Internet-Degenerate

I don't know what possessed me to write this. I got so preoccupied with whether or not I could that I didn't stop to think if I should. This exists now, and I don't know how to handle that.

Chloe didn't know why, but she had the same recurring dream night after night lately. It was a dream that went back four years into the past and concerned a boy she once fancied named Seraph. Before she ever knew him, he and his family were involved in a grisly freeway pile-up that resulted in a fire, and when the accident squad finished scraping everything else off the asphalt, he and his father were the only ones left alive. They hooked him up to a life-support system, rushed him straight to the hospital and into surgery. The operations successfully saved his life, but for the remainder of it, he was lame in the left leg, deaf in his right ear and scarred with a second-degree burn across his left eye, which blinded it. In addition, he had a few third-degree burns on the left side of his chest, abdomen, cheek and the entirety of his arm.

Seraph was a stranger to everyone when he transferred in and a stranger to everyone when he left a few months later, resigned to his disfigurement and knowing that his searing ugliness would guarantee him a life of solitude. Despite this, there was nothing self-pitying or even gloomy about him. There was only a grim determination to survive behind that pitch black and lusterless eye that gave him a disconcerting and unsettling gaze, and he endured their taunts with indifferent stoicism. Chloe felt a sharp stab of shame when she recalled how cruelly they had all treated him. She and her friends had degraded him with their childish fantasies, casting him as the ugly cripple who would do anything for some spare change. None of this was true: she had fashioned an image out of ignorance and laughed with her friends at his expense.

After two months, Seraph acquired a sinister reputation as the childish fantasies concerning him intensified, with people going so far as to maintain that he was some kind of evil sorcerer who had forged a pact with the Devil. Chloe had found this image of Seraph hard to believe until a friend of hers confided how one evening she had seen him walk down darkened streets. "I was spooked," she confessed. "That boy is so weird..."

Chloe had decided to do some investigating of her own, and later that night, she had spotted him emerging from his house in a long-sleeve shirt, tracksuit pants, and a knitted scarf wrapped around his neck while carrying a large garbage bag flung over his shoulder. Without looking around, he shuffled off down the lane. Chloe had observed him for half an hour, keeping a discreet distance between him, first dumpster diving behind restaurants, then making several house calls. What on earth was he up to, she wondered. When she saw that the bag he carried was full, she quickened her pace and caught up with him.

"Hey, Seraph," she said. "What are you doing out so late?" 

Seraph looked over his shoulder at her and said, "Can I help you?" She ignored the question and approached closer. 

"Do you need any help? That bag looks kind of heavy..." Her voice trailed off towards the end as she began to clearly see his eyes under the lamplight. She felt that looking into his cold eyes was tantamount to looking into the void, but she bore it nonetheless. He shook his head and set off again. She hastened to join him, discreetly positioning herself on his right and matching his gait.

"What's in the bag?"

"Food scraps."

"What are you gonna do with them?"

He stopped and turned to face her. The glare from another streetlamp cut a swathe across his features. Chloe just now realized that he wasn't as hideous she initially thought him out to be. She never got a proper look at his face before, but now that she did, she re-evaluated every preconceived notion she had of him and even found his blind eye to have its own charm.

"If you really want to know, you can follow me."

"Where to?" Chloe hedged.

He paused, deliberating whether or not to tell her and soon smiled a small, tight-lipped awkward smile and took off without a word. Chloe was in no way prepared for the unexpected attitude he had shown. Until then, it hadn't occurred to her that he was probably more tolerant of her because she hadn't constantly mocked his disfigurement. Chloe had suspected that he had made his last house call for the night. But what did he intend to do with his swag of food scraps? After a few dozen or so paces down the street, he paused outside a derelict dwelling.

"Why are we stopping here?" Chloe asked, unable to conceal the worry in her voice.

"You'll see..."

He angled towards a narrow opening in the iron fence and squeezed through, hauling the bag behind him. Seraph turned to her and whispered, "If you're going to follow me, you have to be quiet." The old house was a relic from Chloe's childhood. Local kids called it the Ghost House and used it for a playground, but only during the day. The building had been gutted by fire years ago; the frame was more or less intact, but most of the roof had collapsed, and a ripe smell of decay permeated through the ruins. The site doubled as an unofficial refuge dump, and mounds of rubbish were decomposing in the backyard. Chloe had almost gagged when she caught a whiff of the fetid odour.

