ALONE
All fifteen chapters up. Read it now!

To new readers!
Basic storyline. Our lead character, Tovar (who you can see in the banner in my sig), has a nightmare and then wakes up to have a pile of illogical and insane stuff start happening. Within a day, he finds himself in the same location as his nightmare, falling into constant dreams as he tries to work out why he's here, and if he's even alive.


Chapter Links
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen

Full Story Link
Part One
Part Two

I take it this is the afterlife.

What kind of afterlife is this? Is it heaven? Hell? Something a lot more like earth? Like another planet? Something the character's thoughts can influence? Something the deity can influence? IS there a deity in charge here? Etc, etc. If not, well, you'll need to explain that. >.>

Knowing what you intend to do with this afterlife would help you start writing. We, as readers, need to know about the setting. Characters too, but only you can ultimately decide that.

It's up to the reader to decide what it is, I guess. I know what it is to me. You could say it's an afterlife; hell, or even purgatory. Sorry for my vagueness, you'll understand when I continue =P

As for the setting, for the most part it's a big open plain of red earth. Day and night cycles as normal, and there's the occasional tree or town. It's like a desert, almost.

Chapter 1

Red.
  He walked through the red plains, dust flying up behind his cloak. He was a man of authority. Just looking at him made you want to do anything for him. He had a smile that captured everything in its grasp. He wore knee-high boots, black robes and a cloak. But no one laughed at his out of place fashion style.
People screamed.
  The mysterious man continued walking, eyeing his red, red surroundings. A huge expanse of red dust, with a few cracks here and there. A desert? It reminded the man of Mars.
  Thinking to himself, he continued walking and something caught his eye. Standing out against the red, there was something different. He strode, eating at the dust with his boots, towards the thing far in the distance.
  As he approached, it became clear it was a town. Or rather, a hamlet. It had about six houses, a shop, and a church.
  The man kept walking into the hamlet. The houses were empty of life. There was no one, nothing. He walked to the church and finally came to a stop. It was your typical church. Tall, for one thing, he noted. He noticed something else, and finally smiled that demanding smile of his. He raised one hand.

He screamed.
  He sat up, sweaty, rubbing his eyes with his hands. It was only a dream. Just a dream.
  He swung his legs out of the bed and tried to recall what had scared him. There had been this man... walking. It wasn't that, no. Something about this man. Something this man did. What was it...?
  He went downstairs, still shaking, and opened the fridge. The man had gone somewhere. Some town, maybe...? And then it went black. He couldn't remember anything after that.
  Pouring a glass of milk, he cursed the fact you always seemed to forget your dreams. Dreams held a significant purpose, he thought. Any time he had a nightmare, a really bad day was about to follow, without question.
  He drank the milk, pondering the dream. It was a bad dream, of course. Why else would he have woken up screaming? At least he lived alone, otherwise his mother would be in to calm him and that was really embarrassing.
  He flicked the TV remote into his hand. He'd lived alone since six months ago, the day he turned sixteen. He hated his family. They were all so... better than him, expecting him to perform miracles, sneering and laughing at every mistake he made. So he lived alone. Worked an average job. Got a loan out from the bank for a house. Was enough to keep himself going. House prices were through the floor lately and he found someone selling this nice one. He sat down on one of the comfortable chairs that had come with it.
  Or at least, he assumed they had come with it, he didn't remember buying them. Strange he didn't even remember how he had obtained something like a chair. It's generally vaguely memorable. Come to think of it, he couldn't remember the lady who sold him this place, either. That was only six months ago. "Pathetic," as his father would say. "Tovar couldn't remember what time it is if he had a watch!"
  Tovar was his name. He hated that name. He went through his entire life with people asking him how to spell it, telling him "oh, well THAT'S a strange name, ain't it?" Yes, it's a strange name. There was also the fact the metaphor made no sense. If he had a watch...? How would a watch help him remember the time? His father always did that, saying things and thinking he sounded really clever when actually he sounded stupid.
  Maybe the dream was right, he suddenly thought. He'd been up for around ten minutes and he'd already condemned his family to death. He shrugged and turned the TV on.
  Tovar screamed for the second time that morning as a single word, shaking appeared in the middle of the screen accompanied by someone shouting it.
  "Tovar!" he voice yelled at him. He crouched back in his seat, shaking again, and turned the TV off. Nothing happened.
  "Do you not remember, dearest?"
  The words appeared as the voice said them.
  "Your dear family, Tovar? They looked after you and you repay them with hate!?"
  He shook his head. What the hell was going on?
  "Do you remember your sister? Oh, you hated your sister. She was so much better than you at everything she did, so... effortlessly..."
  The words appeared less sharp now, almost tauntingly.
  "Have you seen her recently? Like THIS!?"
  Tovar screamed again as suddenly his sister was shown on screen.
  With a bloody face and her mouth half open, about to scream.
  "She doesn't look so good, does she?"
  The voice laughed maniacally and Tovar jumped out of his seat. He ran to the socket in the wall and unplugged it. The laughing stopped.
  He sat back, shaking. Was he still dreaming? He pinched himself. No, that just hurt, nothing else. What was that...? TVs could talk? Why to him directly? Did other people get that message and wonder what the hell just happened?
  He stopped shaking, and trudged his way back to his room. Go to sleep, forget about it. He lay down in bed, and closed his eyes. The image of his sister appeared in his head. He shook his head and opened his eyes again. It was going to be a long night.

Huh. I can't get the spaces before each paragraph to work. How do you do it?

Alt+255. Use multiple. It's really annoying.

Quite.
What'd you think of, y'know, the story? =P

I thought it needed more indentation.


But really, I hadn't read the story yet when I posted that comment. It's less awkward in context.

I like your narration style, especially with characterizing Tovar, and the contrast of the dream with the realism of the world. AKA the dream seemed surreal, and the story seemed real, which is cool to have two separate worlds that are actually individually defined. It shows versatility.

That alt code is a Godsend, thanks!

Chapter 2

The mysterious man with the cloak gazed at his surroundings. They were in complete ruin, as if a bomb had gone off. He shrugged his cloak back onto his shoulders and walked away from the little hamlet. Roughly six houses and a shop. No church to be seen.

A continued dream?
  Tovar didn't get it. The man was the one in his dream before. What had he done? The town was ruined after he got there, but...
  He slowly got dressed, trudged his way downstairs, opened the fridge and got out a bottle of milk. Pouring himself a glass, he suddenly remembered the TV last night.
  Putting the bottle down, he almost tripped his way over to the TV and turned it on.
  "What's the situation?"
  He breathed out, suddenly realising he'd been holding his breath the whole time. CSI was on. Overrated show, he thought to himself, but not his bloody, defaced sister.
  First the dream, then that. Was the TV a dream? He'd pinched himself, but come to think of it, he'd never actually pinched himself in a dream, so did that even work? If it was, it was the most lucid dream of all time. It couldn't be real, though. He had turned off the TV and it continued. That's not possible.
  He finished his milk and checked his watch. Ten minutes 'till he had to be at work. He could start walking.
  He opened the door.
  Red.
  Tovar stood, speechless, in the doorway. There was nothing. The town had been replaced by... red. This dusty red... the same as the dream...?
  "What... the..."
  He took a step forward and slowly and carefully placed his foot on the ground. Red dust sprinkled around his foot. He took another cautious step into the wilderness. As far as he could see... red.
  He pinched himself. "Ow," he murmured. This pinching business really didn't achieve much. He shook his head.
  "Where IS everything!?" he shouted, hoping for an answer. Deafening silence answered him, and tears formed in his eyes.
  Tovar turned round to walk back inside.
  His house was gone.
  He jumped back in fright, kicking up more dust which fell onto him. He fought it off, as if that would make it go away, and looked back at where his house had been. The first thought that struck him was about the loan he owed. Then he realised he was stuck out here in this red plain of purgatory.
  He screamed out loud, desperately hoping for an answer, and only silence came back, mocking him.
  Then he noticed something.
  Right in the middle of where his house used to stand, there was a grey stone sitting there.
  A gravestone.
  He slowly got to his feet, and cautiously walked towards it. He held his arms out as if trying to balance himself. He kept telling himself it couldn't be real.
  Tovar finally reached the gravestone after what felt like an eternity. It was small, delicate, didn't jump for attention like other gravestones did. He shook his head. Gravestones aren't bloody sentient, he thought. Catch a hold of yourself, To...
  His thoughts managed to catch themselves in his throat. The name on the gravestone.
  'Tovar Verin. Born 1st March 1995. Died 1st March 2011.'

To add on to this, 12 Alt+255s = 1 time pressing Tab in Microsoft Word (or whatever program you use to type your story).

Does that transfer onto the website correctly though?

It seems to work fine with my story though, I didn't use Alt+255 to make the 12 spaces. I copy-pasted from the Character Map.

EDIT: I tried it by using Alt+255 12 times and yeah, it seems to work just fine.

Next chapter tomorrow.

Just read chapter two. I'm liking the story so far. It gives this depressing vibe (or at least in my depressing mind, it feels that way) which is what I would expect from a story about a guy who dies.

Also, out of curiosity, do their names (Tovar and Meeror) mean anything significant, or are they just random names you thought up?

They are Meaningful Names, yeah.

It's also depressing cuz it's me and that comes with the job description =P

EDIT: Hmm, didn't post. One sec~

Chapter 3

"So she's shouting at me for something I didn't even do, and I was all 'Bitch, please, would I do that?'"
  Tovar worked in a fast food restaurant. Not very glamorous. On the bright side, his two co-workers, Nail and Sandra, were both hilarious. Nail was currently telling telling the story of his exciting night out.
  "For some reason, that got her even more mad, and she slapped me in the face and walked away!"
  Sandra collapsed in giggles, and Nail looked appalled. "Bitch don't know her place, I'm tellin' you!"
  Tovar was trying not to laugh as he handed a meal over to the next customer. The customer looked at Nail then gave Tovar a withering stare as if to say "I'll be coming back for your souls", then walked off to enjoy her chicken nuggets. Tovar shrugged and walked back to talk with Nail and Sandra. He checked a mirror Sandra had requested be put in at the back. Smooth face, black hair down to his neck. Bright blue eyes. It was the only bright part of him; everything else seemed to be dark. His hair always seemed to become a mess within seconds of walking out of his house. Tovar knew he wasn't an ugly person, but he didn't overly care about how he looked most of the time.
  It had been a long shift. Mainly because the other two couldn't be bothered doing anything, and it was a slow day, so Tovar took most of the customers. Cooking food wasn't exactly rocket science, as the manager had said to him. Whether this is food or not is debatable, he thought to himself at the time. Tovar had a lot of those moments, where he thought things to say back to people but never did it.
  Tovar listened to the exciting antics of Nail, eyeing the clock like a bird eyes their pray, waiting for that minute hand to hit the twelve. Every minute seemed like an eternity. From the sound of Nail's night, it had lasted an eternity. Tovar knew he'd probably made up over half of it, mainly the parts involving any females, but again, he didn't say it.
  The minute hand hit twelve.
  "I'm off, guys. Have fun!"
  Nail and Sandra nodded, shouting variations of "good bye" as he left. He heard Nail shout "happy birthday, bitch" after him and smirked. Tovar opened the back door out and began to run home.
  Running is underrated. What's wrong with running in public? It's seen as unconventional or impolite. And then people are late everywhere. There's no reason to not run like the wind everywhere.
  "Hey kid, what's the rush?"
  Tovar sighed as he heard the voice, clearly aimed at him, trying to annoy him. He looked around and saw the most stereotypical teenage thug in the universe- full tracksuit and rings- eyeing him up like he had the clock. He had two of his friends with him - or, seen the way those kind of people treat each other, "acquaintances".
  He shook his head and kept running forward. Maybe he was wrong. He shouldn't be so judgemental. That's what his father was, not Tovar. These kids were going to be nice to him.
  He felt a rock smash him in the back of the head.
  Maybe not.
  He ran round the corner. He was in a backalley near his house. Graffiti on the walls, used syringes and wrappers littered the ground. He crouched down behind the corner and waited. The kids had started running now to keep up with him. He heard them come up to the corner. As they came round it, he picked up a syringe next to him and lunged at the nearest one, stabbing him in the neck.
  The guy screamed and clutched at his neck, collapsing. Tovar turned and elbowed another in the face, who hadn't had time to react. He fell to the ground. The last one looked at him, scared.
  "We didn't mean trouble, man, we was just kiddin'!"
Tovar walked forward and the guy went to kick him in the balls. Tovar raised his leg and stamped it down on the thug's, making a delightful cracking noise. Tovar shrugged his shoulder and ran on, blood politely dripping down his uniform, listening to the three guys' screams.
  He emerged from the backalley onto a bright street, a hundred or so yards from his house. He looked up at the traffic lights. Green. He continued to run across the road.
  He heard someone shout, and turned. Before he could turn his head to the shout, he saw a car coming his way, horribly out of control, speeding more than the legal limit on a highway. He stood motionless in fear. The car was closer.
  "No," he breathed.

Chapter 4

Tovar opened his eyes. He was on his knees, still at the gravestone. Was that how he had died? Simply ran out in front of a speeding idiot?
  He got to his feet and looked around him. He couldn't see anything in any direction.
  So he walked.
  On the bright side, he supposed, he had a lot of time to consider things. What were those dreams? Why did the TV do that? Was it a good idea to move from his family?
  He slowed ever so slightly on the last question. The flashback he had had was on his birthday, but yet he moved away from his family on his birthday. There's no way he could have got a job before even then, or be in a comfortable friendship with the other two.
  Tovar pondered the question and didn't even notice the lamp post he walked into.
  "Ow..." he murmured, rubbing his head and looking up at it. There was a lamp post. In the middle of nowhere. He looked around the lamp post, back where he'd came, but no.
  "How is it that there is one thing in the entire world I can walk into and I managed it?"
  He hadn't realised he'd talked to himself for a few seconds. "Talking to yourself, is the first sign of madness, Tovar," he said. "Never mind walking into lamp posts in deserts."
  Staring up at the lamp post, the lamp at the top seemed odd. It was flickering, almost, struggling to stay on against the odds. It seemed to be winning, though, as it flashed brighter with every flicker, brighter, until it flashed so bright that everything went white...

