Being (Being Saga, Book I)

V

Timothy's room was tight like the rest of their two-bedroom apartment. He shared it with his ten-year-old brother who'd fallen asleep on the couch watching reruns of an old classic cartoon DVD.

Two small twin beds were parallel to one another, one on either side of the room. They both didn't have much in the way of possessions, but their mother allowed his little brother a few stuffed animals and an old gaming system. Timothy only had necessities. Clothes for his back, shoes for his feet, and whatever supplies he needed for school.

If he wanted to enjoy himself he'd head over to Bryan's. Or Bryan would come over like he was now when his mother was at work. Usually, Timothy was paranoid with his brother still in the house, but he was getting restless being away from Bryan for too long.

They were in Timothy's bed, the one farthest from the door. It looked difficult for both of the boys to fit, their limbs jutting out from under the covers, but everything was working out how they wanted. They'd done this a few times before and could now read the other's movements like it was their own.

A table lamp with a low-watt light bulb caught flashes of their skin magnificently contrasting between, on top, beneath, and wrapped around each other. This was the only time they could be comfortably one, in their own shard of time where no one else was supposed to exist because no one else mattered.

Bryan gave a pleasurable moan as they both continued to fall deeper into each other, but that's when the door cracked open a sliver. They didn't notice as it opened soundly below a whisper, so they didn't see Timothy's little brother's eye peeking through the crack. Watching his brother grabbing, caressing, and kissing Bryan with so much care and tenderness rooted him to the spot. This was a side of his big brother that he rarely ever saw.

But this Timothy was new to him. There was no way he could look away.

Timothy turned over and looked up at Bryan. His head tilted back off the edge of the bed, sweaty with a smile on his face. Bryan covered his neck with more panting kisses and Timothy's muscles rippled as he pulled Bryan closer.

It was then that they emerged. Black veins popped up around and in the whites of his eyes which were now becoming the same color as his irises.

He was Fading.

It didn't last long, so Bryan didn't see that his Timothy had devolved. They just said their goodbyes with the quiet anticipation of seeing each other next time.

The following morning Timothy was awakened out of his sleep and dragged out the front door by his mother.

"Mama?"

He fell back into the guarding rail, his face gaunt and his eyes were a milky white. His mother was looking as sick as he did, but for an entirely different reason. She was crying in disgust, but most of all, she was pissed.

"I didn't raise you like that! Get the hell outta my house!" she spat.

"Mama..." he pleaded.

He'd grown extremely weak in the last twelve hours to get his words out and he was too ashamed to look anyone in the eye, especially his mother. He caught his little brother looking out at him from behind her in the doorway, wide-eyed and gripping the door jamb.

"Mama!—"

Bam!

***

Volx's serial killer glare lingered a moment in the rear-view. The driver in the two-door sedan on his tail stopped a little too close to his bumper.

His eyes black, nearly gone, held an endless abyss of darkness, waiting there in what some have likened to pure emptiness whenever his eyes would meet the driver behind him. An accumulation of everything he'd ever witnessed in his life up to this moment; events and people he'd survived when he shouldn't have.