Shards

Chapter 1
Broken Seal

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Chapter Description: Good dates are hard to find.

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Shards:

A Halloween Story

By GoldenS

Chapter One:

“Ew, no way! Get lost, creep.” For the umpteenth time, Jeremy was shot down for a date to his school’s Halloween dance. This time, it was by an average-looking girl’ Jeremy had officially given up asking hot girls, and was trying to settle for less, but apparently they weren’t going to settle for him. Jeremy was your typical nobody, wearing baggy jeans and an oversized hoody. His kind had become so common in his Massachusetts High School that he could pass for a ghost on the gymnasium wall during the dance with teenage women. He sighed deeply as he walked out of the school and onto his bus.

“There’s another undesirable thing about me,” Jeremy mumbled, “I don’t have any wheels.” Jeremy had already failed his permit test ten times, it wasn’t that he didn’t know the information in his study book, he had terrible test anxiety. This didn’t fly with the other senior-class ladies though, they demanded to be chauffeured around. As he sat alone in his two-seater bus seat, moping, when Jeremy was startled by a girl with long, blond hair that jumped out from the seat behind him.

“Hey Mopey! Did you get a hit yet?”

“That’s none of your business!”

“Sore are we? Guess not then.”

“Gee, thanks Kate.” Kate had always been Jeremy’s friend, they were the pair that sloshed around in a kiddie pool together without any kind of clothing. Jeremy and Kate always knew they could confide anything inside each other, and Jeremy knew she was only kidding. Regardless, her comments left a stingy reminder in his heart.

“Awe, you know I’m just messing with you. You’ll find someone someday.”

“Yeah, but we’re seniors. We’re supposed to be set up already.”

“That’s not true and you know it.”

“Whatever.”

“Hey, we could always hang out instead. Its Halloween tonight, after all, and we’ve spent Halloween together every night since forever.”

“Yeah, I guess. But I was hoping to have a senior year to remember, and how is it going to be special if I have the same old Halloween night?”

“What? Well fine! Go and sulk!” The bus pulled to a stop and Kate stormed off. Jeremy also slowly got off the bus and sulked off behind Kate, who was rushing to leave before Jeremy could make any attempt at an apology. Truthfully, Jeremy couldn’t care if his friend was mad, after how rude she’d been to him. He was at his house’s front door before he knew it. Large and white with pale blue shutters, Jeremy’s house was currently hidden under a thick layer of Halloween decorations. Cheesy ghosts, bubbling cauldrons, and cardboard ghosts covered the entire house. A scarecrow hung next to his front door with a silly grin painted onto his head. In an exceptionally bad mood, Jeremy smacked the scarecrow across the face for mocking him, and unlocked the door.

The inside of Jeremy’s house was just as over done as its outside. Austin, Jeremy’s eleven year old brother, was throwing his first ever real party tonight, and he was busy at work removing the lame childish designs their parents had covered the entire house in and was replacing them with more updated decorations.

“What are you doing?” Jeremy pretended not to know to rile his hormonal brother up.

“Can you believe all these lame decorations Mom and Dad put up! My friends are gonna laugh me outta middle school if I don’t get rid of them!”

“I dunno, Austin. They seem age-appropriate for you and your friends.” Jeremy snickered in a completely terrible mood.

“Hey! Take that back! I’m not a baby!” Austin ran up to Jeremy and punched him as hard as he could. Jeremy turned around and grabbed Austin’s arm and twisted it behind his back. Tears slowly began to escape Austin’s eyes and Jeremy forced Austin into a wall.

“You gonna apologize for hitting me?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“I don’t believe you, so to the couch.”

“No!”

“Yes!” Austin struggled in vain as Jeremy pulled him to the couch were he sat down silently and pulled Jeremy over his lap.

“You can’t do this! I’m too old!”

“You’re never too old for punishment, dear Austin.” Jeremy slid down Austin’s faded jeans and boxers and began to relentlessly spank his kid brother. The pillow next to Jeremy was soon stained with tears and his rump as red as the apples that were stocked up for bobbing as Jeremy let his frustration out on his brother. The pummeling went on for ten tortereous minutes, and it would have lasted longer if the phone hadn’t rang. Austin’s entire body relaxed as if he was under a painkiller, a defense against the overwhelming pain he had suffered. Jeremy answered the phone, surprised to see on the caller ID that his parents were calling him.

“Yeah mom, dad, whats up? . . . What? That’s not fair! I don’t want to babysit! I don’t care that you promised him, what about me and my feelings! No way, you can’t make it up to me!” Austin jumped as he heard Jeremy slam the phone down. He pulled his clothes up and tried to run away while holding them up, not bothering for his belt. Jeremy heard his brother try to escape him, and at the speed of lightning he caught his brother on the stairs and pulled him back to the couch. Seeing the discarded belt, he folded it up and began to whip Austin with it.

“Wha!!!! What did I do???”

“You threw your stupid party! Now I have to miss the dance to babysit you and your friends!”

“Why, ow, do you, oww, care, owwww? Its not like you have a date!” Austin picked the wrong thing to say, as Jeremy’s eyes began to glow red, and he whipped Austin’s bottom so hard that a blue spot appeared and a fine trickled of blood ran along it. And who better to let herself in at this time than Kate?

“Hey, Jeremy, I wanted to aplo, oh my god! What did you do to your brother?” Jeremy’s grip became non-existence, and at hearing a woman’s voice, Austin’s face turned redder still as he grabbed his pants and rushed upstairs.

“I can’t believe you! There’s a trail of blood following him upstairs! He could get an infection!”

“He insulted me.”

“So your pigheaded male pride caused you to hurt your brother on a day that’s important to him?”

“So you’re going to take his side? Over mine? We’ve been friends before he was fertilized!”