  Tovar rubbed his eyes. He opened them, but it was like opening your eyes after someone turning the light on in a dark room. He slowly opened one at a time.
  More red, why would it be anything else? The plain stretched before him. What was it? Why was it here? So many questions radiated through his head as he sat up, still rubbing his eyes. He dropped his hands from his face as he noticed a black swirl in the corner of his eye, and then he stood up and turned to look at it.
  It was the man from his dreams, confidently walking in the direction of a... town. A town? There was something out here?
  Having forgotten the lamp post, Tovar ran after the man. "Hey! Excuse me, are you the one from my dreams? Wait, that sounds weird, never mind. If you're not, I apologise. You wouldn't believe the week I've been having, so if I seem a little off the rails, it's probably because I am. The question remains in the air though, Mr Man."
  The man obviously wasn't interested, as he continued walking without even noticing Tovar's exclamation. They were near the town now. It was relatively large, definitely more than around six houses and a shop. Tovar tapped his food impatiently.
  "Where are you going and why won't you listen to me? I mean, I don't think there's anyone here any more. Am I going insane? Maybe this is all a figment of my imagination, I'm in a mental asylum. I'm getting given so much drugs now I'm having dreams within hallucinations and my hallucinations are trying to contradict themselves just to confuse me. Alternatively the hallucinations are just flat out ignoring me and won't answer me!"
  The man was not interested. He walked into the town and raised his arms.
  "HELLO!? Are you..."
  Tovar stopped mid-sentence and nearly crashed into the man. He recognised this place. It was his home town.
  As if on cue, he spotted his little sister. She was riding down the pavement on a bicycle. He could never ride a bike properly. Everything he did, she was better than him at it. And his parents loved her.
  But something was wrong. Tovar knew something was wrong, but he didn't know what. He wanted to shout for help, tell his sister to get away, to get to safety, that he was coming home. But he didn't. He stood motionless as the man suddenly threw his arms down.
  And meteors rained from the sky.
  Blasting craters in the road, destroying houses, they rained in a storm. Tovar screamed out, he didn't even know what he was saying... but the meteors didn't affect him. One landed right on top of him and the man, and they were okay. Tovar looked over at his sister.
  She had a bloody face, mouth open to scream.
  Dead.
  He shook his head. "No... NO!"
  As he ran over to her, everything began to fade and he felt himself slump over forward into unconsciousness.

Tovar gave that guy AIDS! :o

Oh hey, finally read chapters three and four. Really interesting story so far, Marill. I'm curious to see where it goes.

Also, maybe it's just the otaku in me, but I was kinda reminded of the beginning of Yu Yu Hakusho...what with the part about the main character dying from a speeding car and becoming a ghost/purgatory inhabitant/whatever the hell this is. The difference being this is way less cheery and...anime-ish.

Thanks for the interest! I made this post but internet derped >_>
When stop Zelda tonight I might write Chapter 5. I kept meaning to but... effort. xP
The first person to make Tovar in anime form wins Moderation powers for the day.

I suck at deadlines.

Chatper 5

For what seemed like the seventh time that day, Tovar awoke with a splitting headache and hundreds of questions bouncing through his head, off each other and spinning away before he had time to process them.
  He sat up. His home town was gone. As was the lamp post, he thought as an afterthought. He dragged himself to his feet, stared at the red, and walked again.
  A man walking, the town, the TV, the grave, his death, his sister, the endless plain... What did it all mean? Maybe he was just insane. Or maybe, he thought, the speeding car had hit him. Knocked him into a coma. The family he hated so much stood above him now, his mother stroking his hair. Maybe his friends were there, too. Nail and Sandra, and all the others. All them worrying for him? It made him smile.
  He was so lost in his thoughts he walked into the person in front of him. Momentarily stunned, Tovar looked at the person as he turned around. The question of who he was and why he was here was there for a second before it bounced away again, and then he broke into a grin.
  "Meeror?"
  Meeror grinned back. They high fived and briefly hugged. Meeror had always been Tovar's best friend. He shared something with Tovar. Everyone had always said they looked similar and acted similar, as if they were twins. They had some sort of connection. Meeror could tell when Tovar was going to do something. He saw the glint in his eye. The briefest of smiles.
  When Tovar had left his family, Meeror came with him. Meeror had said he couldn't imagine life without Tovar. It was quite touching, actually. Meeror lived with his aunt nearby, and they talked every day like old times
  Like old times, Tovar thought. It felt like it. He'd almost forgotten the plain in a nostalgic wave. All the things that had happened. He grinned broadly. They began walking.
  "So... how's things been for you lately?" Tovar asked
  "You serious? Just woke up this morning and BAM! This plain! I mean, I was a little out of it last night, heh, but I don't think I was this bad..."
  "Me too. Although, I woke up in a house, so my day is better than yours. Tovar one, Meeror nil."
  "Oh come on, that's hardly fair. You had to walk like seven trillion miles!"
  "Not even."
  They continued walking for a little while in silence before Tovar spoke again.
  "Where you headed? You have no idea how good it is to have someone to talk to. Beyond everything else this is the most boring day of my entire life."
  Meeror stared at him.
  "Minus the time I had to stay at dad's work for the day. Never again. God have mercy."
  There was the lightest of flickers in the clouds for the briefest of seconds, and then it was gone.

  Tovar and Meeror considered their blind meander through nothing until Tovar noticed something on the horizon. He interrupted Meeror mid-sentence.
  "Hold everything, there is something over there! Distinctly not red!"
  One great thing about Meeror is he never minded if Tovar interrupted. He just accepted it. Meeror laughed at the joke about red and Tovar smiled. He liked that too.
  They began sprinting towards the speck in the distance. Like Tovar, Meeror thought running was the best way to travel. Another thing to add to the 'Awesome Things About Meeror' list. As the speck became a dot which became a shape, the shape became recognisable as a house. In fact...
  "That's my house!" Tovar exclaimed. He ran a little bit faster and the house's features became recognisable, its musty smell entered his nostrils and he laughed happily, Meeror grinning behind him as he tried to keep up. He ran up to the door and opened it.
  Locked.
  He turned to face Meeror as Meeror smashed into him, knocking them both to the ground. He fought Meeror off of him and looked under the doormat for the key.
  It wasn't there.
  Tovar stared around his surroundings in panic. After all this, he couldn't get into his own house. Then he looked at the window next to him.
  "No way," Meeror said as Tovar walked him to the window and held his hands out for Meeror to step in.
  "After you."
  Meeror stepped on his hands and Tovar lifted. Meeror lifted one foot and with a mighty kick he broke the window into thousands of little shards. Then he clambered in.
  Hopefully the insurance people wouldn't hear about the window, Tovar thought.
  The front door clicked open and opened back onto Tovar. He strode in and bowed as Meeror shook his head. It clicked.
  "It's a pull door, isn't it?"

Chapter 6

They arranged that Meeror would sleep on the couch. This was after many small arguments. "It's unfair to let the guest sleep on the couch", "It's only fair after you're giving me accommodation". Back and forth like this for a while before Meeror pointed out he was the one with the kitchen knife. Thinking back to a time when they were younger when Meeror made that thread, Tovar quickly backed down.
  Tovar closed the door to his room and his face instantly fell. He didn't want Meeror to know just how he felt about all this. It would bring him down, then they'd both be down together and it would just get worse.
  He shook his head. He didn't want to think about it. He quickly undressed and got into bed. It had been a long day.
  The second his head hit the pillow he started snoring.

  Tovar woke up in a black street. For some reason he woke up standing up. He didn't question this, nor why the streetlights were all turned off. He began walking. There was somewhere he had to be. Something very important was there.
  He recognised the place, though. His hometown, again. Very near his school. He wasn't heading home, though. He didn't know where he was heading but... it was somewhere important... to do with his family.
  Everything started to brighten a little bit. The lightposts were glinting very weakly, but it was enough to see properly now his eyes had adjusted.
  Tovar's walk became a stride, which became a run, which became a sprint. He needed to be there. Now. Wherever it was. It was...
  He stopped. He heard voices and he knew he had arrived. He was on a street with a junction. No cars about. There was a backalley to the side, and that's where the voices were coming from.
  Slowly, very slowly, Tovar began to walk to the backalley. He had to be careful. He didn't know why, he just did. The voices were getting louder.
  "Leave me alone, I-"
  "Just a little. It won't hurt, Llevar."
  A girl and a boy. Both younger than him, and he was only fifteen, so...
  He blinked. He was sixteen, what was he talking about?
  He recognised the girl's voice. He knew her from somewhere but he couldn't place it.
  He edged closer to the alley, almost at a complete stop now.
  "Please, I want to go home..." the girl, Llevar, said. Her voice was pleading.
  "Llevar, you're not going home."
  Tovar edged his way to the corner and poked his head round. There was a light in the middle of the backalley. The alley turned at the far end. Two people stood just under the light.
  His sister?
  He nearly slapped his forehead for his idiocy at forgetting what his own sister's name was, especially considering how unusual their names were. His parents had a thing for being complete idiots.
  There was a guy of about fourteen, like her, with her. He was talking to her and she was trying to get away but he was walking with her and slowly pushing her back. Tovar recognised him as her boyfriend. What was he doing?
  "Darren, I want to go home, leave me alone!" she shouted and tried to run up the alley away from him. He snarled and grabbed her arm. He pulled her back and pushed her against the right-hand wall. Tovar edged his way round the wall a bit further, his eyes wide.
  "You're not going home," he growled as he held her arms back against the wall so she couldn't move. He lowered his hand furthest from Tovar from her arm and slapped her in the face.
  Tovar stood in the alleyway now. Had this scum just...?
  She tried to scream and he covered her mouth with his hand. With her free hand she slapped him repeatedly but he didn't act as if he'd noticed it. Tovar saw his other hand move down from her arm and grab hold of her breast.
  Tovar ran down the alleyway, not caring about the noise he was making. Darren and Llevar turned their heads to see Tovar headbutt Darren in the face.
  Darren cried out and let go of Llevar, who started backing away. Tovar kicked Darren in the balls and as he doubled over, kneed him in the face. His rage was pounding through him, his adrenaline giving him strength he never knew he had. He didn't care any more.
  Darren fell on his back and Tovar stamped on his face. Darren's nose exploded with blood and a sickening crunch and Tovar mercilessly kicked him, shouting incomprehensible insults and God knows what. Tovar didn't even know what he was screaming. He kept kicking and hearing skin rip and bones pop. Blood covered his legs and Darren's body. He got down on his knees and started punching Darren, leaning all his weight on his knee in Darren's stomach. Darren was saying something, but Tovar didn't care. This sick, twisted little boy had tried to rape his sister.
  Tovar got back to his feet. Darren wasn't talking any more. Both of them were breathing heavily. Tovar stood silently for a second, looking down at the pathetic body, before lashing out and kicking him in the head.
  Snap.
  Tovar stopped. He stared at Darren, and at what he'd done for almost a full minute. Then he kneeled down, very slowly. Even slower, he lifted Darren's head. Something looked wrong with his neck.
  He put a hand on his neck to check for a pulse.
  He couldn't find one.

Chapter 7

"Oh God..." Tovar murmured as he moved his hand away from Darren's neck. It was shaking so much it was almost hurting. It annoyed him. Tovar punched his hand and held it with the other to stop it shaking. He slowly stood and noticed his entire body was shaking.
  "N... What..."
  It was a bloody mess. Just blood everywhere. Darren's blood. He looked like a puppet that had had its strings cut, and then dropped. Bones twisted at angles they shouldn't and his face was almost unrecognisable as the scum that had...
  Tovar turned. Llevar...
  ...was nowhere to be seen. He ran out to edge of the backalley, to the street again.
  "Llevar?" He called. "Llevar!?"
  He turned back to Darren's corpse and... no, don't call it a corpse. Don't think like that. Surely the hospital could fix him up.
  Tovar nodded. Yeah, the hospital. He knew the ambulances would be here in about half an hour, they could patch him up in no time. Darren had already been like this when Tovar had got there. Yeah, that'd work.
  He took out his phone and dialled 911. He bit his lip as the phone rang briefly then he quickly hung up and backed against the wall, shaking his head. No, they wouldn't believe that, and Darren was dead...
  Tovar slowly slid down the wall until he sat, still shaking, tears running down his face. He hadn't meant this. He was just trying to protect his sister but... the more he thought about it... who was really the scum? The attempted rapist or the murderer?
  His head shot up. "Murderer..." he whispered. "I'm... a murderer..."
  What did he do now? Did he go home to Llevar and tell her he'd... to her boyfriend? Well, ex-boyfriend now. Literally.
  He laughed out loud. He was making jokes about killing someone. Murdering his sister's boyfriend and laughing? What the hell was wrong with him?
  No, he couldn't go home. Llevar probably hadn't seen Darren by the end, and it was possible she hadn't even recognised Tovar... or maybe she hadn't recognised him and ran away to phone the police?
  He shivered and stood. He had to leave. He couldn't stay here in case someone showed up. And... he'd have to go home.
  Darren dying and then his girlfriend's brother "mysteriously" disappearing was too obvious. He had to go home. Act like nothing had happened. Shocked at the news of Darren's death. And what about Llevar? As much as he disliked her, she was his sister and he loved her... would she tell everyone what had happened? Would she act shocked to Darren's death?
  He'd find out later. He gave Darren one last look, and left the alley. He would throw his clothes in a bin nowhere near his house tomorrow. Turning up to his house clotheless would raise unnecessary questions. Yes, tomorrow he'd do that. Tomorrow...

