The Art of Dilapidation (Kellic)

2: When We're All Burning

Rain fell softly, causing mist to rise where it hit the pavement. It was dreadfully cold outside, the kind of damp cold that seeps through your clothes and skin to settle in your bones and freeze the blood where it runs in your veins. It was dreadful to be in. Normally, I don't mind the rain and the cloudy, dreary weather, but I did not like freezing cold and what was practically a deluge. However, I would rather be out here than risk seeing Vic Fuentes's stupid face in school.

After my encounter with said Vic Fuentes my fight or flight instinct had kicked in and I had chosen the latter, leaving the campus as quickly as I could manage. I doubted anyone would notice my absence anyway. No one ever did. Now I'm not saying that I care about whether or not they notice me. I am simply stating the facts. Don't you go pitying me. It won't help either of us, so what's the point? There isn't one. I've never understood why people feel sorry for others in all honesty. What does your feeling sorry for me accomplish? Nothing. It just doesn't make sense. The world would turn much faster if people just kept their noses out of other people's business and let them deal with themselves as they saw fit.

These thoughts and many others danced through my head as I stalked along the empty streets of my small town with a sullen scowl painted on my face. The rain had turned my clothes into a sodden mess by this point and I figured that I would end up with hypothermia within the next five minutes. If I was a normal person that notion would have most likely prompted me to duck into one of the several shops I had passed, but I'm not a normal person, so I continued walking without much care. Hypothermia wouldn't be that bad anyway. As far as ways to die it wouldn't be the greatest, ranking somewhere between an allergic reaction to peanut butter and burning alive. Yes, I have made a list in the past. Problem? No? Good. Even if you did I doubt I could have found it in me to care, but, hey, miracles can happen.

I suppose I ought to stop spouting my endless bull crap and move along with this story because at this rate we'll end up with eighty chapters and three unnecessary sequels that no one asked for but got anyway. I had gotten out of the main town by now and gotten into the dense woods that surrounded my personal corner of Hell. The trees seemed to be shielding me from the rain, offering a welcome reprieve from the constant icy liquid that was pouring over me. It was strange. After it was gone I kind of missed it. I took an unusual sort of pleasure in putting myself in miserable situations. Maybe it was because I was dropped on my head as a child. I'm not sure if that actually happened or not, but I think we can assume it did based on current evidence.

Perhaps this will be the day I die, I thought. Maybe it wouldn't even be from hypothermia. There are plenty of ways to die while walking along a road in the middle of a heavily forested area in the rain. There were bears, flooding, falling trees, poisonous spiders, poisonous snakes, tripping on a stick and cracking your skull, getting lost and starving, getting lost and eating mysterious fungi in an attempt not to starve, an allergic reaction to oak, sumac, or ivy, being hunted by swamp people, being trampled by a herd of deer, being impaled by a stag, staff infections, etc.. By the way, if you were wondering, impaled by a stag is number twenty-eight on my ways to die list. Maybe someday I'll publish said list and hand out copies on the street corner. I chuckled quietly to myself at that idea. It was rather amusing, or so I thought.

It was not long before I was most certainly lost and had resorted to just wandering around aimlessly, my hands shoved deep in my sweatshirt pockets. There was something quite romantic about walking in the misty woods. It was almost like a scene out of a movie. I just wasn't sure what kind of movie it would be. If it were a horror movie then it wouldn't be long before I was murdered by an ax-wielding maniac (oh, I should add that to the sub-list "Ways to Die in the Woods"), but if it were a romance then I should be finding some pretty girl right about now. Wait for it.... Nope, no beautiful angel of a girl has greeted me with open arms that offer salvation and love. Well, that sucks.