It must’ve been well past 4 A.M. when I woke up with a resounding toothache. 

The room was pitch black and oppressively silent. It must still be some time before dawn, because even with my eyes as wide open as they can be, my entire surroundings are nothing but void. Silence and void. 

And my bed feels empty. 

With a bit of morose, I contemplate just trying to fall back asleep again,  but a painful throb through my gums and a case of Sahara dry mouth makes me realize I really do need to get up this time. 

It's a bit of a struggle,  but I slowly make my way into a sitting position. My head feels full of gunk and static… feeling blurry and unrecognizable. The room is dark.

And my bed is empty. 

“Rose-” I begin to call but quickly silence my voice when I notice that my room has no door. I'm only barely able to make out a deeper black where my door should be, indicating to my sleep-addled mind that my entire door has gone missing. But for some reason,  that notion doesn't actually scare me. More just makes me a bit confused. 

I remember having a door there… oh well. I need water anyway. No point in getting stuck up about it. 

Slowly peeling the bedsheets off of me like dried skin,  I dip my legs over the side of the bed and plant my feet into half an inch of cool, thick water. It moves like molasses beneath my toes. It's not all that cold, though. Feeling only just below room temperatureWhich is strange. 

Wait, did we always have water in the house?

Eh it's no matter though, as another jolt of pain pangs through my gums and into my teeth forces me to keep moving. Owie,owie, I need to get up. And my mouth is so damn dry, I almost contemplate bending down to take a sip from the floor. But I choose not to and stand up instead.

Standing up from the bed,  my feet find the floor just as it should be. Warm, smooth, carpeted, and dry. Not a drop of water anywhere to be found. 

And my bed is empty. I feel sad about that, but right now I can't exactly seem to place why. I've always slept alone, haven't I?

Yes, now carry on. Making my way towards the door, my steps go slowly. Too slowly. Like I'm living at 0.25 speed,  walking through glue or something. The very air I'm walking through is thick and heavy, like I'm actively fighting against it by just trying to move. 

Step after step after step,  I try for the door on the other side of the room, but I don't seem to be making any progress whatsoever. I'm walking in place, like I'm on a treadmill. The door, or the lack thereof, stays just as far away as it was when I first checked. All the way across the room, that is. I reach out for it and whimper. It refuses to come to me, proving it a useless noise.

But believe it or not, the next moment I looked down at the floor, I noticed that my place had actually moved.  In fact, I'm already halfway out the open door to my room and into the hallway. 

When did that happen? 

But before I have time to speculate the strangeness of the situation I'm in, there's a sound of quiet laughter at one end of the dark hallway. Looking back and forth,  I realize that the hallway at the center of my house stretches infinitely far in one direction. Looming off so far that I can't even make out the end through the darkness, it just tapers off after a while. The laughter seems to be coming from that direction. 

“ Ha Ha Ha Ha ~ ”

But even just considering going that direction for one moment runs a chill up my spine and another painful throb through my teeth. I have somewhere I need to be right now, so I go ahead and face the other direction. This way seems to be normal length, with the bathroom door on one side of the hallway and what should be the kitchen at the far end.

But what I find there instead, is Valerie. Bright blonde hair still shining against the backdrop even in the dark.

She's standing half obscured in the shadows of the long hallway and she's pointing right at me. Face mostly too dark to make out, I can only see a slight frown on her lips. Like she's bothered by what she's pointing at, but not by much. Her skin looks otherworldly pale, like all of the color has left her in its entirety, leaving her stark. Face slightly gaunt and dried like she’d been standing in the sun for too long. She seems drained.

When I go to speak up and call her attention, my voice does not work. I can't seem to make the effort to try. I just can’t.

Then before I get even another moment to consider it, she turns to leave. Being drawn away by something I can’t even begin to understand. Dropping her arm and seemingly blurring as she turns away in the darkness and walks towards where the kitchen would be, at the end of the hall. All I catch a glimpse of as she leaves is two little red marks on her neck, trailing dark streaks down and over her shoulder. Someone bit her and now she was bleeding.

Then she was gone. Entirely out of sight. Following a trail I'm not privy to.

When I come into focus again, I'm trying to do everything I can to run down the hall after her. But trying to push through the sludge on the floor proves too difficult. I’m barely able to move and make my way down the hallway at all. It must have taken me years and years of walking, with time going by so slowly. Slowly passing by jumbled photographs on the walls but not paying any attention to them, as the task at hand requires all of my focus. By the time I had realized it, I was once again halfway down the hallway. But I had completely forgotten who I was following after or why. Standing just outside the bathroom door and looking in. Even a moment of self clarity causes another pang of pain in my mouth, and my stalk dry tongue to rub abrasively against the roof of my mouth.

