A Tender History In Rust

Chapter 3

"Oppa... Oppa... Eomeoni... " an eerie, familiar voice whispered upon Salem's thoughts.

"What the!" Salem gasped. Holding his head with his palms, he frantically got up to wake up Cam. It was 3am in the morning, so Cameron was dead asleep.

"Cameron... Cam! CAM!" He slowly turned to his side to see Salem's face becoming paler. His eyes widen as he begin to speak.

"Mate! You alright?" He got up and told Sal to sit down on his bed as he did his best to comfort him, "Is it those voices again?" Salem nodded.

"Why can't you just listen to me for once? You could've had a therapist by now and got this all resolved."

"I can't," Salem sternly said. His face has lost all emotion.

"What's your excuse now? Demons are gonna get yah? You need to stop this nonsense. Do you wanna get plastered or something to get this off your mind. We could perhaps order some chips."

"Ugh, whatever... I don't want to intoxicate myself the day before cramming week, but I don't know. I guess we could go to McDonalds," groaned Salem as he begin to question himself.

When Salem and Cameron exited the campus, Salem felt a strange presence lingering behind them, but eventually ignored it on their way to the bus station. Sitting down on the beat-down vehicle, Cameron has already fallen asleep with his head leaned against Salem. With the city lights gleaming through the windows of the bus, the dark sky began to cry.

Salem closed his eyes to spot a ghost like creature that dropped its jaw to its shoulders, sending bloodcurdling screams which ripped through his ears. Terrified, he couldn't yell when he opened his eyes in terror. He could remember distinctly what it looked like: white pale skin that was covered in aged blood, eyes as dark as the night sky, cheekbones that carved obvious features of being anorexic, and was powdered in fear. His heart raced faster the more he remember that this ghost have had appeared in his dreams when he was younger. It strangely resembled his mother.

As the bus approached near their final destination, Salem shook Cameron up gently and walked towards McDonalds. After indicating the series of events that occurred in his dreams in his thoughts, he delivered their order to an empty table and began consuming it.

"Lad, so what's your nightmares about anyways?" Cameron asked with a mouth full of french fries," What's so scary about 'em to which you gotta be this gutted out about?"

"Honestly, I don't really want to talk about it."

"Come on, if you're not going to get a damn therapist like I've been suggesting, at least I can do something to help. You can trust me." With concern, Salem judged his options and soon enough, he confessed.

"It's just a nightmare of me walking down the streets of where my dad lived and hearing weird words being said from afar. It sounded like it could be Korean, but I don't remember anymore of it to understand what it was. And having this tingly feeling on my back as if I was just stabbed," Salem gritted, "I don't know, I've never have had nightmares until two weeks ago when it all started."

"Maybe you just miss your family."

"Miss them? As if, I'm more than happy that I'm away from those assholes."

"Or it could be a sign."

"Hah, what sign? That they're dead to me? Cause that's what it seems to be like." Salem laughed as he continued to dip his fries on the small tray of ketchup.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, you never know"