Exalderact Chapter One: Deja Vu

*Déjà vu*


School. No lights. Total darkness. There's just been a power outage and since I'm in the windowless storeroom—fetching extra textbooks for Mr. Garner—I can't see a thing. I feel something brush past me, coupled with light footsteps. Probably my imagination getting the best of me, as always. Alden Zephyr, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?
I've never told anyone, but I'm afraid of the dark. My parents knew when I was younger, but the older I got, the more ashamed I became, until I pretended I wasn't afraid anymore. I keep my eyes shut tight when I'm trying to sleep at night. My imagination runs wild if I don't. Something as normal as a pile of clothes on a chair becomes a rotting corpse that seems to stare at me all night. I always sleep under the covers, for fear that a strange shape might come to life and grab me and drag me under my bed.
Under my bed is one of the scariest places in my house. When I was seven I woke up in the middle of the night because I had to use the bathroom. As soon as I stepped off my bed, a scarred gray hand reached from under and closed itself around my ankle. I screamed so loud that I woke all the neighbors. I even ended up wetting myself. Mom and Dad came to my rescue in a flash. They searched by room but found nothing out of the ordinary, but I think my older brother, Anton, did it as a joke. He kept grinning at breakfast the next morning. He's never admitted it, but I keep telling myself it was him—what else am I supposed to tell myself?
I wouldn't exactly say that I'm a coward, I try to overcome my fear all the time. I’m actually braver than most people. But it's a phobia I can't get rid of, no matter how hard I try. My condition is called “Achluophobia”, or Night Terrors or something like that. I wouldn’t know for sure because I’ve never been to a psychiatrist. Most of the time it isn’t that bad. I don’t hallucinate every night—the terrors are ussually spaced out. Sometimes I go months without any. Sometimes I can’t even go a single night without them. But the I don't tell anyone, not even my closest friends. It's something I'll be alone with for the rest of my life.
Several minutes pass. I'm soaked with sweat and shiver at a cold draft. I’m trying to think of something pleasant, sometimes that stops the hallucinations if they’ve just started. Suddenly there’s an ear-splitting screech—not sure where it’s coming from, but I run like a blind man—hands outstretched, feeling my way across the room. I think (hope) I'm moving towards the door, but I can't be sure.
Suddenly the lights turn on. Flickering at first, I see someone watching me—an ugly face, like a zombie. My heart nearly jumps out of my chest. Then as flickering stops, I realize it's just a dummy used for making dresses in Home EC classes. Breathing heavily, I put my hand over my chest.
I'm almost out the door before I remember what I'm here for. Walking back to the bookshelves, I pull down a couple of trigonometry books. I spot a fat leather-bound book that I'm sure wasn't there before. Covered with dust. I pull it down and blow some of the dust off. Strange symbols I’ve never seen before on the cover. By the way the book is bound and the edges are cut, I’d say it’s hand-made.
I feel a sudden unexplainable urge to take it. Without any thought, I place the book in my backpack, lock the door, and walk back to class carrying the trigonometry books in my arms.


→"What took so long, Alden?" Mr. Garner asks, while I set the textbooks down on his desk.
I look around the class, a couple of people are watching—a few are laughing. I don’t know what they must think. My shirt’s dripping wet and I’m out of breath. "I was stuck in the storeroom when the power went out." Is my response.
Mr. Garner frowns. "When the power went out?"
"Yeah."
"None of the lights went out on this floor."
He doesn't believe me. I'm not exactly student of the year so it wouldn't be hard for him to believe I'd make up a story to cut class. "Well, they did in the basement, it was so dark I couldn’t see anything."
“Alden, are you feeling alright? You look sick.” I think of telling him I’m fine, but I’m not so sure. I’m all shook up, I want to go home.
“Maybe I don’t feel well….”
“I’ll write you a pass to go to the nurse’s office then.”


→The Nurse’s office. I hand her the pass and she takes my temperature with a disposable thermometer. The room smells funny. Pungent. Like some cleaning chemical. I’m sitting on a cushiony chair—the only one in the room that isn’t stained with puke or anything. The nurse is a plump woman who looks as though she hates her job. Always scowling. I don’t say anything, but she occassionally mumbles under her breath.
When I least expect it, she pulls the thermometer out of my mouth and looks at it. A vein pulses on her forehead.
“No temperature… do you have a stomache ache?”
“No,”
“No? Well, you can’t be sent home unless you have a fever…and you don’t have one.”