Tovar opened his eyes.
  The room was dark with a faint trace of light. The sun was just beginning to rise on the horizon and cast a moody shadow over his room. His room was basically a bed and a desk next to it, with a wardrobe by the side. Nothing special.
  Tovar closed his eyes again and thought. He was shaking, and willed himself to stop. The dream was the most terrifying thing he'd ever experienced. He always believed dreams meant something big, but this one was so powerful, so dark, so... real...
  He shook his head and sat up to look out the window. Still the plain of red. He choked back tears and shook his head again. He couldn't break down. He was barely still sane, he had to keep that shred of sanity.
  Meeror was making noise downstairs. Come to think of it, Meeror had barely even mentioned the fact they were stuck in... whatever this was. After merely a day, Tovar had begun to accept it. He found it strange that he couldn't seem to remember anything, though. And all the visions lately... they had to mean something, right?
  And then he remembered something. Before he hit that lamp post... stupid as that was. He remembered the gravestone he found. It said he had died on his birthday. And the vision after that, it was his birthday. He was living on his own, working at a fast food restaurant, then stepped out in front of a car.
  But he'd only moved to live on his own on his birthday. He hadn't got a job that fast.
  What did that mean? The visions were all wrong, or was his mind just toying with him? Maybe he was insane, and his mind was giving him flashes of his life mixed with what he currently felt.
  Insane for believing he was dead? He placed so much faith in him seeing his own gravestone and accepting it as truth he was, in fact, dead. He felt very much alive. He had imagined death would feel more... empty.
  Or... maybe he was looking too far into this. They were just dreams, nothing else. Dreams meant something, certainly, but not this much.
  He swung his legs out of bed and got into the clothes he wore yesterday, yawning. He walked into the bathroom next door and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked tired and stressed and his hair was a mess. He grinned at his reflection before walking downstairs.
  "Morning," he said as he greeted Meeror, who was watching TV. Tom and Jerry was on. Tom was trying to play a piano recital, but Jerry was messing it up for him.
  "Tom and Jerry special all day. Hell yes!"
  "I always loved that show. Jerry is really the bad guy. Tom's just trying to do his recital and some mean mouse decides to screw it up for him."
  He flumped down at the sofa by Meeror and watched as Jerry slammed Tom's hands in the piano and almost winced.
  "Y'know, if you think about it, this stuff would actually really hurt. I mean, seriously, have you ever had a 16 tonne weight dropped on your head?" Tovar said with a laugh.
  "Can't say I have. Can't say the same for my neighbours when I was younger."
  Tovar laughed out loud and stood up. He turned to walk to the kitchen and noticed Meeror looking at him strangely.
  "Yes, I look terrible, I know-"
  "No, no, there's something on your pants," he smirked. "Heh heh."
  Tovar rolled his eyes at the innuendo and look down. His eyes widened, his heart hit his mouth.
  Blood was splattered all over his pants...

Chapter Eight

Tovar stared at the blood for far too long, then looked up at Meeror.
  “I... tripped down the stairs yesterday. Freaking hurt, y’know.”
  Meeror raised an eyebrow then snorted with laughter. Rolling his eyes, Tovar walked into the kitchen and closed the door.
  He stared at the wall for a few seconds. Then he kicked the air, throwing his arms about, trying to lash out and hit something but not make any noise. He threw his arms down on the table and leaned over it, breathing heavily.
  “Dreams don’t intrude on life...” he whispered to himself, the sound of his own voice scaring him. “Dreams don’t intrude on death...”
  He closed his eyes, thinking back. It was strange how vivid this dream was. Every dream before that, he’d forgotten portions of or could only remember what generally happened. This one he could remember everything. Sprinting to the alleyway, overhearing the conversation, the strike of anger flourishing through him, beating the living hell out of Darren...
  Literally.
  He shook his head. “Stop making jokes you idiot, self,” he muttered, punching his own arm. He walked to the fridge to get out the milk, and turned to look at the mirror.
  His sister’s bloody face, mouth open to scream, stared back at him.
  He couldn’t help it. He cried out, dropped the milk and narrowly caught it before it hit the ground. He stood and stared at the mirror and... saw his own reflection. Hair wild, face red, looking stressed. Was that just his imagination?
  The questions started bouncing around his head again, all starting with “why”? Why was the plain here, why had the TV done that, why was he getting visions, why had all this happened? He had no answers. Maybe this was just a sickened, twisted dream? He’d wake up to find himself covered in sweat, alone at home, with life outside.
  Life outside...
  Tovar ran to the door of the kitchen and opened it. He picked up the TV remote as Tom tried to play the cadence of the piece and started to change the channel. Meeror stood.
  “Hey, hey! I like this episode!” he exclaimed, snatching the remote back. Tovar turned on Meeror with a fierce look in his eyes.
  “Give it to me,” Tovar said, scaring himself again, and Meeror blinked before giving him the remote. Tovar quickly changed the channel to 24 Hour News.
  “...Three dead and at least twelve injured. What do you think, Jim?”
  Tovar stared in amazement. The news was still reporting normal news when there was nothing in the world anymore? Even Meeror looked surprised.
  “I find it disgusting that our youth are able to attain weapons like that so easily. There should be practices put in place to stop this, and a way to get kids off the streets,” the guest, Jim, said in a voice that was trying far too hard to be clever. The host nodded in agreement.
  “Of course. Thanks Jim, you’ve been a big help.”
  The host had an unnerving way of looking like she was always staring straight at Tovar. Her eyes seemed to look at him through the screen.
  “In other news, it appears you’ve finally thought to check our channel. Hello, Tovar.”
  Tovar doubled back and stared at the screen. Her eyes followed him.
  “I had assumed it would be the first thing you would check, but you disappoint me. I thought teenagers of your generation worshipped the internet and would instantly check it. Alas, not.”
  Tovar couldn’t do anything. He was speechless. He felt Meeror look at him in utter surprise.
  “You, Tovar, are the last sinner. I’m sure you have many questions, and no clear objective in what to do. I’ll compromise both into one for you. Find me and I will answer your questions.”
  The host suddenly changed into a man with a stare that attracted attention, dressed in black.
  The man from his dreams.
  “You found one of the lamp posts I left out for you. Well, rather, you walked into it. I was hoping the last sinner would be more... amusing. You’re just an idiot.”
  Rage boiled up inside Tovar. What was this man saying?
  “Keep finding them to find me. Easy, yes? Well, I’m a busy man, and I’m afraid I have to leave you. Find me, and I will answer your questions. Good day.”

Chapter Nine

The screen went blank. There was silence in the room for a few seconds. Then Meeror let out a deep breath, and Tovar did the same, realising he’d been holding his breath. Second time a TV had made him do that.
  “Well. Um. Wow,” Meeror said simply.
  “Took the words right out of my mouth,” Tovar murmured and walked to the door. Meeror looked over and walked after him.
  “Hey, hey, where you going?”
  Tovar opened the door without looking back. “Outside. I’m finding him. You coming?”
  Tovar strode out the door into the red plain and kept walking. He heard Meeror running to catch up with him.
  “H-Hey, should you not get something or have some sort of plan?”
  “I got this far without one. It’s not like I’m short of time.”
  Meeror slowed to a walk next to him and looked at Tovar. Tovar didn’t look back. Meeror looked forward again and sighed.
  “Well, I’ll be here, anyway. When you need me.”
  “Thanks.”

They walked in silence for a long time. Tovar had no particular plan. By now he had decided turning his head might actually help, despite ruining the dramatic effect, and he looked around for a sign of any lamp post. He couldn’t believe he was actually following the advice of a man from his dreams on the news telling him to find lamp posts in a red desert. It was insane.
  Meeror kept trying to cheer him up. Take his mind off things. It wasn’t helping, but he was thankful. It was nice to know there was someone trying to help, someone there for him.
  He walked into a lamp post.
  He swore as Meeror sniggered. They both realised simultaneously the same thing.
  “That’s a lamp post,” Meeror observed.
  Tovar stared up at the bright light. It was flickering, getting brighter and brighter.
  “Thanks for... that...” he tried to say, but stopped as he fell forward into unconsciousness.

“Tovar? Tovar! Wake up, boy.”
  His head hurt. Really badly. Tovar opened his eyes and was met with the darkness of his blanket. He rolled over to see his father at the door to his room.
  “Hi,” he managed.
  “Get up and downstairs in the next five seconds, this is the third time I’ve woken you.”
  His father grumbled and left the room, and Tovar planted his face in his pillow. “Go away, dad...” he said to himself and got out of bed, putting the same clothes on as yesterday.
  He pulled a leg of his pants on and froze. He looked down at the legs of the pants and saw the blood.
  Back in the dream. He’d killed someone.
  He stared round in panic. How the hell was he going to get the clothes out of here without anyone noticing? Or rather... what would Llevar say?
  He pulled the pants off and found different clothes. He lifted the binbag out of the bin and poured its contents into it. He gathered up all the rubbish in his room, putting it in the bag, along with his bloodied clothes. He casually opened the door and took the bag downstairs, almost tripping down it. He walked into the sitting room, where his father stood, tapping his foot impatiently, holding car keys.
  “While I appreciate you finally bringing the rubbish down, we’re in a hurry. Everyone’s already in the car. Get out.”
  Tovar would have to leave the bag here for now. His dad walked out the front door and Tovar tucked the back behind the door. He’d leave it somewhere else later. Then he walked outside and got into the back seat of the car.
  “Nice of you to join us,” his mother said from the front seat as the car roared to life.
  “If we’re late, I will kill you, Tovar.”
  Tovar felt Llevar looking at him. He finished buckling his seat belt and turned to her. Her stare was piercing. Was it always piercing? He had never really noticed. For the rest of the day, he would notice things to make him paranoid about her. Did she know? Had she even recovered from last night’s trauma? If she hadn’t, she did a damn good job of hiding it. She yawned and stretched, before slumping down in her chair and looking out the window.
  “I would think of a witty comeback, but I don’t wish to start a fight with an unarmed enemy.”
  He doubted she’d get the quote, but his dad cut her off even if she had done.
  “That’s enough. We’re not having any of your bickering today, both of you. We’re going to go to your aunt’s engagement party. We’re going to be very nice about it, then you two can go home, go into town, or do whatever the hell it is you two do.”
  Tovar and Llevar nodded. Tovar resisted the urge to say “who has an engagement party at noon?” and stared out the opposite window to Llevar, trying to look normal.
  It was going to be a long day.

Chapter Ten

The car pulled up at their aunt's house, which had balloons littered around the entrance. It was a modest house; painted white with very ordinary variations of basically everything.
  They exited the car and walked up to the front door, Tovar's mother fussing over the engagement present and making sure it was hidden. Christmas presents, birthday presents, anniversary presents, engagement presents, so many presents. Tovar just wanted to go home, get the clothes out of the house, and be done with it.
  Oh God, was it boring. People he barely knew told him shocked voices that he'd grown so much, and new people told him he had a strange name. He took it all in, nodding happily. He'd glance over at Llevar every so often. She looked just as uncomfortable. What was the point in inviting teenagers to these things when obviously wanted to be anywhere but there?
  Tovar sat on the bottom step of the house, thinking to himself, when a pair of legs stopped in front of him. He looked up to Llevar smirking at him.
  "Cheer up, we can go now."
  Tovar jumped to his feet and walked past Llevar to the door. He opened it and held it open for her and he began to run home.
  "Hey, Tovar, can you wait up a second?"
  He froze and turned. Llevar was waiting for him at the front door.
  "Could you walk home with me?"
  She sounded so casual, but what was she implying? Did she want to talk to him about last night? She never talked to him, so...
  "Sure."
  He slowly began walking to let Llevar catch up. She stepped next to him and they walked in silence for a few seconds.
  Llevar looked similar to Tovar. Long black hair and piercing blue eyes. Unlike him, though, she had straight hair and pulled off the contrasting brightness well. She was actually relatively pretty, as much as he hated to admit it. Another thing to add to the list of things she was better than him at.
  "We don't really talk much, do we?" she began. Tovar shook his head. He didn't want to give anything away in case she hadn't recognised him last night.
  "It's... quite sad, really. All my friends are really close with their brothers. We can barely be in the same room for more than ten seconds before we start arguing. We could argue with our own shadows, as dad would say."
  She laughed. Their aunt's house wasn't all that far away from their's, so it would be a short walk.
  "Dad does say the stupidest things, doesn't he?"
  "He thinks he's so smart, but really... he's not. Wow, we haven't started arguing yet."
  Tovar nodded. Get to the point, Llevar...
  "Y'know in the first year of Middle School, back in seventh grade. The English teacher had us look up what our names meant for one of our first homeworks. Do you not what Llevar means?"
  She laughed again. "Llevar is a Spanish verb which means lots of different things, changing depending on context. So my name could mean anything, really."
  Tovar shrugged. "I don't think this is coincidence, but the verb Llevar also originated as the verb, directly translated, 'to carry a burden'. When we had to do that assignment, all I could find on Tovar was that in Serbo-Croation, 'tovar' means cargo, or burden."
  Llevar breathed in sharply, and then exhaled. "You're basically saying we're burdens?"
  He shrugged. "Basically."
  "Wouldn't surprise me, to be honest. Oh wow, we're home already!" she exclaimed.
  Tovar hadn't even realised how far they had walked. He walked up the door and opened it, bowing to let her enter.
  "After you."
  "Thanks," she smirked. She walked upstairs before pausing for a brief second on the stairs.
  "I'd... like it if we could do that more."
  She jumped the last few steps and walked into her room, not giving him time to respond.
  Tovar didn't know what to think. He had a warm feeling inside of him. It felt good to talk to her like that, without arguing, being completely open. They had something in common he'd never realised before, too. They looked similar, and their names were similar. Maybe they were more similar than he once thought.
  He diverted his attention from Llevar and reached behind the door to pick up the bag of clothes. He quickly scribbled a note that he was going out to to the shop, and walked outside.
  He'd just walk down the road to the next block, put his rubbish in one of the bins, and be done. No problem. He felt that all this was a bit unnecessary, but it was better than the police turning up to his house because Llevar was close to Darren and finding out...
  They didn't have his finger prints, so they couldn't match them with anyone, which was a help. He had briefly considered going back to hide the body, but decided against it. He didn't want to see it again, and if someone had already found it, it would look even more suspicious.
  He turned the corner and lifted up the lid of one of the bins. He chucked his rubbish in, closed the lids, and turned to walk back the way he'd came. No one had seen him. It was noon on Sunday, and everyone was at church. Seemingly every single person in his town except him went to church. Well, him and everybody at the party today, he thought to himself.
  He walked back to his house and as he walked down the path towards it, he heard shouting.
  "Tovar! Tovar!?"
  He ran up to the front door in panic and opened it to be met with Llevar, tears streaming down her face. Her eyes were puffy and her face was red.
  "Oh God, where did you..."
  "I went down to the shop, I wrote a note. What the hell happened?" he asked, moving closer to her.
  "It's D-Darren... he's dead..."

