Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

Part 1

The boy's shaggy black hair hung loosely from his head, which was facing the grass below him. He hung from the tree about three feet off the ground, blue eyes open wide in a dark stare. It was only a matter of days until someone would find the body, hung by a self-made noose from an oak tree in the middle of a beautiful, yet large and dangerous forest which a neighbourhood of suburban houses overlooked.

He wore white that day. A soft cotton button-up shirt with ironed black suit pants and plain black dress shoes. His hair was decorated with pastel blue daisies, picked from the woods. His death had been peaceful, and hopefully whoever happened upon his body would think the same.

His killer stared at him hanging there, motionless as the trees around him. It was around seven in the evening and the sun was beginning to set in the distance. The other boy was the same age, sixteen years old.

* * *

As he walked away from the trees and the hanging body, the other boy tugged at his hair nervously, and started heading down a familiar road. Only it wasn't the right direction now, the road lead to his old house. Only that road didn't lead towards his house now. It lead towards the house of the hanging boy in the woods.

* * *

The boy's name was Caspian, or Cass for short.

No.

That's not his name.

That's the name of the boy who had this body before him.

What was his?

He couldn't remember.

Was there an M?

No.

It certainly ended with an S.

Did it start with an H?

Maybe an R?

It had to have been Harris.

No.

It had been years since he could remember his name.

But it certainly had an I and ended with an S, so he choose to go by Iss.

He isn't exactly sure what he is, but he definitely exists, he just "is" and that's the part of his name he ended up hanging on to.

* * *

He arrives home just after sundown when the sky is a nearly black expanse hanging over his head, along with every other emotion he's been holding on to. The house is a pastel blue country home with white accents. The front door includes one screen door and another thicker, wooden white door. Caspian presses the doorbell to his own home, then realizes his mistake when it's too late. His mother opens the heavy inside door.

"Cass dear, what are you doing ringing the doorbell? Are you feeling alright? This is the second night in a row you've done this."

He looks down at the wood panelled porch and tugs at his hair. "Y-yea mom, I forgot again"

He can't look at her. They're going to send him away if he continues doing these strange things. His mother sighs and holds open the front door, urging her son to come in and have some dinner. It's nearly eight o'clock now and rather cold, despite it being the summer.

She silently wonders to herself what her son is doing out in the cold this late wearing a loose shirt and shorts. Or why he's holding a shovel and why his hands are caked in mud. But she doesn't ask, because as the mother of two other children who have already gone through their teenage years, she realizes that the things some teenagers do can be strange. So she lets him have his privacy, like a good mother would, and doesn't ask about anything as he washes his hands in the family bathroom.

Family dinner is no enjoyable task. Caspian can't look either of his parents in the eye, nor his two older siblings. His sister is eighteen going on nineteen in a few weeks and her name is Florence. His older brother, the eldest of the three, is twenty-four and his name is-

Err...

Something starting with an A, Iss is sure of it. Only Cass is expected to know the name of his eldest brother, who he's known all his life. Iss realizes this will cause trouble for him in the future until he figures out what exactly the name of his brother i-

"Atticus," says their father, "could you please pass the green beans?" The twenty-four year old picks up the bowl and hands it to their father.

Atticus! That's it! What an old fashioned name. How could he have forgotten what it was when it's so memorable? Maybe he just didn't hear it until now.

* * *

That night he had the same dream he always had. This was the first time he had the dream in this house. It always goes the same way. It's dark all around him, and he can't feel anything. It's cold. He tries to call out, to scream or simply speak, or even whisper, but he can't. He never can. He looks up at the stars, at least they're beautiful as always. In the darkness of the night sky, he can make out one particularly bright line of white stars that always appear in this dream. He's not sure what they are. They're not stars one can find in the actual night sky, they're much brighter and they appear much closer.

Then, the dream ends as his vision fades and the stars disappear. And everything is even colder.

* * *

The next morning is a bright summer one. The boy's bedroom is on the upper floor of the house, and overlooks the family's backyard. He wakes up with sunbeams hitting his eyelids, and puts his hand up over his face. They live on a farm in a small town, and the house is surrounded with grassy fields and fields of growing crops.

The only thing that could possibly ruin a morning this beautiful are the piercing screams of the mother of a boy who'd been missing for nearly three days. "We'll find him." The detectives told her, "he can't have gone that far on foot, not farther than our patrol cars can reach."

Only the search had been in the wrong place. The officers of that small town had been searching for a runaway boy, one who they'd never imagined could have suicidal tendencies. One that they certainly hadn't expected to only have travelled a short walking distance from his own home, just to kill himself. The suicide of Jean Caldwell, of course, would be the subject of interest for a long time. Especially in such a small town like this one.