Seraph had led Chloe through into what had once been a kitchen, stepping across rotted floorboards and chunks of fallen plaster. Chloe followed him down the long hallway that ran almost the entire length of the gutted house. The walls leaned precariously inwards, and decades of wind and rain had scoured the empty rooms and nourished the mould and mildew thriving there. Overhead a few wan of stars peered through down the charred remains of the roof.

"What happens now?" Chloe asked.

Seraph stepped into what had been the front bedroom of the house and lowered the bag onto the floor. With the scrape of a match, a feeble flame appeared in the gloom. Then he crossed to a mantelshelf and lit the solitary candle standing there. A reassuring glow filled the room and pushed back the darkness. This room was in better condition than the others; the roof was almost intact, and there was a sense of order and cleanliness that surprised Chloe. The floor had been swept, and vases of flowers were placed in each corner. Next to the mantlepiece was an old, rusty and beat-up oil drum with a corroded iron pipe lying next to it. On the floor around them stood stacks of similar plates.

Seraph spread the plates out, opened the bulging garbage bag and started doling out scraps. He did it purposefully as if engaged in some private ritual. His hands had acquired a greasy film, but he seemed either oblivious to this or just untroubled.

"Can I help?" Chloe asked, watching him work. He remained quiet for a bit.

"Do what you want." He eventually replied, without stopping his work for even a second. Following his words, Chloe knelt down beside him and dipped her hands awkwardly into the mess inside the bag, wondering what prompted her to do this. The idea of grubbing in other people's garbage was usually distasteful to her, but to her surprise, she felt a glow of pleasure as she worked. When the bag was emptied, Seraph redistributed the scraps, so each plate held a roughly equal amount. Then he stood up, quickly wiped his greasy hands on his pants and grasped the rusty iron pipe. Gazing fixedly at the rough opening in the roof, he took a deep breath and struck the oil drum four times. Slowly and softly at first, but with increasing intensity and speed until he thrashed the drum so much that the noise grew deafening.

"For God's sake, Seraph!" She cried. "Are you trying to wake the whole neighbourhood?"

Seraph ignored her and kept beating the drum in intervals of four. And gradually, Chloe became aware of another sound, just on the threshold of audibility. She backed towards the doorway, terrified, watching Seraph relentlessly bashing the drum and wondering what had possessed her to follow him and bear witness to this crazed performance. With an abruptness that took her by surprise, Seraph had stopped striking the drum, and in the brief interval that followed, she heard the strangest sound she had ever heard. A rustling on the rooftops like a whispering of dead leaves sweeping across slates and tiles. She felt a rush of dread overwhelm her and, remembering the tales she had heard about him, wondered if he genuinely had some kind of satanic power.

The rustling overhead grew louder and louder, the sound increasing in volume until it seemed that the rooftops all around were reverberating to the hurried tread of a ghostly army, hastening to partake in the feast that Seraph had prepared. She wanted desperately to run but found herself unable to move. Fear had held her fast to the floor. Now the sound was directly overhead, and the darkness seemed to swell with an enormous presence. A tide of deeper darkness suddenly swarmed through the gap in the roof and in from the hallway, rapidly flooding the room. The wave of darkness seemed about to engulf her, then suddenly eased back and dispersed. Purring contentment filled the air, and in the pale glow of the candlelight, she realized that the entire room was filled with cats.

There seemed to be hundreds of them crowded into this small space, cats of every size and shape and colour, some rubbing affectionately against Seraph's legs, others sniffing at Chloe's while the remainder mewled impatiently or went straight to the feast. When the cats were finished with their greetings, they fell hungrily upon the supper that Seraph had prepared. They ate with quiet desperation. There was no infighting among them as they concentrated upon their feast and no looking up from their plates until every last morsel was finished. Then they purred with deeper contentment and set to preening their fur. Several squeezed into Seraph's lap when he sat cross-legged on the floor; others surrounded him, making him an island among them. He lovingly pets and stroked each and every one of them in turn with a faraway look in his eyes and a loving smile. The room was so filled with warmth and affection that Chloe had longed to reach out and touch one of the furry bodies, but something restrained her. Several latecomers prowled into the room in search of food. Seraph sincerely apologized to them.

