12

These sheets are garbage. Every dumpster I’ve ever slept in was more comfortable than shit. Why is it so scratchy? Is this mattress made of spiderweb? Damnit there’s no oxygen in here. Is my window open? Hell is that? Is that a shadow? Why is it looking at me. What the hell, close your eyes. Close your eyes and sleep you dipshit it’s been three hours. Three hours? Three hours of this torture? Stop. Stop your leg from shaking. Why is your leg shaking. Take a painkiller, it will help. No, dipshit I already took two. One a day, idiot. Have a wank? No, haven’t done that in ages. Shit…uhhhhh, count sheep? Counting sheep, that’s dumb. They’re all dead. Dead as you’re going to be after you go for Qiara. You and Kaloaan both. Not Zorikan though. He’ll survive. He always does. Actually, you probably will too. Kaloaan will die and you’ll have to live with it. Better than me dying and him having to live with it, right? So it’s selfless. Bullshit, you cynical twat. Yes. Yes I am a cynical twat. That’s why the hell I’m alive god damnit. And I am not suicidal, so I have no idea why I’m going on a suicide mission. Damnit I’ve already been on two, isn’t three pushing it? Shit shit ughhhhhhhhhhh I swear I’m going to-

“Tallin.”

Shit!

I jolt upright, kicking the blanket off my legs. It clings to my sweat like a straight jacket.

Bitch argh!

I squirm and wriggle trying to kick it off. Shit who’s in my room.

“Tallin?” the whisper comes again.

Blanket get off!

“Ow!” I hiss as I clunk off the bed. Stupid ass blanket.

“Tallin are you ok?”

“Where… who are you?” I ask, finally peeling the blanket away and getting up.

“Outside the door. It’s me, Yannis. I got a bottle of vodka, d’you wanna go up to the roof to drink? Terrel and Arika are waiting.”

Dude, they aren’t your friends remember? Lay goddamn low, not get black out drunk on the second day. Relax, it’s a single bottle between four of us. They aren’t my friends. I have friends waiting for me outside this prison. If they’re still alive. While I’m inside this prison. Getting drunk with my other friends. Not my friends, screw them. Yeah screw them. But… not the bed. I’m not going back to that horrid god forsaken torture device. No, vodka it is.

“Tallin are you like… alive?”

“Yeah sorry. Just thinking.”

“Hey man, if you’re too pussy I totally get it and all.”

“Nah bro,” I say, opening the door and shutting it gently behind me. “I was just wondering if you guys are worthy drinking buddies,” I add with a lopsided grin.

“Oh right, the whole ‘I’m too good for you’ superiority complex. It’s getting old, dude,” Yannis says turning away from me.

Jeez, what’s this guy’s deal?

I follow him up the stairs. It’s funny seeing him walk. He’s wearing a huge T-shirt, pajama bottoms and is barefoot, but for some reason I find the fact that he’s half a head shorter than me hilarious. I’m already short and all, but this guy’s pretty tiny. And his long hair just makes it worse. It’s like… longer than mine but really straight…

“Are you laughing?” he asks, pausing.

“Huh?”

“I swear I heard you laughing.”

“Dude, how much of that have you already drunk?”

He scoffs, then opens the door to a room. The wafting smell of weed tells me that it is certainly his. He props open his window, which leads onto the slanted roof. Man, why couldn’t I have gotten this room?

With painstaking slowness, he clambers out, teeters on the edge for a bit, then begins to inch up the shingles. I ease out and use the window itself to pull myself higher, then scamper to the top, the vertex of the roof, or whatever it’s called. I stand, balancing easily against the soft wind. The night is warm.

“Dude are you crazy?” Yannis hisses.

“No. You’re just slow.”

I lope along the top of the roof, searching for the others. The smoggy West Side air is a thousand times better than that… armpit stench, that occupies every crevice of the dormitory. I look at the school as a bird… a ghastly skeleton of the silicon being it is during the day.

I hear a grunt as Yannis precautious peeps his head over the top of the roof, next to where I’m standing. “They’re over there,” he says pointing halfway across the school. My eyes subconsciously map the way to get there. Over the younger boy’s dorm, the roof of the indoor sports court and onto the mathematics building. There’s a stretch of flat roof, where the math and the science building’s meet. I can vaguely see two figures, sprawled out and looking at the sky.

“You climbed the whole way here?” I ask.

Yannis huffs, finding his footing to stand up. “Not willingly. We did that odds game. I didn’t even want to call you man. Terrel wanted that. Then he and his bitch ass cheated… and here I am, hauling your ungrateful ass to drink liquor that I bought. Some world.”

“Yeahhh, life’s a bitch and then you die, huh?”

“Pretty much,” he grumbles, teetering on.

