Nevengton Valley

9: Phinn

I woke up and played with my hair which was fluffy to the touch. A big smile spread across my face and I stretched. There was some drool around the side of my face which I wiped off. I looked at Kylee beside me sound asleep. Of course. I grabbed my shirt and carefully took it off, replacing it with a new set of clothes. My beanie, a  shirt with an upside down skull on it which had long sleeves. Some ripped jeans and a denim jacket with a dagger inside of a heart on the back of it, I finished the look off with some lifted platform boots. There was a bang at the door. As I walked towards the door the banging increasingly got louder and louder until it sent me into a sensory overload. I brought my hands to my face and started scratching. Louder and louder it just kept on getting louder. It was so loud. As I came to, I wrapped my shaky hand around the door knob, opening it and collapsing. The man from my dreams was here. He reached his hand out for me to grab. I hesitantly grabbed it and he pulled me out into the forest. He led me to a small clearing. I couldn't understand what he was saying. All I could hear was whispering. All around me there were faceless dolls holding pendants and on these pendants there was a word this word was TWO. I hit my hand onto my forehead multiple times and I was back in my house at the door. I twisted the handle and to my surprise there was a boy in a bunny costume. He jumped up and down and grabbed my hand, rubbed it, and looked at me before turning around and bouncing away. I looked at my hand and saw a sticky note attached to my palm. It read -Town Highschool Thirty Minutes- I moved my hair out of my face and stuffed the note in my back pocket. While my hand was in my pocket I retrieved my lighter and smoked. I took one out and placed it in my mouth. I started smoking it as I walked towards the highschool. Ah school. The place that made me want to end my life on multiple occasions, the place that caused me to spend dozens of nights in the hospital and the place that worsened my alcoholism. Surprisingly it was not the transphobia that got to me no no it was the constant comments on my family and the mockery of the bruises that showed up on my face and body every bloody fucking day. It was the lies people told about me and the things people called my brothers. One time back when I was fourteen I was involved in drugs heavily with a group of people called Dagger Heart or DG for short. DG did a number of things to me but this story involved something so disgusting that it sickened me to this day. They made me steal. Yes you may be wondering why it's so sickening. I stole from a girl named Tracee Levits. Tracee was a rich but unpopular girl at my school. I stole fifty grand from her because the DG threatened my family's life. I didn't know it then but that money was for her father. He was very sick and that money was covering the costs of the treatment keeping him alive. That same night the fee was due and the doctors didn't have any money for special equipment. An innocent man died because I stole. And from that day forward I never stole again. As this thought left my head something else remained something very different. I didn't have time to dwell upon it because I fell over something and landed on my face. There was a snap when I hit the ground. My wrist had snapped and the bone inside was shattered. The pain shot up my arm and caused me to whimper loudly. The reason why I wasn't screaming and crying is because I had been used to this kind of pain. I had never broken my wrist before. The bone had broken skin and there was blood spilling out of the wound. I grabbed a bandage from the pocket of my jacket. I shakily wrapped my wrist and my hand. I had practiced in the medical field before so it was a proper cast. I walked into the highschool after taking a few painkillers, Pushing the door open with my shoulder. I looked around and saw a woman with a military jacket holding a gun to King Poison's head. The woman had straight red hair and a croaky tone to her voice. Her jacket had T.W.O on it. I was ten minutes late. I ran towards her but that was a very bad decision. There was a bang and something hot and sharp went through my body just below my right boob. I looked down and put my hand to where I felt the hot object. That's where it hit me. Blood covered my hand and I collapsed. I was falling, not awake, not dead no...but concise and in between both areas. I saw a fox. She looked at me and scurried into a woody area. I ran after her and followed her to the place she most likely called home. She grabbed me by my good hand and pulled me inside her hut. She shook her head letting out a sigh. "You should be more careful, you could've gotten yourself killed!" She said as she wrapped my bullet wound. I looked around confused. "Where am I, and who the hell are you?" I asked with a shaky and shattered tone. "Ah, I guess I should introduce myself. I'm Ely Soot and this is in between life and death, I will send you back to life when it is safe." She explained and I laid down on her couch which was covered in blankets. The second my body hit the pillow I woke up in the back of an ambulance. I was taken into a room with blinding lights. The doctors didn't seem to notice that I was awake when they were digging inside my body to grab pieces of shrapnel. I was screaming for them to stop, but they didn't. I woke up the next day. Turns out I had experienced anesthesia awareness. Kylee was yelling at the doctors asking what had happened. They didn't tell her. She stayed with me until my bullet wound was completely scarred over. My wrist was still broken of course but we left the hospital and she hugged me. Tears welled at the corners of her eyes. "What the hell happened!?" She screamed and cried. I tried explaining that I couldn't remember, but she didn't seem to understand. I explained what I could remember. "I was walking and remembering things when I tripped over a log and broke my wrist. After I had taken care of my injury I went to Town highschool. And there I was shot." I explained. She nodded and grabbed my hand, dragging me back to our house. As we walked up the hill towards