I'll catch up on this over Christmas Break. Congrats on being the only person to actually do it.

Skyrim is virtual crack, what can I say? Between that and having more things going on early in the month than I anticipated, I didn't get horribly far and what I did get done was kind of disjointed ANYWAY.

That said, I'll get to writing mine again... Sometime.

EDIT: Also, I did read all the chapters earlier, but I'll probably have to read them again. The text feels really crunched together to me for some reason. :/

Thanks for the support! What do you mean "crunched together", btw? If it's something I can improve in my writing that's always helpful =P

And I understand not having time, November was basically the best month ever for gaemin' and a pile of other stuff happened. I have this to write when my internet's down late at night so s'all good.

Chapter 11

"Dead... Dead..."
  The word echoed round Tovar's head as everything began to fade. Then he heard another voice.
  "Tovar? Wake up!"
  Tovar opened his eyes and woke up from what felt like the seventh dream in the past twenty four hours. It was weird Llevar talked to him, though. They avoided each other like the plague.
  The lamp post above him was gone, and Meeror stood with a concerned look on his face which turned to joy when he saw Tovar was awake. Tovar nodded and let Meeror help him to his feet.
  Without a word, Tovar began walking. He wanted to find another lamp post, maybe have another vision. He wanted to know what happened next. He felt like those dreams were important scenes in his life or... maybe this was all a dream, and that was his life? Oh God, don't even start thinking that. That would be too confusing.
  "So, why did you... faint or whatever?" Meeror asked, struggling to keep up with Tovar's powerful stride.
  "I... don't know why I fainted, Meeror."
  "Ah, okay." Silence for a few seconds, then: "What happened before I met you that you were walking aimlessly?"
  Tovar was lost in thought. He answered, "Long story," and continued his thoughts. What was he thinking? Oh yes... Llevar again. He had the image of her face as the dream ended burned into his eyes.
  It's D-Darren... he's dead...
  Was that acting? It was so real, though. It didn't feel forced. She hadn't known he was dead? She'd known something had happened to him. She must have just ran the hell away.
  Why did Tovar care so much? It was just a dream, it mightn't mean any-
  "Want to know what I'm doing here? It's a shorter story-"
  "No, I don't, Meeror! Will you shut up for two seconds?"
  Meeror stopped as Tovar kept walking. "Whoa, calm down. I'm just trying to cheer you u-"
  Tovar turned and walked towards Meeror. "Can't you be serious for ten seconds? We're lost out in the middle of literally nowhere and I'm being called by some man of my dreams to find him! What the hell do you think this is, a game?"
  Meeror blinked. "Man of your dreams?"
  "For God's sake, you stupid-" Tovar began then his stress took over him. His anger, everything. He poured it into his fist which slammed into Meeror's face.
  Meeror stumbled back and fell to the ground, clutching his face in pain. Tovar stood looking at his hands in horror as Meeror lay there for a second. There was a brief second, in which nothing moved, and the silence was deafening. Then Tovar ran over and helped him up, saying apologies so quickly he didn't even understand them himself.
  "It's okay," Meeror kept muttering in between cracking his jaw up and down, but Tovar was crying. He couldn't control himself in his dreams, in real life, in death, nothing. He'd just shattered his best and only friend.
  A strange brightness was coming from the left, and he looked up, the tears rolling back into his eyes, to see another lamp post. There hadn't been one before, where had it...?
  Holding Meeror in his arms, he slumped forward and everything went black.

I apologise for the short chapter, I'm sticking to a routine of a chapter a day and today I felt really shitty, tired and all that. Expect more tomorrow and all that.

Chapter 12

"Dinner. Now."
  Tovar woke up perfectly awake, for some reason. He was on his computer, which was blank. Must've went into sleep as he slept. He smirked at the thought.
  His door closed and he realised it was his mother who'd called him unceremoniously for dinner. He stood and shrugged before beginning to walk downstairs.
  His mother?
  He was back in...
  "Tovar, nice of you to join us."
  His father looked up at him as he descended downstairs. Was he late or something? He didn't really care as he took his place. How long had passed since the last dream?
  He took his seat at the table before instantly standing up, realising he'd forgotten to get himself a drink. His father sighed and began eating. Everyone already had their food. Probably late.
  "So, how's your birthday been, Tovar?" his mother asked him as he returned to his seat.
  His food caught in his throat for a second before he swallowed. Birthday? That much had passed?
  He thought quickly. "Uh, yeah, it was good. Felt like any other day, I guess."
  She smiled, then looked at Llevar. Llevar had the strangest way of eating. She'd divide up all of her foods into different sections on the plate, then eat a fraction of each of the foods in turn before she finished each of the foods in the same mouthful.
  "What about your day, dearie?"
  Dearie. Even on his birthday, she favoured her. Deep breath, let it pass.
  "Not much. Most people were away for sports so I had today free."
  Tovar's dad raised an eyebrow. "Why weren't you at sports?"
  "Cuz I suck at them," she laughed, eating exactly a fifth of her steak. "I always get picked last."
  "Me too," Tovar said. His parents ignored him.
  "Well, in elementary school, I remember your teachers all saying you were really energetic and you beat the boys!" Tovar's mum exclaimed. His dad nodded.
  Llevar went slightly red. "I don't really care for sports any more."
  There was a clang as Tovar accidentally dropped his fork under the table. His father sighed again and tapped his foot as Tovar ducked under the table to get it.
  "Get a new one," his father snapped as Tovar raised his head back up and hit it off the bottom of the table. He cried out and rubbed his head in annoyance as he heard a glass topple over and hit the table. He emerged his head from the table to see his drink slowly spilling across the table.
  "Don't just stand there, go clean it up you idiot!"
  "NO!"
  Tovar stopped himself. There was silence at the table, save for the trickling water. He backed up from under the table and stared at his father.
  "I'm sorry, what did you just say?" his father whispered. He looked beyond anger.
  "I said, 'no'. I am sick of your favouritism, your disappointment, sick of everythi-"
  His father stood, his face red. "Boy, we feed you, we brought you up, and you will treat us with the respect we deserve! I'm tired of your attitude!" he roared.
  "I'm tired of you! Nothing I do is ever good enough! You can't even give me the littlest bit of attention on my birthday! Dad, I'm sor-"
  "Sorry doesn't cut it!" he roared again, moving towards Tovar now. "Go to your room!"
  "I'm not a five year ol-"
  "Then act like it!"
  Silence settled in the room, the trickling replaced by his father breathing heavily. Tovar looked at his mother and Llevar, who both stared at the ground in silence. Why had he even bothered protecting Llevar like he had? Why did he bother with her at all? Not like she protected him or anything, like this. She didn't care at all. Neither did his mother, neither did his father.
  "Right then. I'm leaving," Tovar said simply. He turned towards the door and started walking.
  "W-What?" his mum began, but he opened the door and walked out. He didn't know where, just somewhere away from here. His hair was blowing in the wind into his eyes, but he didn't care. He kept expecting the door to open, to hear someone shouting after him, but there was nothing. Just him and the wind, him and his anger.

Chapter 13

The first thing Tovar felt as he awoke was the hair lying on his face slightly in his eyes. He rubbed them and parted his hair as he sat up from the red dust, brushing it out of his hair. He noticed sudden movement in Meeror lifting his head suddenly and a slight smile in his face.
  "The sleeping beauty awakens."
  Tovar nodded slowly and stood up. A lot of things made sense now. It explained some of the contradictions in his dreams, and one thing that had been nagging him for a while. He still didn't know why he was here. The last sinner? Well, the sin was obviously murder, but he hadn't seen his death. He was pretty sure the "getting hit by a car" thing wasn't actually part of the visions he was meant to see, but was just something else entirely. Especially as it was a vision created by himself rather than the strange man all in black. The only vision from a lamp post which hadn't involved the murder story was the one where meteors rained down.
  As Tovar walked, he started to piece together parts of the story. He didn't know why he assumed only the murder story visions really happened. They were just so vivid, and he actually felt everything. The pain, the anger, everything. The other ones seemed so unnatural, dream-like. Which is exactly what they were.
  Again, except the one with the meteors. The man had wanted to show him something in that dream, but he didn't know what. Why was the man doing this, anyway? Surely he should die in peace?
  "Bit quiet there, Tovar," Meeror said suddenly, breaking the silence and Tovar's thoughts.
  "Yeah, sorry. Just, eh... bit lost."
  "How does one get lost in a wasteland of nothing?"
  Tovar shrugged. "Dad always said I wasn't exactly geographically gifted."
  "Hey, there's something over there!"
  Tovar squinted to where Meeror was pointing. There was a long black thing sticking out of the ground. A lamp post, probably.
  He walked.
  Usually he ran everywhere, but this felt the right pace. No need to run. If he was right on his theory which was essentially about something he had no idea about, this was the last lamp post. Which meant...
  He swallowed and shook his head. He'd see when he got there.
  Meeror looked concerned. "Dude, what's wrong? You haven't been yourself since your house..."
  "It's all right. It'll all be sorted soon, then I'll explain."
  Meeror looked satisfied with this answer and nodded his head, continuing walking alongside him. There was a few moments more silence, then they were at the lamp post.
  Tovar never really questioned why these lamp posts did this. He just looked up at the light, becoming unnaturally bright, then felt it overcome him. "Good night," he murmured as he fell.

DRRRR. DRRRR.
  "Urrrggghhh," Tovar muttered as his alarm obnoxiously continued. He produced a hand from under his blanket and thumped the alarm clock to turn it off. He swung his legs out of bed and slowly got dressed, rubbing his eyes. He'd been up far too late last night.
  He opened the door and suddenly realised he was dreaming again. He nearly slapped his forehead, as he'd already had his mind trick him about that about seven times. He sighed and slowly trudged downstairs to make himself breakfast.
  No milk. He sighed again and just poured himself some cereal without milk before flicking the television on. More cartoons. There were probably kids in the same town watching the same cartoons eating the same breakfast.
  Well, with their parents, anyway.
  He finished his cereal, yawned, walked outside and locked the door behind him. Then he began to run to work.
  He wasn't quite sure how he knew where it was. He was dreaming, or rather, this was a part of him he couldn't remember, but as he had known where to be with Llevar and Darren, he knew where to go.
  He ran up to the back door of the place, not really paying attention to where he was, and stepped in, holding his uniform under his arms so he could get changed in there.
  "Hey, bitch."
  Tovar stopped in his tracks as he recognised Nail's voice lazily drifting towards him. The stench of badly processed chicken invaded his nostrils and he realised that he did work in a fast food restaurant. He walked towards the counter and Nail was leaning over it, looking bored.
  "Sandra's getting changed. You're late, btw."
  He literally said "btw", pronouncing it "buh tuh wuh". Tovar raised an eyebrow as the boss's door opened.
  "Yada yada, we're opening now. You're each on 'till six, right?" he said. He looked even more bored than Nail. He was also the most generic looking man in the universe. Bald head, small beard, glasses, slightly overweight, wearing a white shirt and black trousers.
  "You said I had only until three today, Sir," Tovar replied, not quite knowing where he had stored the information until then. The boss nodded, as if remembering it, then opened the front door, letting freezing cold air in. "We're open, yeah," he yelled outside to no one in particular and then slowly walked back into his office.
  It was a long day. Because it was the Christmas holidays, they each had to work basically full time, and for some reason every adult worker in the place had booked the day off today. Probably all out drinking together. Nine until three, Tovar had to work. There was one adult coming in after he was gone.
  It was the longest four hours of his life.
  There was no one for quite a while, so he casually chatted with Nail and Sandra. Nail kept implying that Tovar liked Sandra, for some reason. Tovar had generally realised that when people said that, the person actually saying that liked the girl. He was pretty sure he was right as well from the fact Nail kept standing strangely close to Sandra edging closer towards her when she moved. She didn't object when he did. Good for them, he thought. He hadn't known them that long, but they were best friends since he'd me-
  Wait, how'd he know that? It was as if he didn't remember anything until it was completely necessary. It was a weird feeling, and he didn't like it.
  The minute hand hit twelve and Tovar stood up. "Bye, bitches," he called, hoping to be ironic, but instead attracting a mean stare from a mother. He hastily edged his way out the back door and began to run home.