I overtake him in a couple strides and fly across the rooftops. Kallix Rane on rooves is like a wolf in a forest. I’m fast. I’m in my element. This is why I’m alive. I’m alive because I know how to move, not because I’m selfish and cynical.

My self-loathing thoughts melt away as the wind and my adrenaline perform a courteous dance of intimacy, liberating my soul from my mind. I’m a raven, soaring over my land. The bigger and the brawnier, they dominate the desolation, but I am it’s king. It is I who lead them to their kills and feed of their remains. My wings cause the ripple that leads clans against one another. When bear turns of wolf and viper on weasel. I am the puppet master. A raven in the sky, with strings that lead the hulking towards their fates. A raven in the sky… a raven in its nest… Ravven.

Shit.

I tumble down the shingles, scrambling away from the gutter and barely managing to land with an uncoordinated roll. I blink and pick myself up, looking around. Terrel and Arika should be just over this roof. The comically small form of Yannis is still tottering along, many meters away.

I scuttle to the top of the roof, seeing the small stretch of concrete, littered with trash and old balls. Terrel and Arika are in the corner, reclined against the roof, tangled into each other. I slide down.

“Wow, you got here fast, Dingo” Terrel says with his eyebrows arched.

“You weren’t lying about what you can do,” Arika says, untying herself from Terrel and standing up. “Saw you from across. You’re like a raccoon.”

Flashes of Arika telling me the exact same thing try to give me epilepsy. I manage to respond with a shaky laugh. Where the hell is Yannis?

“Hey, look up there,” Terrel says excitedly, pointing to the sky. “I think I can see a star.”

“Really?” Arika looks up as well.

“That’s a plane, mate,” I tell him.

“Oh… well shit.”

Silence’s reign is brief, before they both erupt into laughter.

“One of these days, we’ll see one,” Terrel assures Arika.

I hear a grunt, and turn to see Yannis, sooner than I expected, hauling himself over the last roof. He slides down wearily, bottle in hand. Once he reaches the ground, he spits a string of curses I’ve never even heard before. “Drink up, you ungrateful quim sucking bastards.”

Terrel grabs the bottle from him. “At long last.” He puts his lips to the bottle’s and takes a swig. I watch in amusement as his face contorts in response to the foulness. He smacks his lips. “It’s been two long.”

“Two weeks is too long now?” Arika asks, taking the next swig. She’s evidently a better drinker than him. “What happened to end of term only?” She hands it to me.

I hold the contents up to the faint moonlight.

“We’re supposed to be drinking it, not admiring it,” Yannis mutters, waiting impatiently.

“How can I not admire it?” I ask. I put it to my lips and drink for five seconds straight. As I’m wiping my lips with my forearm, my eyes twinkle at Terrel and Arika’s gawking expressions. I shove the bottle into Yannis’s small arms.

“Where… how… did you learn to drink like that?” Terrel asks.

“The streets,” I mutter. Idiot. You’re not from the streets, remember? You’re Tallin, spoilt East Side kid or whatever. “Had a friend who lived on the streets, and he used to take me to all the best backstreet clubs. All the damn time.”

Yannis is staring at something on his phone, absent mindedly sipping at the vodka.

“Sheesh, I need to try and do that.” Terrel takes the bottle back from Yannis.

“Hey I wasn’t done with that!”

“Terrel you’re gonna burn through you’re throat,” Arika warns.

He takes four glugs before handing the bottle back to Arika in defeat, coughing and rubbing his neck.

“Idiot,” Yannis mutters.

Arika tries to take a sip through her laughing but snorts it back up. I can’t help but laugh at that. “Teach us, master Dingo,” she says, shoving it back into my hands.

I glug down more of it.

“Hey don’t finish it!” Yannis cries, pocketing his phone.

“I hope none of you have herpes,” I say with a burp.

Terrel and Arika erupt into laughter. “Arika definitely does,” Terrel informs, taking the bottle from Yannis.

“What?” Arika cries.

“Remember that dude you necked during summer last year? The one who looked like a couch?”

“What the hell?” I ask, cackling.

“Agh, you trust what Hoyagg told you? Idiot. Give me that.” She pulls the bottle from him and drinks more, until she staggers backwards, nearly tripping. I instinctively move to her side, steadying her.

I hand the bottle to Yannis, but she stays slumped into me, her eyes locked on mine. They’re… pretty, I must say. And her hair, damn, I’m always a sucker for hair… how does it fall in such jagged strands? Why does…

Yarika’s bone thin, grey skin flashes in front of my face. Shiiiit.

Arika shrieks as I drop her.

Terrel and Yannis burst into laughter. Yannis drinks more. Terrel tries his glugging again, downing more this time.

“Damnit, Dingo, what the hell?”

“Sorry. Sorry,” I mutter, rubbing my eyes. They aren’t my friends. Don’t apologize. Lay low, don’t create drama.

Arika drinks more.

