Scandinavian Heartstrings, in Drop D.

Chapter 2.0 Uber Brutal

Toki sat on his bed with his knees up and his head flopped back against the wall, staring at the few model planes hanging from the ceiling. It had been ten days since he'd stopped being a self-proclaimed Demon to break any association people had between him and children. The Klokateers had done a remarkable job at putting everything in his room back the way it had been; their in-house scientists had developed five new speciality cleaning products for removing the blood stains. He'd been such a jerk to his band mates, to the Wish for Something Foundation and to that little dead girl. He closed his eyes. That little girl. All he had to do was give a few hours of his time, that's it. Maybe that's all she would have needed to keep going, and he had denied her such a simple thing.

His Dethphone lit up as it bleeped a text message notification in the dark. He opened his eyes and rolled his head to look at it. It was from Pickles [Quit mopin and com drick wit me!]. Misspelled and succinct as per his usual drunk texts. Toki sighed.

Pickles must have run out of other drinking buddies for the evening if he wanted to hang out with him. Although, blacking out didn't seem like a bad idea, it might stop the dreams for tonight. He made his way down to the main room and found Pickles in the hot tub surrounded by the empty carcases of the beers he had devoured. There were a lot by normal people standards, but for Pickles, he was just getting started. Toki walked over to him sombrely with his hands in his pockets, looking apologetic.

"Heys Pickle." He said, announcing his presence.

Pickles turned slightly and looked up at him. His eyes were a little unfocused and his classic crooked smile accented his face.

"Hey there, kid! I haven't seen ya in dayz. It's about time ya come out o' yer room." Pickles waved a beer at him. "Hop in an' have a few wit' me." Toki looked hesitantly at the water. Pickles tried coaxing him in with a big friendly smile. "Come on, Please?".

Toki let out a small sound of defeat and began to remove his clothes. They had all lived together for so long that none of them had any shame about being naked in front of one another, especially Toki who was positively ripped. He slipped into the hot tub up to his waist and tied his hair back into a bun to stop it getting wet. Then submerged the rest of his body up to his shoulders, accepted the beer from Pickles, drank about a quarter in one gulp, and lay back with a huge sigh.

"So how ya doin' kid? Ya had us all thoroughly pissed off at yer for a while there. You feelin' any better yet?" Pickles had decided to just attack the elephant in the room instead of letting it trample their conversation. Toki remained silent and took another swig of his beer.

"Don't wanna talk about it, huh?" Pickles said. "Well there's other stuff ta talk about." He paused for dramatic effect, "I suppose."

"I sorry Pickle. I's was all screwed up insides. Ams like, a different me was me for a while and..." Toki wouldn't know how to describe what happened in Norwegian, never-mind English, so just gave up. "I don'ts knows." He rested his head on the edge of the tub. His bunched up hair stopped him from sliding any further down as he stared up into one of the high corners of the room.

Pickles eyed him with concern. "Okay, I get it. You're still figuring yourself out. I guess we can let it slide this time. I forget how young yer are, like, only Twenty-five or somethin'?"

"Twenty Threes." Toki said and swigged at his beer.

"Twenty-Three, Dood! Don't worry so much. Yer won't know who you really are until you fuck up a whole bunch more." Pickles laughed into the neck of his beer in reminiscence of his own misspent youth. "This is just part of the process, it's normal."

Toki picked at the water logged beer label in his hand as he thought about what it had been like to uber brutal. Like there was someone else inside him, or something. A sleeping creature. Something that felt as if it had been laying dormant until he entered its den and shook it awake. A dark shadow that pushed through his veins. Spectral, demonic, dirty, and hot. It had sludged like lava though every part of him, slowly taking over. Ready to burn anything it touched. Wanting to.