The awakener (bxb)✔

TA 17

Chapter 12

Riley's POV

After Casey left, mom brought me a plate of food, along with my medication. I ate the food and abstained from taking the pills yet, after a delicious meal, the last thing I wanted to taste were things that smelled bad and tasted like poison. Heeding Casey's advice, I took a bag which was supposed to be mine and opened it. It contained a drawing book, a bunch of car magazines and a novella. Why did I have car magazines in my school bag? I took out the drawing book and the novella. When I got to bed, I was breathless. I opened the drawing book. I paged through, it did not seem like the drawings were done by me. I was getting frustrated as I paged. Then, it hit me. A wave of memories hit me. The places where I had done the drawings materialized in my head. Those moments seemed like the day before. There was something else. The drawings seemed to be connected to something else, like an event. They seemed to tell a story, but they were not in the correct order, so it was confusing.

I did not possess the energy to pierce the pieces together. I opened the page of the last drawing. It was not really a drawing. There was a huge line that seemed to have been made by a stray pencil. I closed my eyes hard. I remembered. I remembered the pain that lashed through my hand that day. I remembered the screaming too. I clenched my fist tightly and opened my eyes. I shook my head vehemently. Something was wrong with that memory. It did not seem real, in my quest to remember, I had invented a memory. There was something unnatural about it. I was normal; there was no doubt about it.

I closed the drawing book and looked at the novella. A loose page fell off it. I picked it up and read aloud:

...stared at him for a long time. He looked normal. He looked human, just like me. Maybe he was human. I chased the thought out of my mind with a knife. He was not human; he looked human, just like all the Darkeners did.

He started crying, his voice engulfing the whole room. I picked him up and held him against my chest. He was so soft, so precious, I wanted to cry. Tears visited my eyes, but I fought against them. There was a knock on the door as the crying quieted down.

I held my baby hard against my chest. My heart started beating faster. Luca made some sounds, clearly uncomfortable with the way I was holding on to him.

"It's me", I heard a voice outside the door.

My heart slowing down, I walked over to the door, unlocked it and opened.

"I came to see how you're doing", the owner of the voice said.

He was a man of thirty. He was handsome, clean-shaven with brown shrewd eyes. You could tell he was intelligent and gave off an air of authority. He was gentle with me.

"I'm fine", I said, smiling weakly.

The way I looked clearly contradicted with my answer. My hair was messy, I had dark shadows underneath my eyes and my eyes were all puffy and red.

"Are you going through with your decision?" he asked.

"Yes Nathan, it's the only way", I said.

He walked towards me until he was inches away from me.

The knock on the door interrupted me. I packed the books under my pillow, before saying,

"Come in".

Mom walked in.

"Did you take your medication?" she asked.

I looked at the pill containers and shook my head. I did not wait for her to scold me. I took out a pill from each of the two containers. I swallowed them with water respectively. Satisfied; mom took the empty plate, glass and the containers, kissed me goodnight and walked out. I resumed my reading.