“Ah lighten up, lad,” Terrel encourages, giving me more.

I’m not going to get drunk. I can feel the comforting corrosion of my throat, as nostalgic as a childhood memory. I’m not going to get drunk, but they don’t know that. I could finish this bottle and be sober enough to escape a cop. Maybe two.

“Alright folks,” Terrel begins, taking a swig. “Truth or dare.”

“Dare! Dare me! Dare me to drink some more,” Arika says, giggling.

Damnit, how light weight are these guys?

“Yannis!” Terrel calls.

“Truth,” he mutters, picking up a stick that’s nearly his height and using it to support himself like some ancient wizard.

That’s hilarious. I can’t help but laugh at that. I’m not drunk.

“Ok…ok which was… when was the first time you… smoked,” Terrel asks, his words slurred.

“Uhhhhh, grade six…… but it was like with a bong at a party, by bro’s party… I dunno of that counts but like… only took one puff so like….”

No wonder he’s such a junkie.

“Tallin! Dingo! You’re turn!” Terrel hollers.

“Awww, I thought it was my turn,” Arika moans.

“Chilllllllllout a bit girl… Dingo’s up.”

“What’s the question?” I ask.

“How was the first girl… or boy… that you necked?” he staggers forwards into me, bottle in hand. I pry it from him. That question doesn’t even make sense. Arika takes the bottle from me.

“Um… I must’ve been eleven. This girl and I, her name was… Kristi? Katy? Something like that, I’m not sure. We went to the bathroom to explore. We kissed a bit and whatever, little did I know she was a chronic porn addict and wanted to give me a blowjob. My dick barely even worked at the time.”

Yannis doubles over with laughter, dropping his wizard stick, then tripping over it. How am I not supposed to laugh at that?

“Yeah? Well mine was totally different,” Arika says, slinging her arm over my shoulder. Her head lolls against mine. She grapples against me, struggling to get her legs beneath her body.

Terrel takes the body from her and drinks. He doesn’t cringe. The more you drink, the easier it gets. But I won’t get drunk. I just… need to make sure these guys don’t get themselves killed, right? No, they’re not my friends. Not my responsibility.

“Are you… going to tell us the rest of it?” Terrel asks, making a very weird face.

“No. Screw you guys,” Arika responds.

Yannis brushes hair from his face, and drags his stick to Terrel, taking the bottle. “Bunch of twats. Why didn’t we bring any joints. I sweat I’d brought some joints.”

“You want to smoke now?” I ask him.

“Yeah… yeah it will be awesome.”

He fumbles around in his pockets, pulling out a lighter.

That… might help me relax. It might help me stop goddamn overthinking all this shit. No, overthinking is why you’re still alive. Not because of all the stupid bullshit you’ve done. That’s why you’re fun. Overthinking is why you’re alive.

Yannis struggles to light something in the dark.

“Dude that’s a pencil,” Terrel tells him.

“Buzz off man, I know what I’m doing,” Yannis hisses.

Arika takes another swig, then tilts her head upwards, looking me in the eye. “That blowjob you got… when you were eleven… was it any good.”

“I was eleven,” I mutter. “Get off me.” I shrug, and she staggers away, crashing into Yannis and despite Arika being a relatively small girl, wearing a denim jacket and flowery short-skirt, she utterly flattens him.

“Woahhhh!” Terrel exclaims, making an overexaggerated gesture of leaping out of the way. He staggers through the junk, then trips over some trash.

“Hey Terrel, stop that,” I say.

Arika pulls herself up, grabbing my hand. I look back at her and time freezes for a moment.

In the moonlight, I see her face. This is different. She isn’t particularly attractive, like Rieka or Tauren, but her pupils are dark and her iris’s are vivid. Her eyes are dark with eyeshadow, and her lips are splotched with lipstick, things that would normally repel me from a mile away, but now… her strands of hair, brush gently against my sweaty wrist and make me blink. I’m not drunk. I can’t get drunk. I…

Arika screams.

I whirl around, seeing Yannis snap upright. I look back for Terrel but… he’s gone. Shit, he must’ve fallen off.

Arika screams again.

“Holy shit. Holy shit!” Yannis shouts, scrambling to his feet.

…

…

…

RUN

…

…

…

Shingles rip free from the roof as I careen forwards, surging with the speed of a diving falcon. The crests and troughs let me ease past them. I… I vault, I slide, I sprint… too fast… they can’t catch up… the death… it can’t catch me.

I nearly overshoot the window, but manage to kick off the spindly gutter, breaking it, but grabbing hold of the windowsill and clawing back it. I knock over half the things on Yannis’s desk and drop to the floor, landing on my side. Winded, but unstoppable I scramble, flinging open the door and launching myself down the stairs, then slide down the bannister until I reach my door. I open it and get back inside my prison. Freedom tastes of blood.