"Stop cryin' and get over here," He hissed, standing in the doorway as to block out any light from the corridor from spilling into the door. He swayed side to side, clenching his fists around an empty bottle of beer. His stale aroma slowly filled the room; an already conflicting mixture of liquor and sex. "This dick ain't gonna suck itself."

I lifted my heavy eyes from the floor to his silhouette. His over hand rubbed at the crotch of his jeans, and his sharp-featured face hung with obvious traces of intoxication. I used the back of my hand to wipe away the stinging trickles on my cheeks, and rose slowly from the bed. The sheets were already sprawled around the room from the last people in here.

He, K, rummaged around in his pocket, and then threw the contents on the floor. A few paper bills littering the floor.

"Forty dollars," I tried not to sound so disappointed. But it wasn't nearly enough to make the cost of my father's medication this week. "That's enough for thirty minutes," Although we both know you won't last that long I added silently.

He grunted, probably trying to say something through his drunken slurs. And then forced his beefy body towards me. He pushed into me, and I toppled onto the bed that was already damp with I don't even want to know. He dropped his heavy body onto mine - the weak figure of an eighteen year old boy, toned only by stripping for barely ten bucks a time.

His dirty fingers fumbled with his belt, while one hand slithered around my throat, tightening. He was by far the worst client I had ever dealt with - but being the leader of the local biker gang, he was willing to pay more for absolute secrecy. So I needed him as much as he craved me. Although I'm not foolish enough to think he enjoys any more than the sex.

I let my eyes shut as I bit hardly on my lip, feeling a greasy hand try to rip off my tee shirt. My head fell against the bed, and my gaze fixed in the same place it always did: the clock. One of those small flip clocks, sitting atop a wooden table next to the bed.

09:38pm. It was becoming a habit, watching the clock, letting them do whatever they wanted with my body. I may be only eighteen, but my innocence was stolen long ago.

My mother left my father and I. My grandparents cut us off. We lost our house. We became trailer trash, in a Nevada town so irrelevant that maps are too ashamed to show it.

09:39pm. He was pulling down my pants, thrashing around, his balance obviously compromised from, what I guessed from the stench of his breath, his usual Jim. I clutched my eyes shut once again. But I saw sparks. Strikes. Of lightening.

My eyes crashed open as a bellow of thunder rattled through my head. He didn't hear it, he was already pushing his dick inside me. I grabbed his head, which was sloppily rolling around against my chest, and tried to push him off. But each time he thrusted, he slammed me back against the mattress.

I wailed. I started to see the violet glow of lightening striking around the room. Or maybe across my eyeballs. My eyes shot to the clock - it was alive, buzzing with electricity. Sparks exploding in every direction. The small black cards that displayed the minutes began flicking around crazily. I cried out once again, because I was paralysed. I felt nothing. I saw nothing but blackness, and the spinning of the clock. One wild crash of thunder and my eyes that I hadn't realised I had been clenching shut, shot open.

10:37pm. "What...How?" I thought aloud. Then I noticed the lack of heavy, sweaty man clambering around on top of me. In fact, the room was empty, save for the mouldy wooden furniture, and... shit.

I jumped out of the bed, looking at the red liquid slick on my hands. And all over the sheets. And on the floor, leading to a door in the wall. I could hear the music from the main bar pulsing through the halls and into the room, but no more than the pounding of blood around my own body.

"Hello?" I said, putting my head against the wooden door. I didn't know, but I thought there was a bathroom through here. "Hello?'

I twisted the brass knob, slick with blood, slowly, pulling the wooden door open only slightly. It was dark inside, but already a foul stench spilled out.

"Hello?" I said once more, only this time, my voice quivered with inevitable fear. I put one foot through the door. It slipped slightly on the tiles, letting me know the floor was pooled with something. But I didn't need to wonder what it was. One hand tentatively felt around the wall just inside of the room, looking for...

Click. It took a few second, but the fluorescent tube overhead flickered a little. And then, much to my horror, came on. Much to my horror because, there was K, with long screws pierced through his hands and into the plaster walls, leaving him hanging like Jesus, and a deep gash through his throat.

I needed to run, but sick slithered up my throat first. I gagged, but I managed to swallow most of it back down, though not without groaning and whimpering. I pressed my temples with my hands. I needed to run, but I couldn't stop looking.

Blood, though most of it drying now, was still trickling from his neck, down his bare legs and onto something else that sat on the floor beneath him, somewhat floating in a pool of blood. It was an origami crane.

Once again, I told myself I needed to run, and this time I did. I backed away slowly at first, scared to leave my DNA anywhere else. And then, when I could breathe properly again, I turned, and I ran.

I spilled out into the main bar. It was thumping with music, almost synchronised with that of my heart and my head. And the neon tubes that hung from the ceiling did nothing but ache my head more. They were bright pinks, blues, greens. Normally, they were the aesthetic that I loved. But tonight, they were a vicious taunt of good times.

My blood stopped cold in my veins as I heads a voice: "Didn't think you were down to strip tonight Grant,". I froze up, on the spot, but turned as fast as I could, trying to keep cool. The chubby bartender, who I had actually come to like since starting work in this damn bar, smiled at me as he polished a grubby beer glass.

"I...Uhh..." my thoughts were scattered like a million shards of glass, littered everywhere, dangerous to everyone. "...I..." I tried again, but still, nothing. He cocked his head, and raised one eyebrow, to create a look I wasn't used to seeing: concern. He looked as though he would ask if I was okay. But before he could, I couldn't stop myself from turning around, and bolting for the door.

I crashed out into the cold desert air, taking a deep breath in, enjoying the breeze against my sweaty body. But I needed to fucking run.

My motorbike was pulled up not far from me, so I headed there as fast as I could. I hopped on, spun it around, and tore down the lone desert road, into the dark night. I looked back only once to see the neon purple writing 'Cruel World' shrink as the bar fell into the distance.

Cruel World I spat mentally. Its like the bar was named after my life: a series of events constantly spiralling into disorder. But this story, the one that I was falling head first into, isn't a criticism of my cruel and unjust world, it's how it changed in a way I could never imagine.