I decide to stumble my way into the empty black bathroom. Scrambling for the lights on the wall, I click the light switch up and down a few times, but no lights come on in the room for a moment.  With a frustrated grumble, I keep flicking it up and down and up and down and up and down. Over and over again. These should work!

Then, as if on a delayed reaction, they do. Beaming into the bathroom with a light so bright it burns my eyes and makes my skin crawl. The sheer weight of the light above pushes me down and forward into the bathroom, scraping for a handhold on the side of the sink as a throb of pain guts through my mouth so sharply it makes my head spin and my vision further blur. Groaning, and with eyes much blinded, I try to flip the faucets on the sink.

And they don’t even budge. Not even a drop. Because of course they don’t. Is any of this really going to be easy? Giving up with a frustrated whine, I turn and look up towards the bathroom mirror above the sink. And nothing was there. 

As in, my reflection had entirely gone missing. I can see the back of the bathroom reflected in the mirror, but the place I should be standing was only air.

Upon seeing this, my teeth throb so painfully that I'm forced to double over and stick my fingers into my mouth, searching for whatever is causing this pain.  Rooting around the top row of my teeth, my fingers feel two strange nubs forcing their way through my gums beneath my teeth. Exactly beneath where you'd expect them. Just barely breaking through, there's a powerful pressure forcing them out of the bone beneath and causing two pointy white tips to jut through. Pushing against the teeth in the way so hard that I thought my original teeth might simply crack from the pressure. 

Nothing seems to be stopping them. It continues to hurt worse and worse until I can't take it anymore and decide to take care of the problem myself.  By wrenching at my original teeth, both canines. If they needed to go, they needed to go.  I don't once stop to think about the implications of completing such a transition as I use all the might I can muster to rip the two teeth straight from my mouth. 

With two extended wet pops, cracking and tearing little bits of my gums along with them, I yank my teeth from my mouth and drop them into the sink. 

The sound they make is like scattering dice as they hit the sides of the smooth sink basin and twirl down the drain out of sight. Gone and replaced. Blood drips from my mouth into the sink as I lean down looking into it. Strangely enough however, it tastes like absolutely nothing. With a terrible sound and an even more terrible pain, the pressure is released and the two new fangs grow into place. Sharp enough to nearly tear the skin of my trembling lips.

Hesitantly and fearing the worst,  I look back up again to find the mirror above the sink now showing an actual reflection.  Though this one is much darker than the world around me. Seemingly reflecting the bathroom with all of the lights off, I see my own blurred and shadowed figure standing there right where I should be. Almost impossible to make out my own features in the darkness of the mirror, I can see only but two things. 

One, that my new fangs had in fact grown in completely. Poking out longer and sharper than normal teeth, two bright pearly white fangs are now a part of my maw.

And second, that there was an important figure standing behind me. It was too dark to make out beyond a basic shape but there was someone floating off of the ground and hovering directly behind me. Head slack and rolled off to the side, it seemed to be about the shape of a young girl.  Smaller and younger looking than even 『Rosegold』  is, and too far in shadow to guess who they are at all. Their body seems completely limp. Either deep asleep, or worse, a corpse. 

Just then, the pipes of the sink in front of me crack and burst. Suddenly the entire basin is overflowing with the same black sludge from the hallway. It's pouring out from the faucet at extremely high pressures and splattering all over the room like ink.  Or black blood. With a force so great, it's as though the entire weight of the ocean was trying to cram through my sink all at once. The sound of rushing water fills my ears as I panic and try for the door with fear suddenly consuming me, but the door is solidly locked. The handle won't move an inch, and before I'm able to try breaking it, the entire doorknob vanishes from the door. Paved over in wood like it wasn't even there to begin with.

Then the door itself was gone, the seams of the door vanishing into the wall and sealing my fate trapped in here with quickly rising tides. Now having reached my knees, I do all that I can to claw at the place the door once was,  desperately trying to dig my way out. 

But no relief comes. Not until the tar climbs past my chin, nose, and mouth, sealing me up entirely encased in a bottomless black void. One so thick I can't hardly even move, let alone see my hands in front of me. Or breathe. With mouthfuls of tar trying to drown me in shadows. Panic sets in completely before exchanging for a bottomless level of calm. A calmness that can only come from true acceptance of death. It feels like destiny to drown here, and my thoughts slow to a crawl, allowing only one single phrase past the forefront of my mind before the darkness consumes me in its entirety. A thought, a feeling so strong that it's like it was written into my very dna. 

One single phrase. 

‘No Matter How Hard You Try, There Is No Escaping This.’

And then, I woke up. 

…

…

…

“RoseGold!!!!” I scream, shooting upright in my bed and covered in sweat. “RoseGold! Rose… rose…” Panting and gasping for breath, I slowly try to calm myself down. Placing my hand over my heart, I can tell that it is racing. I can feel my own pulse all the way through my body, even into my toes. “Rosegold….” I get out with one final breath. 