Chapter 14

Tovar stopped running as he came up to his house, pausing at the door to fumble for his keys and catch his breath. He pulled the door open and swung it shut behind him, threw his keys on the sofa and then collapsed into it.
  He was deep in thought. Tovar had always loved the idea of dreams. He was in a dream right now, and yet he felt like he'd been living in the house for months. Yet he couldn't remember anything that had happened before today. Things happen within dreams and no one questions them. People teleport, things are illogical and yet it all seems perfectly reasonable. He loved that feeling. The fact that within dreams, everything was safe, nothing had to conform to some sort of standard, or even reality.
  And yet these dreams he had been having... they were so real. They felt like real life, but yet at the same time he knew it was a dream. They felt more like vivid memories.
  "Memories?" he said aloud to himself. Why would he dream of memories so realistically? Why had the man been showing him the memories, anyway?
  Come to think of it, he realised, why did this dream feel actually like a dream? He was in complete control of his own thoughts and could remember what had happened in "real life" in the red plain; the lamp posts, Meeror, everything. The first vision of Darren had felt so much more realistic and the fact it was a dream hadn't even crossed his mind. He thought. It might have, and he might not have remembered it.
  But... there was one thing. In the dream, he had thought that he was fifteen, and he was now sixteen. He quickly corrected himself at the time, but now he realised that he was dreaming of a time when he was fifteen; before his birthday, and before he left home. That much made perfect sense.
  Everything was starting to fall into place once again. When he got a moment to think about things, he felt far more confident. He'd practically already forgotten the anger at Darren, the panic afterwards and everything else involving that horrible night. It didn't plague his thoughts, haunting him every few seconds. It's not that he felt he'd redeemed himself or something... he was just trying to forget it all. Living on his own was a new life, without parents, school, or guilt to worry about.
  The doorbell rang.
  Tovar's head snapped up and he instantly noticed it was dark. He looked at the clock and realised he'd been sitting in what was almost a snooze for two hours, thinking about different things. That was certainly one way of wasting an afternoon after work. He sighed and got up from the sofa as the doorbell rang again. He shouted that he was coming as he rubbed his eyes and yawned, letting the yawn finish to not look lazy before opening the door.
  There was a brief moment of silence as his eyes settled on the person in his door. How had she...?
  "...It's cold. Can I come in?" Llevar said, almost a whisper, hugging her sides. Tovar stepped outside and ushered her into the house, still having said nothing. Screw "how" she had got here, what was she doing here?
  They stepped into the house and Tovar closed the door behind them, before turning to see Llevar looking at him, tears running down her face. Then she did something that Tovar never would have expected.
  She ran the short distance between them and hugged him, wrapping her arms around him and sobbing deeply into his chest.
  Tovar was so stunned that for a second he didn't even move, just kept his arms in the pose halfway between normal and closing the door. Then he slowly moved his arms around her and patted her head. Hell, he didn't know what to do. Human contact was never exactly his strong point.
  Llevar choked back some of her tears and tried to say something before crying again, and Tovar quietly whispered "shhhh", holding her with both arms now. He led her a bit further into the room and she slowly broke off from him, still occasionally swallowing loudly with tears running down her face.
  "Llevar, what are you doing..."
  She shook her head to interrupt him, before rubbing her eyes and trying to look normal before talking. It wasn't very effective.
  "Dad and I had a... big argument and..."
  She looked up at him, tears starting to form again. What the hell had happened?
  "He..." she tried, then shook her head and rolled up her blue T-Shirt sleeve to reveal her shoulder, with a huge, purple bruise in it.
  There was another stunned silence before Tovar held her in his arms again, being careful of her bruise, whispering variations of "it's all right". She didn't cry, but just shook from the cold. Again, she broke away and the tears were gone.
  "Tovar... I'm so sorry for everything I've done to you... I've ignored you, mistreated you, I never stuck up for you and it's my fault and I'm truly sorry..."
  Tovar didn't know what to say. He stood motionless and let her talk and get it all out.
  "I don't know what I can do. I don't even know if it's legal to live here with you, but I want to... to show I really am sorry. I'm not going back home, and I just want to be here with you, Tovar.
  "Despite all the bad I've done to you and watched you suffer through, I didn't help you when you left... and I even knew that..."
  The look in her eyes was intense. It wasn't sadness, it wasn't happiness, it was something else that Tovar couldn't place. It looked like true honesty, a feeling he didn't know could be expressed in looks.
  "That night, you killed Darren."
  There was suddenly a rush of cold wind and they both turned to see the door slowly close, and a guy a bit older than Tovar walk in. He smiled maliciously and Tovar realised with a sickening thud in his heart that he recognised him.
  "So it was you who attacked us? Really?"
  That one time he was coming home from work, and those thugs had tried to annoy him. He'd beaten them up, nearly ran out in front of a car-
  "Tovar, who's this?" Llevar said, fear creeping into her voice as she backed away into the living room. The guy laughed. He wore all black, except a dark navy baseball cap. He looked relatively well built. Not someone Tovar wanted to fight without the element of surprise on his side.
  The guy laughed. "Who's this, your girlfriend? Incest is bad y'know, you sick freak-"
  "What do you want?" Tovar asked, stepping forward very cautiously. He was trying to not start anything. Just explain away, maybe take a bit of pummelling at the worst, and then leave. He had more important things to discuss with Llevar.
  "Why did you start on us?" the guy snarled, trying to sound menacing. Not very effective.
  Tovar paused for a second. "Er, I think you'll find I was casually running home when you threw a freaking rock at my head. Then you ran after me. One would imagine that-"
  "I have no idea what you're even saying," the guy laughed. He stepped obnoxiously close and Tovar was forced to take a step back next to Llevar in the living room, who was eyeing both of them back and fourth quickly. "Do I have to talk some sense into you, you little prick?"
  Tovar paused for another second. "Uh, no." He was sure he could hear Llevar quietly mouth a sentence forsaking a certain four letter word. "I would have thought by this point it was quite obvious I didn't mean any harm and I'm in the right here-"
  "In the right!?" the guy roared, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a knife. Tovar didn't have time to look terrified as the guy continued, "So you're saying beating the crap out of three of us and walking off like nothing happened makes you 'in the right' because you're so clever, you freak!?"
  Tovar was pushed aside out of the way and he stood, stunned and speechless for the third time that night, as Llevar stood in front of him, holding her arms out.
  "You go for my brother, you go through me, you sick prick."
  He raised a fist and lowered it so quickly Tovar didn't even see it connect with Llevar's face. Blood exploded across her face and Tovar ran to try and grab the knife, but Llevar pushed him back onto the floor, using his momentum against him with surprising force.
  "No," she coughed. "I said I'd be here for you, Tovar."
  Llevar kicked him in the leg and he swore, before she swung a fist at his head. He moved his hand up and blocked it, holding her arm away with his left hand. Tovar stood to charge as he thrust his right hand holding the knife towards her.
  And then Tovar saw it. Right there, in that instant. It seemed to last an eternity. Llevar, her face bloody, her mouth open, ready to scream. She realised it was too late. The knife was inches from her stomach, its serrated edge reflecting off the light. That one moment of sheer hopelessness. There wasn't enough time for Tovar to stop it. Everything was coming undone.
  The knife entered Llevar's body, and she screamed. That scream he had seen but not heard for so long made a point and pierced his ears with it, driving him down into all his most negative emotions. It was so real, so lifelike. It was the sound of everything ending. All of Llevar's emotions and feelings were projected into that one sound, and they washed over him, clear as day. Nothing had as much power.
  Then the knife was removed, and she gasped, the scream ending. She crumpled, not like people do in movies, but in a pathetic way, hitting the floor and staying there, breathing heavily, holding her stomach. Blood spilled onto the floor, onto her hands, onto her clothes. Her life was draining through her fingers and she couldn't hold it.
  Tovar stared at the guy, who held the knife almost in horror at what he'd done. Every emotion in that scream washed over him at once, fuelling him as he charged, roaring and shouting, resorting to basic human instinct. He grabbed the knife hand and twisted it, raised it over the guy's head and kneed him in the stomach. Then he blocked a movement, a punch, anything, from the other arm and crossed it with the first arm. The guy was bent over, his arms over his head, shaking. Tovar paused for a moment, the briefest of moments in comparison to the one before, then uncrossed the arms and stood the guy up straight. He grabbed the knife hand and pulled it back to himself. Plunging the knife straight into his own stomach.
  "NO!" someone shouted from somewhere. The pain was unbearable as his organs tried to function with a hole in them. He removed the knife and pushed the guy away, who stared at them in horror before bolting from the door, slamming it against the wall of the house so hard it rebounded and closed again. Tovar fell to one knee before his strength left him and he landed on his back. He breathed for a second, his shallow breathing the only sound and feeling he could sense, and he felt his hand being held by something. He twisted his body painfully to look, and he saw Llevar holding his hand, looking at him with that look of pure honesty once again. There was something else there too. Not regret but... gratitude. Their blood collected in a pool on the floor, and Tovar used his last remaining bit of strength to pull her closer.
  "Tovar..." she mouthed, blood trickling out of her mouth down her beautiful, innocent face. He closed his eyes for a bit longer than a blink, and then spoke the most innocent and honest words he'd ever spoken in his short, broken life.
  "Thank you..." he murmured, and he thought he saw her smile before the black around the edges of his vision began overcoming him, and then there was nothing.



To Be Concluded.

dude.

Hello Freshey! You called?

Chapter 15

Darkness everywhere. Tovar couldn't see "the light". Black as far as the eye could see.
  He felt weightless. He didn't feel anything else. There was nothing around him. He couldn't even feel himself. He tried reaching out with a hand, but couldn't feel it or see it.
  Is this what death felt like? Pain then nothing? It was rather disappointing. Tovar had always been fascinated by death. What happens after one dies? Is that it, just nothing? How can one define nothing? The concept of having just emptiness and no state of mind is very difficult to understand. Yet here it was. He was floating, alone.
  Oh God, this is boring, he thought.
  If he had to have this for the rest of eternity... he was beginning to regret how he'd lived his life. All the things he could have done but never bothered. Maybe he should have asked out that one girl last year. And as for how it ended...
  ...Strange, he thought. He couldn't remember how he'd actually... died. Who had he been with? He had no idea. He tried to recall his last day. He was working at a fast food restaurant... came home and some random guys attacked him.
  Oh, then he'd been hit by a car! He remembered now, clearly in his head. He was walking home, beat up some guys who had attacked him, then he'd got hit by a car.
  Pretty bad way to go, he thought. Not much warning. Just bam, dead. Better than other ways, he shrugged. Or rather, he made the motion of shrugging with no actual body.
  Then he saw it. Like how a black hole is visible simply by the absence of everything in it, he could see something red. He couldn't work out how far away. It was getting bigger, though. Blood red. He tried to swim away from it, but he couldn't move. It got bigger and bigger, until it enveloped him on all sides. He could see pictures in the sea of red. Images from his life, perhaps? He saw himself as a child, in school, with his family. He saw himself living his entire life in these images.
  And then one which he couldn't see entered his mind. He couldn't turn, but it entered his mind, and all the images slowly changed to become a girl, her face covered in blood, her mouth open to scream. He recognised her but he didn't know where from. She looked to be in pain. The real pain was just about to come, but she had resigned herself to the fact that she would suffer. There was no struggle in those eyes, but... welcome? This girl welcomed the pain?
  The images shuddered, and Tovar began to get scared. They closed in from everywhere, the girl, with blood covering her face, etching their way into his mind, carving themselves in. He started whimpering without a voice, crying to no one. "No," he murmured, his voice suddenly aloud, real. His voice scared him as much as the images. "Go away..."