→The Cafeteria. The usual table. Bart, Declan, Ring, and me. Talking about a movie we want to go see in theaters next week.
“Today’s the twenty-first, so we won’t be able to go for another week.” I open my backpack and take out the book.
"Guys, look at this." The casual talking stops. Declan's the first to say anything.
"It’s a book.”
"I found it in the store-room—"
"You stole it?" Ring asks, "it's just a stupid book."
"I think it's kind of cool looking," Bart says. "Can I see it?" I hand him the book. He opens it and says nothing for a few seconds. "Coolio! What language is this?"
I blink. "Language? You mean it's not in English?"
Declan laughs. "If you didn't even look inside, why take it in the first place?"
"I dunno, I just wanted to—"
"Going klepto on us?"
"No, I'm not sure why I took it, I just did. I'll swing by the storeroom later and put it back."
“You just took it? You don’t know why? Klepto-maniac on the loose!” Declan says.
“Shut up… I’ll just take it back.”
"Why? This is cool! I'll keep it if you don't want it, Alden." Bart says.
"What are you gonna do with it?" I ask.
Bart shrugs. "Maybe I'll find out what language this is in and get it translated.... It looks a little like Old Norse,—
“—old what?—”
“—does Mr. Garner know you took it?"
“No, he hasn’t seen me with it.”
Ring looks at the book with some distaste. "Still just a stupid book if you ask me."
I feel a strange twinge of anger. "Well, nobody asked you, Mr Negative."
"You can't put it back anyway, the storeroom is locked, remember? You needed Mr. Garners key last time."
Completely forgot. "Oh, yeah... I'll just keep it then."
Bart doesn’t say anything untill ten minutes and two cheeseburgers later.
“I heard from Mark Felps that the nurse set her house on fire,” Bart says.
“He’s lying,” I laugh, “I was in her office two hours ago.”
“I wouldn’t mind so much if she did set her house on fire, she’s always so mean.”
“Yeah,” Declan says, “once Mark told her he didn’t feel good and that he wanted to go home. She told him that he didn’t have a temperature and kicked him out of her office. Not long after he threw up in my locker—”
“Oh yeah! That was halarious, you guys shared lockers….”


→Home. My room. I sleep in the attic, so my room’s a lot bigger than most of my friends’s. Untill a year ago I slept in the room next to Anton’s. He’s only a year and a half older than I am, but he takes more naps than my grandparents and still manages to sleep all night. And he snores! Earplugs can’t drown out all the sound, just ignoring it doesn’t work. Finally, Mom and Dad decided that they would fix up the attic so I could sleep in it.
They did a great job, but the spiders love it up here. I like spiders—I think they’re gross—but I like them. They eat all of the bugs. I don’t kill any unless they bother me—they usually don’t.
I feel safe here, much safer than I did in my other bedroom. I read a lot, or watch a movie before I go to bed if I’m feeling scared, mostly to keep myself thinking about other things before I fall asleep. Sometimes I hear voices, telling me to go into the closet, or go under the bed. Some even tell me to stay under the covers, but those are bluffing—it’s safe under the covers. Some of the voices sound friendly at first, but most get impatient and scream at me if I don’t do as they say. But the voices go away if I convince myself I’m imagining them—not as easy as it sounds.
After the incident when I was seven, I started to hate Anton. We don’t talk to eachother anymore. I think most of the hatred between us is one-sided. I never forgave him for what he did. It’s scarred me for life. Mom and Dad don’t know why we don’t get along, but gave up trying to make us a long time ago. We got into lots of fights, one of which ended with me being rushed to the hospital with a broken nose.
I’d hate Anton even if the incident never happened. I’m always in his shadow. His grades are ussually higher than mine, and he’s even better looking. He’s athletic—captain of the soccer team, star player of the football team. I’m just a nobody compared to him, or even worse: “Anton’s little brother”.
I open my backpack and take out the book. I open to the first page. Lots of symbols, some written in different colors.
I flip the page again. I can't make heads or tails of any of this. This page isn’t much different than the last. I notice that the colors go in patterns. Red, blue, yellow, blue, blue, yellow, etc. The patterns change with each new line, but it’s always those three colors. My eyes dart to the top right corner of the page. I feel strange and want to shut the book, but I can't. I scan each individual symbol from right to left. I flip the page and do the same again, and again. I can't concentrate on anything but the book. Each symbol etching itself in my mind.


→Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Days? I don't know. I feel half-asleep, on the edge of consciousness. Terrible feeling, like I'm sick—horrible headache. My bedroom bursts into flames. I can only watch out of the corners of my eyes as all my possessions turn to ash.
Each symbol fresh in my mind. They start to spin, the colors blend. They paint a picture, like one of Van Gogh’s paintings. In the picture a man kneels beside the bedside of a woman. She’s his wife and she’s dying. I don’t know how I know, I just do. The picture isn’t very detailed. It’s hard to see facial features. No sound either.
Something gray obscures my view. The husband and wife don’t seem to notice. The Gray behaves like fire and starts devouring the sceen. It spreads throughout the picture, leaving destruction in its wake.
I can’t see much. There’s only the Gray now. It starts to clear a little. The man clings to his wife. She’s dead. Dark scribbles start to form along the edges of the sceen. The scribbles move and grow in size. They have arms and legs now. Like doodles I’ve drawn when I get bored in class, except these are grotesque. They move towards the man and soon they’re upon him.
They grab at his dead wife and he struggles to hold on to her. He won’t let go. More scribbles form and more pull at his wife. They want to take her away from him forever. She slips from his arms, but he grabs her head in desperation. Less than a second later her head rips off and the creatures flee with the body.
The sceen becomes more detailed, but the mans face is blurred. The woman’s head sheds no blood. The man is petrified. He’s still holding the head. Suddenly it moves. The eyes open. No pupil, gray like stone.
“Not even in death,” it crackles. Snakes erupt from it’s mouth.


→“Alden? Alden? You can’t sleep here. Lift your head or I’m sending you to the nurse.”
“What?” Im sitting in class with my head burried in my arms. I look up and open my eyes. After my eyes adjust to the light I see Mr Garner looking at me.
“Are you ok?”
“I’m fine.”
Mr Garner smiles, “Is my class that boring?” everyone laughs.
“It isn’t boring, I’ve just been lazy,” I say.
“Well since you aren’t doing anything, would you mind going to the storeroom and picking up some extra text books for me?”
“Sure, OK.”


→I’ve always known where in the building the storeroom was, but I’ve never had reason to go inside before. It’s huge. There aren’t any windows. Several rows of bookshelves and stacks of boxes. It’s like a maze in here.
The shelves are all numbered, and the books are arranged in subject order.I get the strangest sense of déjà vu. I navigate the aisles like like I’ve been here before. I come to a stop at row 12 and scan the shelf for trigonometry books. I frown. None here. Maybe there are some in the boxes in the back of the room.
“My, my, my…have we lost something?”
The voice came from behind me. I spin and almost slip on the smooth floor. What I see causes me to scream. A man with no eyes. Just empty sockets. He doesn’t bother trying to hide it with fake eyes or sunglasses or anything.
“We are a little fraidy cat aren’t we?” it says.
“Who are you?” I ask after taking it all in.
He laughs. Most his teeth are broken. All of them rotten.
“We have such lovely eyes don’t I? And we’re so handsome too!” it crackles. I notice his left ear, which looks as though a piece has been bitten out. His nose which looks bashed in, and his hair. He only has a few spaced out over his head, they’re all long and white.
“Your’re insane,” I say, trying to sound unafraid.
“Oh no, we’re not crazy! We’re saner than most people!” It giggles, “We see all of them don’t we? All the scary bogeymen?”
This is just another halucination! No one knows about them, this thing can’t be real.
I start to laugh. I can’t belive I was so scared! This thing can’t hurt me, I might as well ignore it.
It smiles. Stepping forward, he takes an abnormally long, slender finger and places it on my forhead. I feel my spine shiver and all my insides turn to ice.
I quickly step back. My vision is blurred. I can’t balance myself and drop to one knee.
“Now, now, no need for us to kneel,” it laughs.
I vomit. Live bugs spew out of my mouth. Flies, cockroaches, centipedes! The vomiting doesn’t stop. I can’t breathe!
It kneels down until it’s at eye level with me. Smiling it puts it’s hand in it’s pocket and pulls out a handfull of white powder. It blows the powder in my face blinding me. I try to scream, but the vomiting won’t stop, I’m covered with live bugs!
I’m able to force my eyes open to a squint after my tears get some of the powder out. My vision keeps flashing from reality to the darkest corner of my mind. A dummy—the monster before me. A strange book—the monster before me. A burning room—the monster before me! Strange scribbles, slowly forming into—the monster before me!! A severed head—the monster before me!!!
Now I'm completely covered with live bugs, without the energy to move. It itches, alot of the bugs are bitting me. I can't see a thing now. I can barely hear the monster's voice.
"Do we still like spiders? Alden?"



Chapter 2
*Goodbye Halcyon Days*

Coming Soon...