But she's nowhere to be found. My bed is empty and I'm alone in my room. My lips turn to a frown but before I have even a moment to contemplate why she has left me again, there's two quick knocks on my door. 

Then my doorknob turns, and my mom walks right in. 

“What are you yelling about in here, son? Are you okay? I’m here!” She says, rushing to my bedside and kneeling down. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I- It-” My speech is jumbled, having just woken up. I have yet to get my head on entirely straight and yet I am immediately thrust into another situation. Better to suck up and act fine than invite further inspection in a time like this. “I'm fine, mom. It was just a nightmare. I'm okay!”

She sighs loudly and wipes the back of her hand across her forehead. “Oh, thank heavens. I was so worried when I heard you screaming.”

“I was screaming?” I asked her, I don't remember doing that.

“Yes! You kept shouting for something, or someone… What happened? What did you dream about that made you so scared?” She asks me, leaning over into my space and placing her hand on my shoulder. She seems much kinder today than she seemed yesterday. She must be in a good mood for whatever reason. “I’m here if you want to talk about it.” My mother tells me in a calming and sweet voice. She gives me a little smile.

“I don’t really remember. Only something vaguely about mirrors and roses.” I tell her while shaking my head. It's true. Pretty much the moment I woke up, my dream wisped away into nothing. “So it must have not been very important.” 

“Oh, well that's good.” My mother says, taking her hand off of my shoulder. “I'm glad you're okay. You've had me worried sick for you lately, little man.” Her words send a gross shiver down my spine. I hate it when she calls me that. Why's it gotta be both little and man. Just pick one. “Now get ready, because we're going somewhere soon after breakfast.” She says and stands up, heading towards my door. 

“Wait, what?” I ask her confusedly. “I thought I was grounded?”

She smirks as she leans out the door. “Oh, you are. Trust me I didn't forget about that.” Then she beams into a smile and walks away, leaving the door still open behind her. 

I groan and rub my eyes. How exhausting already. 

My body falls back onto my pillow and begs me to get another few minutes of sleep, but I don't listen to it. 

…

…

…

“So.” My mother begins, setting a plate of breakfast down at the table. She had already eaten so she made this whole breakfast just for me. It's a kind turn of events after last night. But what she says next catches me entirely off guard. “My very own child has finally gotten himself a girlfriend. I can't say I was expecting this but it's definitely a welcomed surprise.”

“What!?!” My face lights up in red. “Girlfriend!? What do you mean girlfriend!?”

“Oh, nothing~” She teases me. “Just the blonde you were hanging out with all night last night.”

“What! She's not- she's not my girlfriend, I barely know her! How do you even know about her in the first place!” I never got to tell her anything about who I was with, or even that it was a girl.  So how does she even know?

“We talked about it last night, don't you remember?” She prompts, urging me forward.

“All I remember is being yelled at a lot! You said I was sleeping with hookers!” I cross my arms and pout. “I was not! And I don’t have a girlfriend!” 

“That's not what I said last night.” She corrects, shutting down my snap with her own. “I said that if I caught you doing unsavory things, I would be very cross. But I have not caught you doing that, so that isn’t what I’m punishing you for.” She says, firmly. “I am, however, still very cross with you over everything else. So that’s why I’m picking where we’re going today. I have not felt like you’ve been making the best choices for yourself lately, so from now until at least tomorrow, you’re going to be staying right by my side. Do you understand?”

“Officer Browns told you, didn’t he!”  It had suddenly dawned on me while she was speaking. I know for SURE that I didn’t tell my mother about Valerie last night. That she was a blonde or even that she was a girl, so the only way I can think that my mother knows, is if someone told her. And that someone couldn’t have been me. “He snitched on me!”

“Clever boy you are.” My mother compliments me with a big smile. “That's the detective in your genes, isn’t it? You can thank me for that trait. Good job, but do you think you can guess where we’re going today? If you can do that, I’ll be very excited.” 

“Where, the doctor's office? So they can stick a bunch of needles in me again?”

“No, silly.” She waves her hand through the air back and forth. “We’re going to the mall.”

“What? The mall? Why there? I thought I was being punished.”

“We’re going there because my little man doesn’t know how to dress himself in the morning.” She gestures towards my clothes. They're just pajamas for the morning time but she gives me a face that's like ‘duh, obviously.’ And apparently means all my other clothes choices are shitty as well. “And if he’s going to be a gentleman for some girl, I’m going to make sure he’s as presentable as he can be. What kind of mother would I be otherwise? So I'm getting you some new clothes.”

“SHES NOT- she!” I put my hands over my face and whine. “She’s just a classmate!!!!”