  "Leave me alone!"
  Tovar's eyes shot open. He was lying on his back, staring up at the clouds. They looked bleak and grey, as if they had lost interest in their role.
  Tovar blinked. Everything came to him at once. The red plain, the lamp posts, Darren's murder, Llevar's murder, his death... they all came rushing back as he sat up in the familiar red plain, only to be interrupted by a voice.
  "Welcome, at long last."
  The voice demanded Tovar's attention as he stood up quickly, dusting himself off to look more presentable and gazed at the voice's source. A man wearing knee-high boots, black robes and a cloak.
  "You..."
  "Me. Come, Tovar. We have much to talk about, and I feel it would be awkward if we were to stand perfectly still while we did it."
  The man walked off and Tovar quickly ran to catch up with him. The questions once again bounced around his head at a furious rate, none of them letting another be asked before it.
  "Why am I- Who are you- I mean to say- Is this like- Lamp posts?"
  The man glanced at him out of the corner of his eye in bemusement. "You have many questions, but try to make them... comprehensible."
  Tovar nodded in embarassment, then looked at the ground for a second. "I have worked out a few things myself, though."
  The man tilted his head. "Oh?"
  "Well, the most obvious thing is that this is the afterlife, right? I died, and people are brought to somewhere after they die. I assume everyone has a different place they're brought."
  "Hmm, yes and no. This is what you humans call the afterlife, yes, but it exists for a very different reason."
  "And that's- hang on, you act like you aren't a human?"
  The man smirked. "For someone who says to have worked out certain aspects of this 'afterlife', you are very... slow. I, of course, am God."
  Tovar nodded and took this in. "...God."
  "Well, not actually a God per se, but I suppose I am what, again, you humans would view as a God."
  "So..." Tovar said, his voice tinged with a little bit of disappointment. "Does this mean that... er... the Christians were all right or something?"
  "I like to think that every religion is right to a degree. I don't mind people worshipping me- it is good for one's ego, after all- but the main thing is that I would like people to simply live a good life, being kind to one another and not 'sinning', as again you humans would put it."
  "Does that mean...?"
  "No, I did not create the world. Everyone asks me that. And I'm not going to answer any more of your questions on how the world came about, or about my Godhood either. We have much more important matters to discuss, such as this afterlife.
  "There are three 'levels' of this afterlife, if you will," the man said, scratching his nose. "There's the place of punishment, the place of paradise, and here. Here is what you might call 'purgatory'; it is the place in which I judge whether you go to paradise or punishment. Some people go straight to either, some people like you just come here."
  "I'm... slightly confused. Why did I come here, exactly?"
  "To give you a chance to redeem yourself, whether you knew it or not. Being 'God', I'm rather good at reading emotions, so I can actually watch you and tell if you are truly sorry for your sins, or if you even meant them in the first place."
  "Ah, I understand now. Now you say that, it makes sense."
  The man raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
  "Yes. Which also reminds me; you called me 'the last sinner', right? Well, that's a lie, isn't it?"
  The man laughed. "Ahahaha... Impressive. No, you are not 'the last sinner'. In fact you seemed very... underwhelmed by my accusation."
  "You tell everyone they're the last sinner, don't you?"
  "Correct again. How did you work this out?"
  "I was pretty sure, but before I came here I became certain. I was floating in a black void, watching images of my whole life-"
  "Oh yes, that's where you go between death and this place. I'm a busy man, I have lots of people to talk to. You waited there for roughly two hundred and thirty seven years, your time."
  Tovar stared at him.
  "I apologise, carry on," the man said, putting his hands in his pockets and continuing walking.
  "...In this black void, they began to get replaced by... by my sister Llevar, the face she had just before she..."
  The man nodded, smiling to himself. "Continue."
  "The first day I woke up in this afterlife was when you tried to scare me with the TV broadcast shouting at me and then the image of my sister. It worked," he laughed. "Scared the crap out of me."
  "Aha, yes! Please go on, this is entertaining to hear from your side."
  "The first lamp post I came to was one in which I followed you through a red plain for a few seconds, and then came to my home town. And then you dropped a pile of meteors. Subtle. I saw my sister, and she gets hit by a meteor, and adopts the same facial expression as before.
  "This face just kept popping up while I've been here. The meteor storm and that were too... obvious. And finally, the very first dream I woke up from, you walked to a church, and then destroyed it in the next dream. A meteor storm, destroying a church, calling me the last sinner? That Armageddon was too obvious, too... cliche'd, if you will? Every single other vision I had contradicted me being the last sinner. To be honest, it felt like you just wanted to scare me.
  "Which is another thing I've worked out. The reason that face kept popping up is because it's the most terrifying thing of my entire life that can be expressed in visual form. That moment, even in the dream, froze me to the spot and seemed to last forever... and that was before she screamed. You chose the moment of complete terror, just before all hope was lost to recur through my time here to scare me."
  The man was actually grinning now. "Absolutely right. To drive you to insanity. That's why it appeared so much. It's also the same reason I called you the last sinner. It's a good way of gauging whether you meant your sins or not, again."
  "And that brings me to another topic. Meeror."
  There was a loud snap, and Meeror suddenly appeared before them. He looked around in shock then focused on them. "What just...?"
  "Meeror isn't real. Even the name makes it obvious, I'm stunned I didn't see it at first.
  "Meeror is my mirror."
  At that moment, Meeror suddenly stopped moving with a pained expression on his face. Then, amazingly, cracks began to form in his arms and legs, all round his body, until he couldn't take the strain and he cracked. There was no blood. Instead, where he had stood, was just red dust falling to the ground and a cracked mirror on the floor.
  "Drive me to the point of insanity, and give me my mirror image who only has all the positive traits about me. How am I doing so far?"
  The man was beaming from ear to ear. "Best in centuries."
  "Unfortunately, I'm going to have to disappoint you there as that's... all I've got."
  "Certainly very impressive as that is most of it. As you probably worked out, I showed you the important parts from your life from the start of your obvious major sin... murder. While you dreamt these, I was actually watching you to see how you reacted, if you truly meant them or not; that's why the dreams felt so real. During the actual parts I wanted reactions, they didn't feel like dreams, did they? The four parts of your life I showed you; the actual murder would obviously invoke reaction. Meeting your sister for the first time afterwards and how you felt when you saw her expression upon her discovering the news; even though she already knew, she's a damned good actor. Then when you left the house, leaving your sister on her own after all that... how would you feel? And finally, of course, you and Llevar's deaths. And now I must ask you a question, Tovar. After your sister was stabbed, why did you choose to kill yourself?"
  Tovar stared at the ground for a long time. "I... I felt guilty. It was all my fault she died. Everything that happened to her was from me not supporting her enough, among other things. When Darren tried to... rape her, I just lashed out and ended up killing the guy. I stormed out of the house and left her alone, I let her into my house and watched her die by the hands of a man that I had angered. Llevar has done nothing wrong and I wanted to feel her pain and show her I cared, hopefully live alongside her if that's how the afterlife worked and... I didn't want to live any more. In those final moments I had no reason to. I don't regret that decision."
  They had stopped walking now. The man looked at him with those attention grabbing eyes of his. "You're right. Llevar suffered so much pain, not just by your hand, and she was murdered for trying to defend you. She's in paradise now. Not to say she's 'perfect', but she definitely deserved it."
  There was silence for quite a while, save the sound of their feet shuffling along the dust.
  "Strangely, that's actually most of my questions answered," Tovar said, amazing himself.
  "You've taken this exceedingly well, I think. There are a few things I'd like to address though, and the only reason I'm explaining this is because I really enjoy talking to you about this. You may recall your... lack of remembering anything, as strange as that sounds. In the black void, you came up with a different way of how you died, which you actually had a dream of I believe at one point. The life I had showed you in the black void never actually happened. All the memories you had of your life were simply from that. That's how you got your death, and also all your memories of Meeror were a part of that. I didn't want you to remember the parts I wanted to check your reaction for, if you will."
  "This is... pretty demented, if you think about it."
  "Oh yes," the man smiled. "That's why I love it so much."
  Tovar paused for a second. "So, what now?"
  The man sighed. "I'll have to finish with you, then talk to someone else about the same thing. Very nice talking to you."
  He raised his hands and started moving them to clap them. "W-Wait, what are you doing?" Tovar asked, reaching forward.
  "Oh, when I clap, you'll go to paradise or punishment. I made up my mind long ago, actually, before we had this conversation."
  Tovar blinked. "Huh?"
  "I've enjoyed talking to you, but some things can not go unpunished. Or unrewarded. Depends on how you look at it, doesn't it?" he said, tilting his head.
  He raised his hands.
  "S-So where am I going?" Tovar interrupted, fear starting to trickle into his voice."
  The man smiled. "You'll see."
  He clapped his hands.

THE END

If I've left out any gaping plot holes, please ask. I have them all sorted out, but it's very possible I just forgot some of them during the explanation. If you read it, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it!

Full Story; Two posts


Chapter 1

Red.

He walked through the red plains, dust flying up behind his cloak. He was a man of authority. Just looking at him made you want to do anything for him. He had a smile that captured everything in its grasp. He wore knee-high boots, black robes and a cloak. But no one laughed at his out of place fashion style.

People screamed.

The mysterious man continued walking, eyeing his red, red surroundings. A huge expanse of red dust, with a few cracks here and there. A desert? It reminded the man of Mars.

Thinking to himself, he continued walking and something caught his eye. Standing out against the red, there was something different. He strode, eating at the dust with his boots, towards the thing far in the distance.

As he approached, it became clear it was a town. Or rather, a hamlet. It had about six houses, a shop, and a church.

The man kept walking into the hamlet. The houses were empty of life. There was no one, nothing. He walked to the church and finally came to a stop. It was your typical church. Tall, for one thing, he noted. He noticed something else, and finally smiled that demanding smile of his. He raised one hand.

~~~~~

He screamed.

He sat up, sweaty, rubbing his eyes with his hands. It was only a dream. Just a dream.

He swung his legs out of the bed and tried to recall what had scared him. There had been this man... walking. It wasn't that, no. Something about this man. Something this man did. What was it...?

He went downstairs, still shaking, and opened the fridge. The man had gone somewhere. Some town, maybe...? And then it went black. He couldn't remember anything after that.

Pouring a glass of milk, he cursed the fact you always seemed to forget your dreams. Dreams held a significant purpose, he thought. Any time he had a nightmare, a really bad day was about to follow, without question.

He drank the milk, pondering the dream. It was a bad dream, of course. Why else would he have woken up screaming? At least he lived alone, otherwise his mother would be in to calm him and that was really embarrassing.

He flicked the TV remote into his hand. He'd lived alone since six months ago, the day he turned sixteen. He hated his family. They were all so... better than him, expecting him to perform miracles, sneering and laughing at every mistake he made. So he lived alone. Worked an average job. Got a loan out from the bank for a house. Was enough to keep himself going. House prices were through the floor lately and he found someone selling this nice one. He sat down on one of the comfortable chairs that had come with it.

Or at least, he assumed they had come with it, he didn't remember buying them. Strange he didn't even remember how he had obtained something like a chair. It's generally vaguely memorable. Come to think of it, he couldn't remember the lady who sold him this place, either. That was only six months ago. "Pathetic," as his father would say. "Tovar couldn't remember what time it is if he had a watch!"

Tovar was his name. He hated that name. He went through his entire life with people asking him how to spell it, telling him "oh, well THAT'S a strange name, ain't it?" Yes, it's a strange name. There was also the fact the metaphor made no sense. If he had a watch...? How would a watch help him remember the time? His father always did that, saying things and thinking he sounded really clever when actually he sounded stupid.

Maybe the dream was right, he suddenly thought. He'd been up for around ten minutes and he'd already condemned his family to death. He shrugged and turned the TV on.

Tovar screamed for the second time that morning as a single word, shaking appeared in the middle of the screen accompanied by someone shouting it.

"Tovar!" he voice yelled at him. He crouched back in his seat, shaking again, and turned the TV off. Nothing happened.

"Do you not remember, dearest?"

The words appeared as the voice said them.

"Your dear family, Tovar? They looked after you and you repay them with hate!?"

He shook his head. What the hell was going on?

"Do you remember your sister? Oh, you hated your sister. She was so much better than you at everything she did, so... effortlessly..."

The words appeared less sharp now, almost tauntingly.

"Have you seen her recently? Like THIS!?"

Tovar screamed again as suddenly his sister was shown on screen.

With a bloody face and her mouth half open, about to scream.

"She doesn't look so good, does she?"

The voice laughed maniacally and Tovar jumped out of his seat. He ran to the socket in the wall and unplugged it. The laughing stopped.

He sat back, shaking. Was he still dreaming? He pinched himself. No, that just hurt, nothing else. What was that...? TVs could talk? Why to him directly? Did other people get that message and wonder what the hell just happened?

He stopped shaking, and trudged his way back to his room. Go to sleep, forget about it. He lay down in bed, and closed his eyes. The image of his sister appeared in his head. He shook his head and opened his eyes again. It was going to be a long night.


Chapter 2

The mysterious man with the cloak gazed at his surroundings. They were in complete ruin, as if a bomb had gone off. He shrugged his cloak back onto his shoulders and walked away from the little hamlet. Roughly six houses and a shop.

No church to be seen.

~~~~~

A continued dream?

Tovar didn't get it. The man was the one in his dream before. What had he done? The town was ruined after he got there, but...

He slowly got dressed, trudged his way downstairs, opened the fridge and got out a bottle of milk. Pouring himself a glass, he suddenly remembered the TV last night.

Putting the bottle down, he almost tripped his way over to the TV and turned it on.

"What's the situation?"

He breathed out, suddenly realising he'd been holding his breath the whole time. CSI was on. Overrated show, he thought to himself, but not his bloody, defaced sister.

First the dream, then that. Was the TV a dream? He'd pinched himself, but come to think of it, he'd never actually pinched himself in a dream, so did that even work? If it was, it was the most lucid dream of all time. It couldn't be real, though. He had turned off the TV and it continued. That's not possible.

He finished his milk and checked his watch. Ten minutes 'till he had to be at work. He could start walking.

He opened the door.

Red.

Tovar stood, speechless, in the doorway. There was nothing. The town had been replaced by... red. This dusty red... the same as the dream...?

"What... the..."

He took a step forward and slowly and carefully placed his foot on the ground. Red dust sprinkled around his foot. He took another cautious step into the wilderness. As far as he could see... red.

He pinched himself. "Ow," he murmured. This pinching business really didn't achieve much. He shook his head.

"Where IS everything!?" he shouted, hoping for an answer. Deafening silence answered him, and tears formed in his eyes.

Tovar turned round to walk back inside.

His house was gone.

He jumped back in fright, kicking up more dust which fell onto him. He fought it off, as if that would make it go away, and looked back at where his house had been. The first thought that struck him was about the loan he owed. Then he realised he was stuck out here in this red plain of purgatory.

He screamed out loud, desperately hoping for an answer, and only silence came back, mocking him.

Then he noticed something.

Right in the middle of where his house used to stand, there was a grey stone sitting there.

A gravestone.

He slowly got to his feet, and cautiously walked towards it. He held his arms out as if trying to balance himself. He kept telling himself it couldn't be real.

Tovar finally reached the gravestone after what felt like an eternity. It was small, delicate, didn't jump for attention like other gravestones did. He shook his head. Gravestones aren't bloody sentient, he thought. Catch a hold of yourself, To...

His thoughts managed to catch themselves in his throat. The name on the gravestone.

'Tovar Verin. Born 1st March 1995. Died 1st March 2011.'


Chapter 3

"So she's shouting at me for something I didn't even do, and I was all 'Bitch, please, would I do that?'"

Tovar worked in a fast food restaurant. Not very glamorous. On the bright side, his two co-workers, Nail and Sandra, were both hilarious. Nail was currently telling telling the story of his exciting night out.

"For some reason, that got her even more mad, and she slapped me in the face and walked away!"

Sandra collapsed in giggles, and Nail looked appalled. "Bitch don't know her place, I'm tellin' you!"

Tovar was trying not to laugh as he handed a meal over to the next customer. The customer looked at Nail then gave Tovar a withering stare as if to say "I'll be coming back for your souls", then walked off to enjoy her chicken nuggets. Tovar shrugged and walked back to talk with Nail and Sandra. He checked a mirror Sandra had requested be put in at the back. Smooth face, black hair down to his neck. Bright blue eyes. It was the only bright part of him; everything else seemed to be dark. His hair always seemed to become a mess within seconds of walking out of his house. Tovar knew he wasn't an ugly person, but he didn't overly care about how he looked most of the time.

