Before It's Voiced

Mystery

mys·ter·y

noun

something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain.

Pete's not certain he believes in mermen but he's starting to believe in ghosts. What else could be causing such odd images to haunt his mind at all hours of day and night?

Haunting him, hanging on his thoughts like a retired coat, is the sight of a creature's human eyes— intelligent and cunning, blinking wide with beauty in each flutter of those golden lashes. Curiosity— want for another sight, greed for more visions of the impossible being— wars at him, battling the natural instinct to hide from the unknown. His terror stops him from opening the door each time the sun falls, pausing him with his hands shaking and wrapped around the cool handle.

Terror and fear are what control his movements when— every hour, for the next two nights— he locks the door instead of opens it.

If he doesn't see it— see him— again, he can convince himself that none of it was real. It was a dream. It was a trick. It was nothing important.

Still, poetic prose of blue-gold eyes and dripping porcelain skin litter the pages now scattered on his bedroom floor.

A few pages, and nothing more.

His agent had called the night before, the only call he knew he'd have to answer. She'd meant well, though her piercing voice never makes her sound well, and reminded him of his two-month deadline.

Another book, Peter, she'd said, on the line between pleading and demanding. Just one more book.

Pete stares at the papers by his feet. His feet, cold and bare as the night he stepped into sand, walked across rocks and saw a—

He runs his hands down his face. He can't think about the merman. He can't think about the merman. He needs to focus on his book, get to work at putting these character descriptions into a plot and that plot into a novel. He needs to end this contract, at last, and free himself from the lifestyle he never asked to be in. He needs time to write, time to think.

He needs inspiration.

Time hangs suspended as he lets his hands fall once more to his side.

He needs inspiration.

Goddamnit.

His eyes, as traitorous as his mind, skip to the window, watching the darkness take reign once more. The stars, blurred by the glass, still spin and beg him to bathe in their light.

The stars weren't created to protect him, Mr. Urie had said.

But that merman hadn't harmed him, hadn't done more than return the charm around Pete's neck. Pete reaches, stroking his fingers along the sun on the chain. A star of his own.

Those stars weren't meant to protect him but this one was. And that's comforting enough to have him walking to the back door.

He expects his mind to freeze up once again, to stop him at the last second and send him off to his bed with fantasies rather than memories. He's prepared for the short-circuit.

But he doesn't back down when the door is finally open before him.

Cool air, just like that night. Stars like glitter and ocean waves whispering a prayer to the sand. The moon hangs high in the sky, lighting the path he had taken before.

The ocean doesn't stray from its rhythm but Pete convinces himself the shadows dancing along the surface are that of a young man swimming back and forth, the scales of his tail catching the light of the stars and throwing them back into the sky. Maybe, instead of clearing his waters of trash and wood, he's protecting the darkness from light.