Upside Down (COMPLETE) Inside Out, Book 2 [BoyxBoy]

Parker

He didn't scream that night like he usually did during such rituals. But when he woke up, he vomited a lot on his bed.

He purged until his nausea subsided, letting the python venom and the blood he'd consumed the other day left his system. An ache shot into his head, his heart racing like it'd never beat before. He was supposed to be able to contain the nightmares. He should've never lost his control like this.

He had seen the boy. He looked young and innocent, standing under trees and every time Parker wanted to reach out to him, the boy faded like a mirage. Then he would reappear somewhere else, standing static, his eyes looking surprised. Or confused. The boy's eyes sparkled, as if he was about to cry watching Parker from afar.

Coughing, Parker stood up and ran to the other side of his vast bedroom. He went to his study desk, rummaging through his stuffs to find an empty surface to transfer the image in his memory on something visible. Parker knew he wouldn't lose the vision of the boy; the potion was certainly strong enough this time, but he couldn't help thinking it would fade.

The boy was just . . . a young man, though. Innocent, pure and pretty . . .

No, Parker told himself. The worst enemies were the cleverest to put such unexpected facades to hide themselves. Parker scoffed; at least his malice and violence could be seen. In fact, he'd never thought of hiding them; those who had masks to protect themselves were cowards, and this boy was definitely one.

Finally, he found his old sketching pad. A long time ago, Parker Sebastian used to draw, one of the suggested therapy method from the Custody to help him rehabilitate himself from his extreme monstrosity. It worked, somehow; Parker was a potential young artist when he was a mortal wizard before.

Seeing the sketchpad tugged some memories inside his head that he refused to remember. He brushed dusts off the blank white sketchpad and pulled his wand out. Closing his eyes, Parker tried to pull back what he remembered in the dream. The vision was crystal-clear now—thanks to the potion and his own credibility—and now he only needed to transform these visualizations to a literal piece that he could analyze and observe.

"Project," he spelled silently, and brought the tip of his wand to the surface of the paper. Like a stick giving a slight touch on a surface of water, the paper rippled, forming the sight of a night forest on the whole sketchpad like an oil painting.

The boy was only a plain black shadow on the paper, standing on one of the trees there.

Parker groaned, almost breaking his wand in half. Calm down. He tried again, tugging his vision more intensely this time. For a moment, he wondered why the vision didn't appear as clear as it was in his head. Had he been casting the spell nonchalantly? He breathed in, tore off the piece of paper and clung into the vision inside his mind. "Project."

The scenery of the forest became more vivid on the piece of paper, but the shadowy figure of the boy was still a grayish blur. Parker tried again, tearing off the sketchpad piece by piece, crumpling and tossing the projected imaginings to scatter around the room.

He tried to focus on the boy's face this time instead of the background. After what seemed like the umpteenth time, the visual was almost fully translated onto the paper, looking nearly perfect.

The projected piece looked like a zoomed photograph, only now he was seeing the boy from his chest up to his face.

Parker's heart pulsated hard in his chest, his guard threatened by the innocence of the boy's eyes, with the figurative size of his complexion. Again.

Who was he? It didn't feel right that this person was the one all along to plot a murder against a powerful immortal like him. Doubts started to come in, but Parker fended them away. There was only one way to find out now.

But the grief in your eyes . . .

He didn't have time to stall. Parker proceeded to his desk and pulled open a drawer, taking out a small rectangular black box. He opened the lid and there were long shallow tube-like holes inside of it, compartments for various types of his wands. Parker placed the one he'd been using—the Novice's—and took the gold-colored Magus's wand, the best kind out of all wands, in replacement. Nobody but the high-ranked Magus could use this one, with Parker in the exception. The different kind of magic wielders are only to be used with the level of magic one possesses, each of them having different capabilities. But after the Change, Parker could automatically practice and own the Magus's wands, and this sure brought a lot of worry among the Maguses in the Community of Magicians.

Parker approached the nearest wall, the wand in one of his hands and the projected image on the other one. Standing facing the wall, Parker brought the tip of his golden wand to the paper and muttered, "Extract to last location."

The lines on the paper glowed in different shades of color, highlighting every detail in it, including the background of the forest. With the tip of his wand again, Parker touched to disable the glow on the background, only giving focus to the figure of the boy. Then, when the right glowing lines were finalized, Parker brought the tip of the wand again, and casted under his breath, "Save."

The wand sucked away the glowing lines from the paper, and suddenly it illuminated the wand in light blue.

This was the moment. If Parker would be send right in front of this young man, he would not doubt for murder and torture. Well, maybe some interrogation and enlightenment wouldn't hurt before making him fatal—Parker couldn't deny that he really was sort of curious about the motive behind this secret killer.

"Peregro," he mentioned, and a blue-colored laser shot out of the wand. Parker brought it to shoot on the wall, drawing a rectangle twice his size, starting from the bottom of the floor up over the height of his face. The cement burned lightly in the wall, forming a huge door.

Parker let out his mischievous grin. He was ready to consume blood.

He pushed the door and the wind rushed past him, only to find himself stepping into a small, messy bedroom.