“I don’t know you! The Jeremy I know wouldn’t have beaten up a child.”

“I’m a young man.” Austin sniffled from upstairs.

“Listen to him! He’s still sniffling! Go, get lost! Roam the streets and beat up some Trick-or-treaters! Maybe a six year old this time!”

“Fine! I’ll leave! You can babysit that brats during their party!” Jeremy slammed the door on his way out. Kate sighed as she went upstairs to Austin’s room. Austin and Jeremy’s rooms were connected, when they first moved in it was one giant room, but as Jeremy aged he wanted privacy from his baby brother. Austin was sprawled out on Jeremy’s bed rather then his own. She walked over to the bed and sat down.

“Hey, kid, why don’t I fix you up so we can get ready for your party.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“You can’t cancel your party two hours before it starts! You’ll never be rid of the humiliation!”

“I don’t wanna you to see me naked.”

“Oh, that. Its no big deal. I’ve seen your mom change your diapers. Nothing new.”

“I’m older now.”

“Too old for medicine?” Kate asked as she patted Austin’s behind, causing him to squeal in pain.

“Ok, you win. Drug me up.”

“You are so Jeremy’s brother.”

Meanwhile, Jeremy briskly hustled over fallen branches and rotting tree trunks in the woods behind his neighborhood. He was furious that Kate, his friend of many years, would side with his brother over her best friend.

“He insulted me first!” Jeremy puffed between furious movements through the overgrown woods. The area technically belonged to the local government, but all plans to develop the area fell through when it was discovered that the area collected too much water due to its sloping downward, not to mention the entire crew of landscapers disappeared on their first trip into the woods. This made it the perfect place for Jeremy and Kate’s father to build them a tree fortress, only at the peak of its use the two parents kept the pathway out of disaray. Nowadays, after being abandoned, anyone wanting to visit the place needed to climb through walls of brambles, assuming of course that they knew it was even there.

Naturally, Jeremy hadn’t forgotten its existence. On the contrary, Jeremy used it whenever he felt terrible and needed a place to rub off his teenaged hormones, just like now. He almost felt a little better as he walked into the tree fortress’ clearing, vines clinging to the old building wooden walls that climbed up the tree to the house on top. The spiraling walls did nothing for the fort at all except for provide a solid staircase that anyone of any body type could access. Jeremy climbed up the stairs with increasing recklessness, wanting the reach the top quickly. When he got there, it looked exactly how he and Kate left it as children, small furniture and childhood memories lined the walls and floor. Jeremy even picked up and old action figure that had miraculously survived the elements, time, and Jeremy’s rage. Wanting to change this, Jeremy threw the action figure as hard as he could against the wooden floor. It harmlessly bounced off, however, as if the very floor willed itself to shatter, the ground beneath Jeremy and only that ground suddenly splintered and gave way, causing Jeremy to fall into darkness.

Jeremy couldn’t tell how long he had spent lying face-down unconsciously in the dirt, he only knew that the ground and he mouth reeked of blood. He tried to get up to move, but he found that his right leg wasn’t listening. He had broken it during the fall. He tried to scream for help, but was greeted by a fresh blast of blood from his nose, drenching his shirt. Jeremy knew he couldn’t get to his feet, so he dragged himself over to the side of the wall, he could tell that he was in the foundation of the stairs. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, it became apparent that his father hadn’t built this room, that he merely added the club house on top of it because he could see the melted remains of many candles.

“Please! Someone help me!” Jeremy began to cry uncontrollably, and not soon after, the ground he lay collapsed on began to glow with a purple light which circled throughout the room. Jeremy watched in terror as it gave life to the candles in the small room, and to something else. After all the candles were lite, the outline of an extremely young child appeared before him. It was a young boy, and he couldn’t have been older then 18 months. Glowing in faint purple, he waddled closer to Jeremy, who didn’t notice until it spoke to him.

“You have boo boo?” Jeremy look at the child and nodded his head up and down in pain. Jeremy’s eyes widened in hope at the sight of the child.

“Hey kid, is your mommy or daddy here?” The child shook its head.

“Big brother or sister? Aunty? Uncle? Grandma or Grandpa? Babysitter?” Jeremy’s heart sank more and more as the child shook its head at each of Jeremy’s hopes. Jeremy sighed in pain as he ran out of people to hope for. The child pointed at Jeremy’s leg and then to his broken nose.

“I make better? Ok?” Jeremy couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I’d like that kid, but there’s nothing you could do. Not if you’re alone.”

“Me help, you want?”

“Yeah, sure.” The child waddled over to Jeremy and snuggled itself between his arms and chest. Jeremy did feel a little better, having this cute child snuggle with him, but it only lasted for a second, because the child bit Jeremy. Hard.

“ARAGH!!!” Jeremy screamed, but as he felt pain from his arm, he felt a different feeling over the rest of his body. Slowly he could feel that all ten of his toes were numb, and the smell of a musty house entered his nose. His body began to tremble uncontrollably, and a wave of pure ecstasy washed over his body like warm water. His mind floated away on this current of joy, the pain in his arm feeling like a distant memory. His senses were completely overwhelmed. He couldn’t feel that suddenly, his sleeves and pant legs were growing, that his shirt was becoming more spacious, and that the source of his enjoyment was slowly growing. Before long, the pain started to come back into his arm, his hearing picked up the faint sound of sinking earth, his skin the creeping chill of the wind, the reeking dirt filled his nose as the light from many candles flooded his eyes. Jeremy blinked for a second and tried to get up, only to find that he couldn’t. As he struggled, he realized that he was in a net of some kind but to his astonishment it easily slipped off as he wriggled free. Looking around the room for answers, his eyes grew larger when he saw his cage, the vile cloth that had prevented his movement entirely.

They were his own clothes.

 

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