✭°Damianya°✭ ʷʰᵃᵗ ⁱᶠ

Year 11

[ T/W!! — mention and use of drugs in forthcoming chapters]

Damian pov

Saturday = Worst day ever. I go over the checklist in my mind.

□ Get out of my room
□ Socialize
□ Make Ewen and Emile leave our dorm
□ Clean my room
□ Do homework / uncompleted assignments

Dirty laundry lay in an ever-growing heap in the corner of my shared dorm. I shuffle through my graded tests and quizzes, hoping to find one decent enough to present to Father.

89%, 93%, 96%, 97%, 100%, 100%, and another 100%. I sighed. How did Demetrius get 107%? I tossed aside the papers, ink wasted, effort wasted, and opened my wardrobe.

Rummaging through the back of my wardrobe, my finger accidentally poked a sharp corner of something. I cautiously reached for it and lifted a dirtied frame from the cluster.
It was a glass frame, but I couldn't remember where it came from or who it belonged to.

As I examined it closely, I noticed the picture inside featured a girl with unnaturally vibrant hair the colour of caraval.
I didn't recognize her from our class or anywhere else.

Despite this, I continued my search, flinging aside useless machines and old clothes, until I came across a strange cone-shaped device. It was black, with a simple gold pattern on the rim, and the inside was buzzing and crackling with static.

What. The. Hell.

Without a reasonable explanation, my hands started to shake uncontrollably, my body aching the longer I gazed the the foreign device.
My mind raced to find a reasonable explanation. Staring at the device longer only intensified my symptoms — my vision became hazy and black and white flashes started to fill my mind.

A pounding headache wracked me as if the memory was long gone but reviving it could unearth the forgotten memories trapped in a box in my head.

[Flashback]

"Becky has to suffer this ordeal alone, but she's coping." Voices in the halls overstimulate my senses, forcing me to cover my ears. "And Damian sure looks miserable today."

I can't sleep.
I won't sleep.
It feels wrong.
It feels too suffocating, too eerie, too silent.

Maybe it's for the better, cause goodness knows what's spawning in my nightmares. I get out of bed, putting on my dressing gown and a pair of slippers before heading downstairs to raid the pantry.

"Father wouldn't approve of that," Demetrius said from atop the stairs. I winced, the pleasure of my brother's company no more reassuring than if Mother or Jeeves were to be there in his stead.
I sniffed indignantly and resumed my midnight walk to our kitchen when Demetrius placed his hand on my shoulder.

"You've lost it. So I suppose the rumours are true, Damian. Do you have anything to say, tarnishing the Desmond name like you did?"

When did you ever care about me, brother?

[end of flashback]

For the first time in years, I woke to worried faces leaning over me. These people don't seem like nurses; the woman wearing an off-shoulder red jumper and black tights, and the man was in a white button-up. Both looked at me tenderly as if we had encountered each other more than once before.

"Damian, you were mouthing Miss Anya's name out loud, so Becky came over to see if we could do anything for you." I saw them flinch as Anya's name was spoken, but nothing mattered as the past began flooding back in like a river.