It had been a long shift. Mainly because the other two couldn't be bothered doing anything, and it was a slow day, so Tovar took most of the customers. Cooking food wasn't exactly rocket science, as the manager had said to him. Whether this is food or not is debatable, he thought to himself at the time. Tovar had a lot of those moments, where he thought things to say back to people but never did it.

Tovar listened to the exciting antics of Nail, eyeing the clock like a bird eyes their pray, waiting for that minute hand to hit the twelve. Every minute seemed like an eternity. From the sound of Nail's night, it had lasted an eternity. Tovar knew he'd probably made up over half of it, mainly the parts involving any females, but again, he didn't say it.

The minute hand hit twelve.

"I'm off, guys. Have fun!"

Nail and Sandra nodded, shouting variations of "good bye" as he left. He heard Nail shout "happy birthday, bitch" after him and smirked. Tovar opened the back door out and began to run home.

Running is underrated. What's wrong with running in public? It's seen as unconventional or impolite. And then people are late everywhere. There's no reason to not run like the wind everywhere.

"Hey kid, what's the rush?"

Tovar sighed as he heard the voice, clearly aimed at him, trying to annoy him. He looked around and saw the most stereotypical teenage thug in the universe- full tracksuit and rings- eyeing him up like he had the clock. He had two of his friends with him - or, seen the way those kind of people treat each other, "acquaintances".

He shook his head and kept running forward. Maybe he was wrong. He shouldn't be so judgemental. That's what his father was, not Tovar. These kids were going to be nice to him.

He felt a rock smash him in the back of the head.

Maybe not.

He ran round the corner. He was in a backalley near his house. Graffiti on the walls, used syringes and wrappers littered the ground. He crouched down behind the corner and waited. The kids had started running now to keep up with him. He heard them come up to the corner. As they came round it, he picked up a syringe next to him and lunged at the nearest one, stabbing him in the neck.

The guy screamed and clutched at his neck, collapsing. Tovar turned and elbowed another in the face, who hadn't had time to react. He fell to the ground. The last one looked at him, scared.

"We didn't mean trouble, man, we was just kiddin'!"

Tovar walked forward and the guy went to kick him in the balls. Tovar raised his leg and stamped it down on the thug's, making a delightful cracking noise. Tovar shrugged his shoulder and ran on, blood politely dripping down his uniform, listening to the three guys' screams.

He emerged from the backalley onto a bright street, a hundred or so yards from his house. He looked up at the traffic lights. Green. He continued to run across the road.

He heard someone shout, and turned. Before he could turn his head to the shout, he saw a car coming his way, horribly out of control, speeding more than the legal limit on a highway. He stood motionless in fear. The car was closer.

"No," he breathed.


Chapter 4

Tovar opened his eyes. He was on his knees, still at the gravestone. Was that how he had died? Simply ran out in front of a speeding idiot?

He got to his feet and looked around him. He couldn't see anything in any direction.

So he walked.

On the bright side, he supposed, he had a lot of time to consider things. What were those dreams? Why did the TV do that? Was it a good idea to move from his family?

He slowed ever so slightly on the last question. The flashback he had had was on his birthday, but yet he moved away from his family on his birthday. There's no way he could have got a job before even then, or be in a comfortable friendship with the other two.

Tovar pondered the question and didn't even notice the lamp post he walked into.

"Ow..." he murmured, rubbing his head and looking up at it. There was a lamp post. In the middle of nowhere. He looked around the lamp post, back where he'd came, but no.

"How is it that there is one thing in the entire world I can walk into and I managed it?"

He hadn't realised he'd talked to himself for a few seconds. "Talking to yourself, is the first sign of madness, Tovar," he said. "Never mind walking into lamp posts in deserts."

Staring up at the lamp post, the lamp at the top seemed odd. It was flickering, almost, struggling to stay on against the odds. It seemed to be winning, though, as it flashed brighter with every flicker, brighter, until it flashed so bright that everything went white...

~~~~~

Tovar rubbed his eyes. He opened them, but it was like opening your eyes after someone turning the light on in a dark room. He slowly opened one at a time.

More red, why would it be anything else? The plain stretched before him. What was it? Why was it here? So many questions radiated through his head as he sat up, still rubbing his eyes. He dropped his hands from his face as he noticed a black swirl in the corner of his eye, and then he stood up and turned to look at it.

It was the man from his dreams, confidently walking in the direction of a... town. A town? There was something out here?

Having forgotten the lamp post, Tovar ran after the man. "Hey! Excuse me, are you the one from my dreams? Wait, that sounds weird, never mind. If you're not, I apologise. You wouldn't believe the week I've been having, so if I seem a little off the rails, it's probably because I am. The question remains in the air though, Mr Man."

The man obviously wasn't interested, as he continued walking without even noticing Tovar's exclamation. They were near the town now. It was relatively large, definitely more than around six houses and a shop. Tovar tapped his food impatiently.

"Where are you going and why won't you listen to me? I mean, I don't think there's anyone here any more. Am I going insane? Maybe this is all a figment of my imagination, I'm in a mental asylum. I'm getting given so much drugs now I'm having dreams within hallucinations and my hallucinations are trying to contradict themselves just to confuse me. Alternatively the hallucinations are just flat out ignoring me and won't answer me!"

The man was not interested. He walked into the town and raised his arms.

"HELLO!? Are you..."

Tovar stopped mid-sentence and nearly crashed into the man. He recognised this place. It was his home town.

As if on cue, he spotted his little sister. She was riding down the pavement on a bicycle. He could never ride a bike properly. Everything he did, she was better than him at it. And his parents loved her.

But something was wrong. Tovar knew something was wrong, but he didn't know what. He wanted to shout for help, tell his sister to get away, to get to safety, that he was coming home. But he didn't. He stood motionless as the man suddenly threw his arms down.

And meteors rained from the sky.

Blasting craters in the road, destroying houses, they rained in a storm. Tovar screamed out, he didn't even know what he was saying... but the meteors didn't affect him. One landed right on top of him and the man, and they were okay. Tovar looked over at his sister.

She had a bloody face, mouth open to scream.

Dead.

He shook his head. "No... NO!"

As he ran over to her, everything began to fade and he felt himself slump over forward into unconsciousness.


Chatper 5

For what seemed like the seventh time that day, Tovar awoke with a splitting headache and hundreds of questions bouncing through his head, off each other and spinning away before he had time to process them.

He sat up. His home town was gone. As was the lamp post, he thought as an afterthought. He dragged himself to his feet, stared at the red, and walked again.

A man walking, the town, the TV, the grave, his death, his sister, the endless plain... What did it all mean? Maybe he was just insane. Or maybe, he thought, the speeding car had hit him. Knocked him into a coma. The family he hated so much stood above him now, his mother stroking his hair. Maybe his friends were there, too. Nail and Sandra, and all the others. All them worrying for him? It made him smile.

He was so lost in his thoughts he walked into the person in front of him. Momentarily stunned, Tovar looked at the person as he turned around. The question of who he was and why he was here was there for a second before it bounced away again, and then he broke into a grin.

"Meeror?"

Meeror grinned back. They high fived and briefly hugged. Meeror had always been Tovar's best friend. He shared something with Tovar. Everyone had always said they looked similar and acted similar, as if they were twins. They had some sort of connection. Meeror could tell when Tovar was going to do something. He saw the glint in his eye. The briefest of smiles.

When Tovar had left his family, Meeror came with him. Meeror had said he couldn't imagine life without Tovar. It was quite touching, actually. Meeror lived with his aunt nearby, and they talked every day like old times

Like old times, Tovar thought. It felt like it. He'd almost forgotten the plain in a nostalgic wave. All the things that had happened. He grinned broadly. They began walking.

"So... how's things been for you lately?" Tovar asked

"You serious? Just woke up this morning and BAM! This plain! I mean, I was a little out of it last night, heh, but I don't think I was this bad..."

"Me too. Although, I woke up in a house, so my day is better than yours. Tovar one, Meeror nil."

"Oh come on, that's hardly fair. You had to walk like seven trillion miles!"

"Not even."

They continued walking for a little while in silence before Tovar spoke again.

"Where you headed? You have no idea how good it is to have someone to talk to. Beyond everything else this is the most boring day of my entire life."

Meeror stared at him.

"Minus the time I had to stay at dad's work for the day. Never again. God have mercy."

There was the lightest of flickers in the clouds for the briefest of seconds, and then it was gone.

~~~~~


Tovar and Meeror considered their blind meander through nothing until Tovar noticed something on the horizon. He interrupted Meeror mid-sentence.

"Hold everything, there is something over there! Distinctly not red!"

One great thing about Meeror is he never minded if Tovar interrupted. He just accepted it. Meeror laughed at the joke about red and Tovar smiled. He liked that too.

They began sprinting towards the speck in the distance. Like Tovar, Meeror thought running was the best way to travel. Another thing to add to the 'Awesome Things About Meeror' list. As the speck became a dot which became a shape, the shape became recognisable as a house. In fact...

"That's my house!" Tovar exclaimed. He ran a little bit faster and the house's features became recognisable, its musty smell entered his nostrils and he laughed happily, Meeror grinning behind him as he tried to keep up. He ran up to the door and opened it.

Locked.

He turned to face Meeror as Meeror smashed into him, knocking them both to the ground. He fought Meeror off of him and looked under the doormat for the key.

It wasn't there.

Tovar stared around his surroundings in panic. After all this, he couldn't get into his own house. Then he looked at the window next to him.

"No way," Meeror said as Tovar walked him to the window and held his hands out for Meeror to step in.

"After you."

Meeror stepped on his hands and Tovar lifted. Meeror lifted one foot and with a mighty kick he broke the window into thousands of little shards. Then he clambered in.

Hopefully the insurance people wouldn't hear about the window, Tovar thought.

The front door clicked open and opened back onto Tovar. He strode in and bowed as Meeror shook his head. It clicked.

"It's a pull door, isn't it?"


Chapter 6

They arranged that Meeror would sleep on the couch. This was after many small arguments. "It's unfair to let the guest sleep on the couch", "It's only fair after you're giving me accommodation". Back and forth like this for a while before Meeror pointed out he was the one with the kitchen knife. Thinking back to a time when they were younger when Meeror made that thread, Tovar quickly backed down.

Tovar closed the door to his room and his face instantly fell. He didn't want Meeror to know just how he felt about all this. It would bring him down, then they'd both be down together and it would just get worse.

He shook his head. He didn't want to think about it. He quickly undressed and got into bed. It had been a long day.


The second his head hit the pillow he started snoring.

~~~~~


Tovar woke up in a black street. For some reason he woke up standing up. He didn't question this, nor why the streetlights were all turned off. He began walking. There was somewhere he had to be. Something very important was there.

He recognised the place, though. His hometown, again. Very near his school. He wasn't heading home, though. He didn't know where he was heading but... it was somewhere important... to do with his family.

Everything started to brighten a little bit. The lightposts were glinting very weakly, but it was enough to see properly now his eyes had adjusted.

Tovar's walk became a stride, which became a run, which became a sprint. He needed to be there. Now. Wherever it was. It was...

He stopped. He heard voices and he knew he had arrived. He was on a street with a junction. No cars about. There was a backalley to the side, and that's where the voices were coming from.

Slowly, very slowly, Tovar began to walk to the backalley. He had to be careful. He didn't know why, he just did. The voices were getting louder.

"Leave me alone, I-"

"Just a little. It won't hurt, Llevar."

A girl and a boy. Both younger than him, and he was only fifteen, so...

He blinked. He was sixteen, what was he talking about?

He recognised the girl's voice. He knew her from somewhere but he couldn't place it.

He edged closer to the alley, almost at a complete stop now.

"Please, I want to go home..." the girl, Llevar, said. Her voice was pleading.

"Llevar, you're not going home."

Tovar edged his way to the corner and poked his head round. There was a light in the middle of the backalley. The alley turned at the far end. Two people stood just under the light.

His sister?

He nearly slapped his forehead for his idiocy at forgetting what his own sister's name was, especially considering how unusual their names were. His parents had a thing for being complete idiots.

There was a guy of about fourteen, like her, with her. He was talking to her and she was trying to get away but he was walking with her and slowly pushing her back. Tovar recognised him as her boyfriend. What was he doing?

"Darren, I want to go home, leave me alone!" she shouted and tried to run up the alley away from him. He snarled and grabbed her arm. He pulled her back and pushed her against the right-hand wall. Tovar edged his way round the wall a bit further, his eyes wide.

"You're not going home," he growled as he held her arms back against the wall so she couldn't move. He lowered his hand furthest from Tovar from her arm and slapped her in the face.

Tovar stood in the alleyway now. Had this scum just...?

She tried to scream and he covered her mouth with his hand. With her free hand she slapped him repeatedly but he didn't act as if he'd noticed it. Tovar saw his other hand move down from her arm and grab hold of her breast.

Tovar ran down the alleyway, not caring about the noise he was making. Darren and Llevar turned their heads to see Tovar headbutt Darren in the face.

Darren cried out and let go of Llevar, who started backing away. Tovar kicked Darren in the balls and as he doubled over, kneed him in the face. His rage was pounding through him, his adrenaline giving him strength he never knew he had. He didn't care any more.

Darren fell on his back and Tovar stamped on his face. Darren's nose exploded with blood and a sickening crunch and Tovar mercilessly kicked him, shouting incomprehensible insults and God knows what. Tovar didn't even know what he was screaming. He kept kicking and hearing skin rip and bones pop. Blood covered his legs and Darren's body. He got down on his knees and started punching Darren, leaning all his weight on his knee in Darren's stomach. Darren was saying something, but Tovar didn't care. This sick, twisted little boy had tried to rape his sister.

Tovar got back to his feet. Darren wasn't talking any more. Both of them were breathing heavily. Tovar stood silently for a second, looking down at the pathetic body, before lashing out and kicking him in the head.

Snap.

Tovar stopped. He stared at Darren, and at what he'd done for almost a full minute. Then he kneeled down, very slowly. Even slower, he lifted Darren's head. Something looked wrong with his neck.

He put a hand on his neck to check for a pulse.

He couldn't find one.


Chapter 7

"Oh God..." Tovar murmured as he moved his hand away from Darren's neck. It was shaking so much it was almost hurting. It annoyed him. Tovar punched his hand and held it with the other to stop it shaking. He slowly stood and noticed his entire body was shaking.

"N... What..."

It was a bloody mess. Just blood everywhere. Darren's blood. He looked like a puppet that had had its strings cut, and then dropped. Bones twisted at angles they shouldn't and his face was almost unrecognisable as the scum that had...

Tovar turned. Llevar...

...was nowhere to be seen. He ran out to edge of the backalley, to the street again.

"Llevar?" He called. "Llevar!?"

He turned back to Darren's corpse and... no, don't call it a corpse. Don't think like that. Surely the hospital could fix him up.

Tovar nodded. Yeah, the hospital. He knew the ambulances would be here in about half an hour, they could patch him up in no time. Darren had already been like this when Tovar had got there. Yeah, that'd work.

He took out his phone and dialled 911. He bit his lip as the phone rang briefly then he quickly hung up and backed against the wall, shaking his head. No, they wouldn't believe that, and Darren was dead...

Tovar slowly slid down the wall until he sat, still shaking, tears running down his face. He hadn't meant this. He was just trying to protect his sister but... the more he thought about it... who was really the scum? The attempted rapist or the murderer?

His head shot up. "Murderer..." he whispered. "I'm... a murderer..."

What did he do now? Did he go home to Llevar and tell her he'd... to her boyfriend? Well, ex-boyfriend now. Literally.

He laughed out loud. He was making jokes about killing someone. Murdering his sister's boyfriend and laughing? What the hell was wrong with him?

No, he couldn't go home. Llevar probably hadn't seen Darren by the end, and it was possible she hadn't even recognised Tovar... or maybe she hadn't recognised him and ran away to phone the police?

He shivered and stood. He had to leave. He couldn't stay here in case someone showed up. And... he'd have to go home.

Darren dying and then his girlfriend's brother "mysteriously" disappearing was too obvious. He had to go home. Act like nothing had happened. Shocked at the news of Darren's death. And what about Llevar? As much as he disliked her, she was his sister and he loved her... would she tell everyone what had happened? Would she act shocked to Darren's death?

He'd find out later. He gave Darren one last look, and left the alley. He would throw his clothes in a bin nowhere near his house tomorrow. Turning up to his house clotheless would raise unnecessary questions. Yes, tomorrow he'd do that. Tomorrow...

