A Tad Unhinged

Chapter 2: Hell

STAR

I sat on the top of the mountain smiling. The wind was warm, the sun was warm, Marco's arms around me was warm.
Perfection, that's what I would describe it as.
The mountain overlooked Mewni, the pink sky stretching over a well kept monster forest. The mountains in a blue haze behind me kept pulling the clouds thinly, turning them orange with the setting sun. The kingdom glistened like polished gems, the water, glowing orange, dances with boats coming and going.  The ports were open again, just like I've always wanted.
Somehow I knew the streets danced with monsters and mewnimans alike, although I couldn't see the streets. I just knew. Everything was perfect, fixed. Mewniman's we're accepting monsters and monsters had lost their savage edge. It was a utopia in every aspect of the world.
Suddenly, a hand touched my shoulder and I turned around with such a fright that I jump out of my skin and sit up in my bed.
A loud crack of my door sends me flying to my lamp and I turn it on to see a disheveled, wide-eyed Marco.
I picture the last time he snuck his way into my room. He was looking for the wand, Toffee's wand. The Bone-Handed wand that broke his skin and drove him mad. Cautiously I squeak, "Marco, what are you doing?"
"I heard you screaming and I-" He gestures back and forth and I notice family photos off their nails and splinters lining the floor. "You weren't screaming... Were you?"
I shake my head. "No. I was sleeping. I wasn't even having a nightmare or anything." I smile contently at the utopia my brain has conjured.
"Oh." He slowly pulls himself out of my room with a nervous smile plastered on, "well then have a good night-"
Firmly, I call, "Marco, are you okay?"
"What?" He pokes his head in.
"Are you okay? Seeing anything weird or..."
"No. No I mean nothing. Just thought... must've been something over the phone. Jackie may have been watching something on her tv or something-"
"Oh you were up with Jackie?" I let out a heavy breath.
"Yeah just helping her study for her bio test tomorrow." Marco goes on about the teacher and I sorta listen. It was midnight and he was up with Jackie? The Jackie that teased him for a while about how spacey he was? The Jackie that would slick back his messy hair even though it brought him nothing but a pain in his heart? 
But instead saying any of this we share a laugh until I reach over to my lamp and turn it off. "Gnight, Marco."
"Night, Star. Glad you're okay."
And so he leaves and I hear his feet jog lightly back to his room. Right on the other side of a discolored wall. I stare at my ceiling in the darkness of my room and grind my teeth. I wanted to be upset about Marco and Jackie and all that shit but I couldn't. That dream, the wonderful utopia was stuck in the front of my head. I kept seeing it, the beauty and grace the simplify of what would make everything perfect seemed easy in my eyes. So why couldn't it be real? Why wasn't this possible?
Why was it just a dream?
I reopen my eyes back on the mountain. Everything is the same.
Everything is perfect.

"So..." Janna basically sits in my lap to squeeze all three of us into one bus seat. "I heard you've been livin' it up in hell in the nighttime."
"I've been doing what now when now?" I reply wide eyed to Janna.
"She's talking about the nightmares." Marcos says without looking up from his phone. "She wouldn't stop nagging me this morning so I told her."
I thin my eyes at his casualness, then turn to Janna and snuff, "Well I haven't been having any nightmares. What made ya think I was?"
"You've been gripping your wand so tight I thought it would've broken by now." Janna smirks. My eyes drop tony lap where my hand was strained white. After I let go, I bring my paled hand to my eyes and watch as the blood runs back. I move and study it before my eyes, before shrugging it off.
"Lots of stress, I guess." I place it back in my lap and keep my fingers on my wand. Janna raises an eyebrow, like she knew I was lying. I wasn't, though. I hadn't had a nightmare, I hadn't been to hell in the nighttime. Well I was at school once after the sun had set but I think Janna meant it more metaphorically.
I was totally fine, but what scares me is either I'm going crazy or everyone else is. And one of those is much more likely.
A random Tuesday commences and tenth grade sunk is claws into the group of students as soon as they exited the yellow prison transport vehicle. Marco hadn't glanced up from his phone until he nearly walked into a pole and Janna kept gesturing widely about hell and Satan and nightmares before abandoning me for another girl. Both of them were left in white noise as I stared into my dark locker. The way the lights were, I could barely see my Several Timez poster the back or the chemistry notebook I needed. I reach my hand in but the edge of the shadow feels like a razor. I yank it out and study my hand and it was normal. Taking a deep breath, I try again. The shadow landed on my hand in a darkness so deep it glowed purple. Once again, I pull my arm out again when the line of where the show starts digs into my skin.
Glancing over my shoulders, I see Janna talking with some punk chick and Marco still on his phone a few lockers down.
"Okay." I whisper, staring at my chemistry notebook, the object of my quest. "One more time."
I inhale and hold my breath. My hand slips past the shadowed barrier and latch my fingers on the spiral notebook. I go to finally pull it out but my arm is stuck. The razor-like feeling wasn't carving into my skin, it was latching onto me. I yank on it with determination but all that happens is my skin begins to be pulled off my muscles. With disbelief I see no muscles attached to my bones, only this dark purple slowly breaking its way up my skin. The shadow is moving its way up towards my heart and my stomach drops.
"LET GO!" I scream as I put one foot on the locker next to me and pull back. More skin is peeled off as my arm begins to slip free. I scream in pain as my arm is put through a vegetable peeler.
"I said," I squeeze my eyes shut as I prepare to pull as hard as I can, "LET MY GO!"
And so I pulled my arm out, feeling all the skin ripped off like a glove leaving nothing but a slowly creeping darkness.
I exhale and look at my arm to see it's fine. Skins all their. No darkness. Nothing. I turn around to see everyone had gathered around the scene of me in the hallway screaming bloody murder and my bag spilled everywhere. Including Marco and Janna.
"Yeah no," Janna glares at Marco, "She's not okay."

FINALLY IM SORRY I WANT NOTHING MORE THAN TO WRITE BUT IVE BEEN GOING THROUGH SOME SHIT AND ITS UHH HARD TO FIND MOTIVATION.
ANYWAYS
ILL BE UPDATING AS MUCH AS I CAN TODAY
LOVE YOU ALL
WOLFIE