AkuRoku - Another Life - Chap2

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Roxas’ POV
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It felt as if a knife had been shoved into my chest and then twisted for sadistic reasons. As if some cold-blooded villain decided that my life was of no importance. Everything that made sense was no more. Only faded visions of some life I never remembered. Faded memories of people who I must have known and loved somewhere, sometime. My mother said I had a condition, something that would go away in time if I didn’t dwell on the dreams, if I simply forgot them. But the more I tried the harder it became.

The dreams seemed to only increase in intensity, as if the one who was making me see these things had decided that I’d be punished for even trying to rid myself of them, for thinking that they’d go away. The feelings of emptiness and hopelessness started to seep into my life here. I couldn’t keep the images of the redhead who haunted them out of my daily thoughts. His bright green eyes that sparkled with inner light. The way they looked so sad and loving when looking at me….

I’m sometimes surprised I wasn’t put away in a mental facility when I actually began to tell people that I wasn’t Corey Lawrence but a boy named Roxas. Though I did start a regiment of medication. Doctors came to see me twice a week and my mom home schooled me. She refused to let me talk to other kids my age… said they’d only make my split personality worse. That those kids would call me Roxas on my insistence and would make me believe my mind’s lies all the more.

The doctors urged her to change her mind, said that interaction with others would help me believe that people cared about me and that no one would care if I left, if I was destroyed. By whom, I never quite grasped but it’s just something I always thought. It was something my dreams told me. Before long I was on anti-depressants and sleeping-aids and a pharmacy of drugs that’d make most kid’s bodies shut down in a year.

Slowly I sat up, my gaze turning toward the mirror across my bed-room. Even from the distance I could see my appearance of dirty blonde hair, flattened from my night of sleep. Usually I spiked it upward, it was a personal preference that some people didn’t understand, why spend a half-hour making my hair spike upward? I couldn’t tell them the dreams told me to do it… it’d make them look at me with that look of pitying concern. Slowly I made myself smile. I need to be happy. Finally the doctors had made my mom accept the fact that public school was the most important thing for me. That it was what’d help me… recover. Though I kind of think that my mom gave up on me. After all… can a condition go away after only getting worse steadily for thirteen years? Shaking my head I got up and quickly found the clothes I’d laid out the night before.

It was simple… a white t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans that were somewhat loose on my legs and a pair of black sneakers. I never put much effort into my clothing and that wasn’t going to change even with me having some where to go. It was my hair that was truly important. Making my way from my bedroom and into the bathroom, I took the half-hour carefully combing up my hair, gelling it, putting in the hair spray and waiting for it to sit and spike up. Just to be sure nothing would fall out of place I even took an extra ten minutes, making my mom yell ay me absolutely annoyed.

She’d made me explain my reasons for taking such care… she’d scoffed and said we needed to up my prescription obviously. She’d never understand that it was of free will that I did this. I didn’t feel compelled only because of my dreams, but because this is what simply felt right and natural. Her response was that natural wasn’t without all this gel and was when my hair was left alone. Heaving a sigh I took a final glance at my reflection before running downstairs and seeing my mother angrily tapping her foot against the hard-wood floor

“Corey. You’ll be late for your first day.”

“No I won’t. I have an hour before I need to be there.”

“We need you there early for the-”

“I will be! A full hour before I need to be in order to find my senior guide and get shown to my classes and get told the basic rules. Mom! I don’t want to be there two hours early!” I knew that I shouldn’t yell at her like this… she was taking a big chance for letting me do this. But her smothering was really growing tiresome.

In a act of defiance, or at least in my head an act of defiance, I subtly threw my pills down the drain of the sink and into the garbage disposal where they’d never be found while I grabbed my plate of eggs and pancakes. Settling down at a table, I listened to my mothers continual nagging and reminders on what to do and what to not do… things she’s told me for days ever since she’d agreed to this plan.

The hour hadn’t passed quickly enough, it seemed like a century before I had to grab my bag and trek out to the car, settle in and put on my seat belt. And that car ride… took about another century. I’d swear to a higher being that my mother was purposely driving slower then normal and taking the longest route to the public high school. My heart felt like it was going to rip a whole in my chest from the violence of it’s pulse… my stomach was in knots… my hands gripping the seat nervously. For some reason this felt like a step toward something I needed to do. Like I’d find something at this school. I didn’t know what, but I was anxiously awaiting it.

I sighed in relief as that school came into sight and we drove up the drive… my mother had called the principal when we were five minutes away, so the man, dressed in a suit, was waiting for us. I stared up at the school for several moments, even after my mother had exited I didn’t leave my seat… what was this feeling in my chest? This happy anxiety. I felt a shiver go through my body and as if it was my cue to leave the car, I undid my seat belt, opened the door and stepped out, taking my bag with me.

I smiled at the man who was to be in charge of me while he talked to my mother, the shy sort of a smile of a kid who’d do nothing wrong. I knew I needed to make a good image. Before I knew what was happening, I was being led through the hallways of the school, my mother was no longer at my side and I was all alone in this strange place with strange people I didn’t know. I felt right then… I guess what could have been separation anxiety. With a shake of my head, I tried to concentrate on the Principals words.

“-In class. Okay?”

“Umm… what was that?” I whispered softly, looking up at the man with large eyes as he paused in front of a door way, talking coming from inside

“I said it’s already in three periods. This is the time the seniors normally start class but I’m going to pull one out. He’ll lead you around, talk to you about what’s going on and take you to the cafeteria and stay with you until after lunch. Then he’ll leave you in class.”

“… Oh….” It was all I could say.

The man then knocked quickly on the door before opening it, calling out a name into the classroom. All went slightly quiet as one person answered, a voice that made my inner heart jump in happiness.

“He decided to be absent. I was put in charge by the teach. After all I am honors.”

“Alright then, come and gather your charge.”

The principal stepped out of the room, a tall and thin student following him out. The flaming red hair… the marks on the cheeks and those sparkling emerald eyes. Our gazes met and I knew then, that destiny had intervened.