our home we smelt smoke. Our home had been burned to the ground with all of our things including the dogs inside. There was nothing left. All of it was either on fire or completely torched. The dogs must've escaped because we found no remains. I sat down by the broken down T.W.O truck and started crying. Not tears of sadness but of anger. Whoever destroyed our home is the same person who shot me. As I sat, a hand grabbed my shoulder. It wasn't Kylee's, it was much more mascualine and felt as though it had been through years of hard labor. It wasn't until I heard the voice that I knew who it was. "Come with me now, both of you!" The voice belonged to King Poison. He led Kylee and I to his treehouse where we all collapsed and passed out within minutes. That night I had one of the strangest dreams yet. I was on a rollercoaster with all my friends. As we declined from the top of the spike the track exploded and sent us all sprawling through the air. I fell for about fifty minutes and landed in a river. The water attacked my lungs and ended up winning in a battle of dominance. As I died in my dream I woke up coughing harshly. The air had escaped my body and I was begging it to come back. Eventually my asthma died down and I could catch my breath. I hadn't actually woken up. I was still dreaming. I eventually woke up and to my misfortune Kylee and King Poison were gone. I panicked quickly coming to my senses and descending from the treehouse. They left without saying anything. And more importantly they left without me. I called for them but they didn't respond. I looked all over the city and found absolutely nothing. In fact everyone was gone. I broke the window to a car that was probably from the nineties. I hotwired its engine and started the car, driving away from The City Of Town forever never to return. I drove through the woods and eventually made it to the highway. I must've been asleep for a while because it was September sixth when I fell asleep it was now the eighth. I drove for hours. I Searched for them but I couldn't find them anywhere. Nowhere at all. I decided to drive to the abandoned village a couple thousand miles away. I stopped at a hotel and collapsed on the bed. I texted Kylee but there was no use. Her phone was on fire. I groaned and sat up watching the walls as they collapsed around me. Not in reality but inside my head, I was tripping balls. I looked around and saw a woman with a huge smile and no eyes walking towards me. Everytime I blinked she got closer and closer until eventually she was gone but not after letting out a banshee-like scream. I slapped myself so I would come to my senses and realize that of course it was all just inside of my fucking head. Or so I thought. I could not stop thinking about the two people who had just abandoned me in an apocalyptic area of a small village ironically named TOWN. I scratched at my arms and started to spiral. Not too fast nor too slow but a perfect amount of velocity started to fill my head with one emotion in particular. Rage. Everything around me was black, except for the eyes of an eerie looking shadow figure with large spiked claws. She was walking towards me and then she spoke. "Hello my child, My name is Oma senthil and I want to show you something." I looked at her and shook my head angrily, "Why won't you people just leave me the fuck alone" She chuckled mestiviously and grabbed me by my wrist. Pain flew up my arm and a swirl of blood and poison burnt its way towards my bloodstream causing nausea and delusions. Her claws dug into my arm causing a large gouge to take their place. She spun her hand around and wrapped it around my throat. "Now young one you will tell me where the "KING" is!" She let out in a blood curdling shriek that sent chills through my spine. Speechless, I tried to run, or swing my arm, or even any form of movement but I was left paralyzed by fear. She laughed as her eyes turned pure black, my eyes were entangled in hers and I started to lose consciousness. "You have three days to get me answers or you will be dead" she cackled, evaporating into ash blown into the breeze. I woke up coughing and wincing for air. "Fuck" I said as I rolled up the sleeve of the arm she clawed. The number 3 was carved into my forearm and it had scarred over in a blackish gray color. I looked around, the sound of crying and coughing from a short distance filled my ears. I stood up and started jogging away from the noises, the jogging soon turned into sprinting because of a firework being set off very close to me, or what I thought was a firework.
My eyes followed the sun as it rose, lighting the whole forest up, a bird was asleep on my head, I gently shook it off, its wings spread and it took flight, its blue color disappeared in the sunrise. I looked at the 3 on my arm. It was fading and looked like it was  starting to turn into a 2. I scratched at it as I put my headphones on, the music started and I hopped up onto my feet and started walking around looking for signs of King P or Kylee, I found a note nailed to a tree it read "Phinn, my love if you are reading this you are going the right way, Poison and I are headed for Smile City meet us there" -love Kylee- I fold up the note, shove it in my pocket and start the long walk to Smile City. As I walked I saw some terrible things, a man was eating himself and laughing like a horse, a woman was wailing with a knife sticking out of her skull and a child was murdering it's own brother. I sped up, darting onto the highway a sign above me read "SMILE CITY 20 km'' the way the sign peered at me made my insides curl up. It was a giant smiley face with no features but teeth and eyes. I gagged and followed the road through downtown SMILE CITY. People were laying on the ground, others were having steamy sex against the walls of buildings some were snorting cocain and others were basically killing each other. As I was about to give up hope a pair of arms wrapped me into a hug, it was Kylee. "Hi baby!" She said, looking at me. "HEY!" I yelled and hugged her. I then asked "Where is King Poison?" She shrugged "He just ran off a few hours ago, I can't find him." I nodded, grabbed her hand continued down the street