“No way.” She says before laughing. “I know what class work you have lately, and collecting rainwater definitely isn’t one of the assignments! You get your butt in your room and get changed, mister! We’re going to the mall in twenty minutes!”

“Fine, but I'm eating breakfast first!” I pout again and dig into my food. Looks like my mom is going to be kind to me today. That's a big step up from last night, I think.

“That's okay, you still have time. I'm not making you go now.” She says in a reassuring tone. “And wear something that you can change in and out of easily. You’re going to be trying on a lot of clothes today.”

…

…

…

Back in my room with my door shut, my eyes scan over my empty bed. Isn't there something I'm missing? But i can't seem to remember. Last night feels a little blurry, a little far away.  And whatever that weird dream was seems to pull my attention away any time I try to think about it. 

I slept differently last night, didn't I? Despite having some kind of forgotten nightmare,  I actually slept extremely well. I feel awake and fully rested. Not often that's the case. So what was different?

Oh, right!!

“Rosegold?” I beckon,  trying to summon whatever energy allows me to pull her out. But my room stays empty, and my pajamas have stayed on. “Rosego- … oh who am I kidding.” I trail off. Something just tells me she's not going to be listening to me right now. As per usual,  a call and an attempt to summon her yields me absolutely nothing at all. Typical. 

Well, maybe she's just tired.

Just because I slept well last night, doesn't mean she did.  But, whatever.  It's no matter anyway. If she wants to hide away from me right now then so be it.  I have other things I need to be doing right now anyway. 

…

Wandering empty headed over to my wardrobe,  I pick out some lazy clothes.  A pair of black sweatpants with cloth ridges on them (good for rubbing my hands across!), and a big sweater to go over top. If I'm gonna be changing a lot, I might as well just wear shitty easy clothes anyway. I noticed that these pants are getting a little small,  but decided that it shouldn't matter because I'm gonna be getting new ones later anyway. 

These are basically just socially acceptable pajamas at this point. But who cares,  I figure that they're not gonna stay forever anyway. 

I choose not to care how other people see me. Logic dictates that I'm only gonna be in their presence for a very short amount of time anyway. So it shouldn't matter. 

…

“Nooooope.” My mom says upon seeing what I've chosen to wear. “Those pants are way too short at the cuff. I said wear easy clothes, not ugly clothes.  Go change your pants into some jeans, then we're able to go. You have five minutes so make it snappy!” She punctuates with a snap of her fingers. 

I groan. “Uugh. Fine.  But jeans won't be easier to change out of!” 

…

…

…

During the car ride there, my mind wanders freely out the window. Sitting in my mom’s black Chevy in the passenger seat, my eyes naturally bounce along the tops of trees and off the tops of other passing cars. Along to the beat, I imagine a music video of some kind as my mom hums the tune of the song currently playing on the radio. Spacing out like wonderland  I imagine some kind of stick figure running across the trees and cars as my eyes bounce from object to object.

But in the space between two radio songs, a mild silence stretches for far longer than I think it should have. It pulls me from my daze and makes me reconsider my own reflection in the car’s passenger window. It's incredibly hard to make out because of how much brighter the outside world is compared to the interior of the car. But I can see something blurry. Moving. Moving where I shouldn’t. And almost sort of… Gray?

“Hey!” My mom snaps. “Hey, did you hear me?”


“Mnnhuh?” I turn my head to face her. She gives me a side eye before looking back towards the road. “What?”

“I said we’re almost there. We’re pulling into the parking lot soon. Are you gonna be ready to go in?”

“Yeah, sure, of course, whatever.”  I turn to look back out the window again, seeing nothing of interest.

“I’m serious!” She says in a higher tone. The car bumps as it goes over a speed hump and pulls into the parking lot. The whole place seems utterly packed today. No parking spots in sight. It's gonna take us at least three laps of the entire lot just to find one. Great.  “It looks pretty full today. Are you going to be okay going in there?” She asks me, finally finding a spot and putting the car to rest.

I look at her all bug-eyed. “Are you saying that… If I said no, we could just go home?”

“I guess.” My mother replies thoughtfully. “I know you have trouble with big crowds. I want you to know that even with aaaaaaaalllllll~ the people around, I’ll be staying by your side the whole time. No one will bother us when I give them my signature scowl!” My mom pulls an angry face at me. It's honestly impressively intimidating. “See?”

I giggled. “I see, I see!”

“So, are you gonna be okay going in there, or is my little boy too anxious?”

“I’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. With you there, I think it will go just fine!” I reply. “But stop calling me little boy! I’m literally an adult!”

“Hahaha!” My mother laughs. “You’re always gonna be ‘little boy’ to me. Not till the day you die!”

(End Of Chapter Eleven)

←To Be Continued