"Sorry," he said. "I'll get more next time." Watching these unfortunates lick disconsolately at empty plates, Chloe believed he would have moved heaven and earth to feed these cats if he had the power to. "This is it," he turned to look straight at Chloe. "Disappointed?"

Chloe stared at him vacantly, struggling to process her thoughts.

"These cats are all strays," Seraph began to monologue. "They're all alone and unloved. What I do for them makes their lives just a little bit easier. When I beat the drum, they know their food is here. See how much they enjoy it? Please don't tell anyone else about this. There isn't a need to, is there?"

She nodded vaguely, taking everything in. The cats were starting to slip away now, their missions accomplished. It was only a few at first, as though they were reluctant to leave this little haven of food and contentment. Their dignified departure was in striking contrast to their turbulent arrival. A few dallied behind, not wanting to leave Seraph but knowing that they must. As Chloe gazed at Seraph, who gazed lovingly at the last few stragglers, a shocking thought occurred to her.

Isn't he really cute?

Around this point in the dream, Chloe would wake up, and today was no exception. Today was the start of the new school term in her second year of high school, so she had to be ready for the opening assembly at any cost.

Chloe sat in the hall bored out of her mind as the ceremony continued normally without an end in sight. That is until the chairwoman brought up a particular topic that garnered everyone's attention. 

"... Now, it happens that there is something I must announce to you all," the little old lady said with an unusually bleak expression. "As some of you may already be aware, there will be a special transfer student joining Vinceness beginning this April. This special transfer student..." she drifted off, building the suspense of the student body. Barely being able to contain her playfulness, she continued. "Is a boy."

Throughout the ceremony, the student body had all been politely silent. But now, a massive majority of them collectively lost their minds, and the hall spurred to life with whispers. The chairwoman stood at the podium containing her little school girl giggles like a professional as she waited for the whispers to die down before speaking again, stoic and expressionless.

"There has been a matter of some debate for several years among Vinceness' board of directors. The matter regards Vinceness becoming a coeducational school. Those for and opposed are locked in their decisions, so I have determined that the board can not reach a decision. Not without fisticuffs, anyway. I believe you will recall our decision to dump the matter on the - I mean, leave  the matter up to the students." She chuckled. "However, it was obvious that such a decision could not be made on the spur of the moment. As you all know, Vinceness' student body is all female. I believe many of you have never interacted with a boy your own age. So it was decided to first integrate a few male students. By interacting with these young men, you would be better informed by the time of the vote. I believe you will all recall that decision as well. However, the school has eschewed the use of formal applications. It was too easy to see which way that would go. In exchange, I requested a student to play the role of a scout. The one who volunteered was my own granddaughter, Sol. Many of you thought that this plan ended in failure. This is because Sol was unable to find a single suitable entrant in the time period allotted. She only managed to find one boy, but he was discovered over spring vacation. This was a clear violation of school rules. I am the chairwoman, however, so I have decided to allow it."

Would that count as nepotism? Chloe thought. It's obvious she's on the side of reform, but... is pulling a stunt like that okay to do?

"I would find it extremely regrettable to deny him and quash the entire project due to a technicality of time. In addition, this particular boy seems to be of very fine character. Ah... although that is just conjecture on my part. Now allow me to introduce the young man who will join our Famille today: Seraph Thorne."

"WHAT?" Chloe's loud exclamation blended in with the loud gossip of the students around her.

No. Wait. Calm down, Chloe. This boy could be anyone. Seraph Thorne is a very common name, after all... Wait, no it fucking isn't! Has anyone, in the history of forever, EVER been named Seraph Thorne? There must be because there's no way he would be here of all places.

Chloe's thoughts were immediately eradicated as she saw the tall, scarred boy awkwardly make his way next to the chairwoman's side.

"OH, WHAT THE FU-"