Deamons

Chapter 11 The Stumble part 2

Ah man why, Starke thinks so loud in his mind that his whole being feels it. "Who was that?" his mother asks. "A girl from school," he answers. "A girl! What kind of slut calls a boy?" "She's a nice girl mom." "Nice girls don't call boys, and what kind of slut calls right after she just saw you in school? Must be an ugly dumb whore!" she screams right in his face with droplets of spit landing on him as she does. Starke wipes his face. "Why do you have to do this to me?" he asks. He is crying. "Sissy boy!" she screams the spit coming with it again. Starke wipes his face with his hand again. Then his eye catches the redness rising in her face. She palms his left temple hard. Blinding light. She is screaming but he cannot hear over the deafening pain inside. His hand goes up to that temple. She hits him two more times harder in the other temple. He drops. "Big man wants a girlfriend and can't even stand!" she cackles. He crawls down the steps towards his room.

"And you're not allowed to answer the phone anymore! The next times the slut calls I will take care of her!" It's is too much. Anger shoots out of every nerve. So many times he held back. He is not in control. His limbs are storming back up the stairs towards her without him ordering them to move.

"You look you!" he is screaming in her face now. "You don't ever call her a whore! You don't call her anything! Do you hear me! DO YOU HERE ME!" then Starke realizes what he has done. The fear of it all hits him. She is not screaming though. He turns around and walks down to his room, and goes to sleep undisturbed until the following morning.

"What happened?" Kate the girl from the phone call asks upon seeing him. She has been waiting for him at his locker before school. He has no answer. Starke hoped what happened the day before was just a nightmare. Had it not been a nightmare his father would have come down and beat him shortly after coming home from work the night before. That did not happen but Kate is asking what happened so that means it was real. He does an about face deciding to skip going to his locker before his first class. "Starke!" she calls after him. He ignores her not sure what to say. He walks on to class as if he cannot hear.

The world has the wob-wob-wob effect in his head like his life is a television set going up. His nerves are shot. Surely there will be ramification for how he talked to his mother, and what does he do about Kate? He makes it to class collapsing in his chair. He is pale. Cold sweat runs down his face. Nausea incorporates itself in the mix and his vision is closing in. The world is shrinking. Then darkness.

"Wow, this shit is coooool, like real cool," Addiction proclaims. He is dancing about enthralled. Rejection storms in, "What's the problem? Why have the lights gone dim in here? Who is responsible for this?" Rejection looks around astonished that there are no signs of another riot.

"He just dropped," Death chimes in sounding quite surprised himself. "Maybe it's the flu," Envy quips.

The gifts understand what is going on but they are not letting on. They have learned by now how the deamon class turn every morsel of information to their diabolical advantage. Still they do not know what to do. This is new ground and the footing? Well it is a bit shaky.

Starke wakes in the nurse's office opening one eye at a time. The lights are off but he can see. There is a vertical rectangular window in the door with paper taped to it, but light still spills in from the other room through slivers of missed spots. He sits up and there is paper on the cushioned table he rests upon. Oh no, how embarrassing he thinks as realizes where he is. The nurse's aid hears him rustling and comes in.