~~~~~

Tovar opened his eyes.

The room was dark with a faint trace of light. The sun was just beginning to rise on the horizon and cast a moody shadow over his room. His room was basically a bed and a desk next to it, with a wardrobe by the side. Nothing special.

Tovar closed his eyes again and thought. He was shaking, and willed himself to stop. The dream was the most terrifying thing he'd ever experienced. He always believed dreams meant something big, but this one was so powerful, so dark, so... real...

He shook his head and sat up to look out the window. Still the plain of red. He choked back tears and shook his head again. He couldn't break down. He was barely still sane, he had to keep that shred of sanity.

Meeror was making noise downstairs. Come to think of it, Meeror had barely even mentioned the fact they were stuck in... whatever this was. After merely a day, Tovar had begun to accept it. He found it strange that he couldn't seem to remember anything, though. And all the visions lately... they had to mean something, right?

And then he remembered something. Before he hit that lamp post... stupid as that was. He remembered the gravestone he found. It said he had died on his birthday. And the vision after that, it was his birthday. He was living on his own, working at a fast food restaurant, then stepped out in front of a car.

But he'd only moved to live on his own on his birthday. He hadn't got a job that fast.

What did that mean? The visions were all wrong, or was his mind just toying with him? Maybe he was insane, and his mind was giving him flashes of his life mixed with what he currently felt.

Insane for believing he was dead? He placed so much faith in him seeing his own gravestone and accepting it as truth he was, in fact, dead. He felt very much alive. He had imagined death would feel more... empty.

Or... maybe he was looking too far into this. They were just dreams, nothing else. Dreams meant something, certainly, but not this much.

He swung his legs out of bed and got into the clothes he wore yesterday, yawning. He walked into the bathroom next door and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked tired and stressed and his hair was a mess. He grinned at his reflection before walking downstairs.

"Morning," he said as he greeted Meeror, who was watching TV. Tom and Jerry was on. Tom was trying to play a piano recital, but Jerry was messing it up for him.

"Tom and Jerry special all day. Hell yes!"

"I always loved that show. Jerry is really the bad guy. Tom's just trying to do his recital and some mean mouse decides to screw it up for him."

He flumped down at the sofa by Meeror and watched as Jerry slammed Tom's hands in the piano and almost winced.

"Y'know, if you think about it, this stuff would actually really hurt. I mean, seriously, have you ever had a 16 tonne weight dropped on your head?" Tovar said with a laugh.

"Can't say I have. Can't say the same for my neighbours when I was younger."

Tovar laughed out loud and stood up. He turned to walk to the kitchen and noticed Meeror looking at him strangely.

"Yes, I look terrible, I know-"

"No, no, there's something on your pants," he smirked. "Heh heh."

Tovar rolled his eyes at the innuendo and look down. His eyes widened, his heart hit his mouth.

Blood was splattered all over his pants...


Chapter Eight

Tovar stared at the blood for far too long, then looked up at Meeror.

“I... tripped down the stairs yesterday. Freaking hurt, y’know.”

Meeror raised an eyebrow then snorted with laughter. Rolling his eyes, Tovar walked into the kitchen and closed the door.

He stared at the wall for a few seconds. Then he kicked the air, throwing his arms about, trying to lash out and hit something but not make any noise. He threw his arms down on the table and leaned over it, breathing heavily.

“Dreams don’t intrude on life...” he whispered to himself, the sound of his own voice scaring him. “Dreams don’t intrude on death...”

He closed his eyes, thinking back. It was strange how vivid this dream was. Every dream before that, he’d forgotten portions of or could only remember what generally happened. This one he could remember everything. Sprinting to the alleyway, overhearing the conversation, the strike of anger flourishing through him, beating the living hell out of Darren...

Literally.

He shook his head. “Stop making jokes you idiot, self,” he muttered, punching his own arm. He walked to the fridge to get out the milk, and turned to look at the mirror.

His sister’s bloody face, mouth open to scream, stared back at him.

He couldn’t help it. He cried out, dropped the milk and narrowly caught it before it hit the ground. He stood and stared at the mirror and... saw his own reflection. Hair wild, face red, looking stressed. Was that just his imagination?

The questions started bouncing around his head again, all starting with “why”? Why was the plain here, why had the TV done that, why was he getting visions, why had all this happened? He had no answers. Maybe this was just a sickened, twisted dream? He’d wake up to find himself covered in sweat, alone at home, with life outside.

Life outside...

Tovar ran to the door of the kitchen and opened it. He picked up the TV remote as Tom tried to play the cadence of the piece and started to change the channel. Meeror stood.

“Hey, hey! I like this episode!” he exclaimed, snatching the remote back. Tovar turned on Meeror with a fierce look in his eyes.

“Give it to me,” Tovar said, scaring himself again, and Meeror blinked before giving him the remote. Tovar quickly changed the channel to 24 Hour News.

“...Three dead and at least twelve injured. What do you think, Jim?”

Tovar stared in amazement. The news was still reporting normal news when there was nothing in the world anymore? Even Meeror looked surprised.

“I find it disgusting that our youth are able to attain weapons like that so easily. There should be practices put in place to stop this, and a way to get kids off the streets,” the guest, Jim, said in a voice that was trying far too hard to be clever. The host nodded in agreement.

“Of course. Thanks Jim, you’ve been a big help.”

The host had an unnerving way of looking like she was always staring straight at Tovar. Her eyes seemed to look at him through the screen.

“In other news, it appears you’ve finally thought to check our channel. Hello, Tovar.”

Tovar doubled back and stared at the screen. Her eyes followed him.

“I had assumed it would be the first thing you would check, but you disappoint me. I thought teenagers of your generation worshipped the internet and would instantly check it. Alas, not.”

Tovar couldn’t do anything. He was speechless. He felt Meeror look at him in utter surprise.

“You, Tovar, are the last sinner. I’m sure you have many questions, and no clear objective in what to do. I’ll compromise both into one for you. Find me and I will answer your questions.”

The host suddenly changed into a man with a stare that attracted attention, dressed in black.

The man from his dreams.

“You found one of the lamp posts I left out for you. Well, rather, you walked into it. I was hoping the last sinner would be more... amusing. You’re just an idiot.”

Rage boiled up inside Tovar. What was this man saying?

“Keep finding them to find me. Easy, yes? Well, I’m a busy man, and I’m afraid I have to leave you. Find me, and I will answer your questions. Good day.”

Chapter Nine

The screen went blank. There was silence in the room for a few seconds. Then Meeror let out a deep breath, and Tovar did the same, realising he’d been holding his breath. Second time a TV had made him do that.

“Well. Um. Wow,” Meeror said simply.

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Tovar murmured and walked to the door. Meeror looked over and walked after him.

“Hey, hey, where you going?”

Tovar opened the door without looking back. “Outside. I’m finding him. You coming?”

Tovar strode out the door into the red plain and kept walking. He heard Meeror running to catch up with him.

“H-Hey, should you not get something or have some sort of plan?”

“I got this far without one. It’s not like I’m short of time.”

Meeror slowed to a walk next to him and looked at Tovar. Tovar didn’t look back. Meeror looked forward again and sighed.

“Well, I’ll be here, anyway. When you need me.”

“Thanks.”

~~~~~

They walked in silence for a long time. Tovar had no particular plan. By now he had decided turning his head might actually help, despite ruining the dramatic effect, and he looked around for a sign of any lamp post. He couldn’t believe he was actually following the advice of a man from his dreams on the news telling him to find lamp posts in a red desert. It was insane.

Meeror kept trying to cheer him up. Take his mind off things. It wasn’t helping, but he was thankful. It was nice to know there was someone trying to help, someone there for him.

He walked into a lamp post.

He swore as Meeror sniggered. They both realised simultaneously the same thing.

“That’s a lamp post,” Meeror observed.

Tovar stared up at the bright light. It was flickering, getting brighter and brighter.

“Thanks for... that...” he tried to say, but stopped as he fell forward into unconsciousness.

~~~~~

“Tovar? Tovar! Wake up, boy.”

His head hurt. Really badly. Tovar opened his eyes and was met with the darkness of his blanket. He rolled over to see his father at the door to his room.
“Hi,” he managed.

“Get up and downstairs in the next five seconds, this is the third time I’ve woken you.”

His father grumbled and left the room, and Tovar planted his face in his pillow. “Go away, dad...” he said to himself and got out of bed, putting the same clothes on as yesterday.

He pulled a leg of his pants on and froze. He looked down at the legs of the pants and saw the blood.

Back in the dream. He’d killed someone.

He stared round in panic. How the hell was he going to get the clothes out of here without anyone noticing? Or rather... what would Llevar say?

He pulled the pants off and found different clothes. He lifted the binbag out of the bin and poured its contents into it. He gathered up all the rubbish in his room, putting it in the bag, along with his bloodied clothes. He casually opened the door and took the bag downstairs, almost tripping down it. He walked into the sitting room, where his father stood, tapping his foot impatiently, holding car keys.

“While I appreciate you finally bringing the rubbish down, we’re in a hurry. Everyone’s already in the car. Get out.”

Tovar would have to leave the bag here for now. His dad walked out the front door and Tovar tucked the back behind the door. He’d leave it somewhere else later. Then he walked outside and got into the back seat of the car.

“Nice of you to join us,” his mother said from the front seat as the car roared to life.

“If we’re late, I will kill you, Tovar.”

Tovar felt Llevar looking at him. He finished buckling his seat belt and turned to her. Her stare was piercing. Was it always piercing? He had never really noticed. For the rest of the day, he would notice things to make him paranoid about her. Did she know? Had she even recovered from last night’s trauma? If she hadn’t, she did a damn good job of hiding it. She yawned and stretched, before slumping down in her chair and looking out the window.

“I would think of a witty comeback, but I don’t wish to start a fight with an unarmed enemy.”

He doubted she’d get the quote, but his dad cut her off even if she had done.

“That’s enough. We’re not having any of your bickering today, both of you. We’re going to go to your aunt’s engagement party. We’re going to be very nice about it, then you two can go home, go into town, or do whatever the hell it is you two do.”

Tovar and Llevar nodded. Tovar resisted the urge to say “who has an engagement party at noon?” and stared out the opposite window to Llevar, trying to look normal.

It was going to be a long day.


Chapter Ten

The car pulled up at their aunt's house, which had balloons littered around the entrance. It was a modest house; painted white with very ordinary variations of basically everything.

They exited the car and walked up to the front door, Tovar's mother fussing over the engagement present and making sure it was hidden. Christmas presents, birthday presents, anniversary presents, engagement presents, so many presents. Tovar just wanted to go home, get the clothes out of the house, and be done with it.

Oh God, was it boring. People he barely knew told him shocked voices that he'd grown so much, and new people told him he had a strange name. He took it all in, nodding happily. He'd glance over at Llevar every so often. She looked just as uncomfortable. What was the point in inviting teenagers to these things when obviously wanted to be anywhere but there?

Tovar sat on the bottom step of the house, thinking to himself, when a pair of legs stopped in front of him. He looked up to Llevar smirking at him.

"Cheer up, we can go now."

Tovar jumped to his feet and walked past Llevar to the door. He opened it and held it open for her and he began to run home.

"Hey, Tovar, can you wait up a second?"

He froze and turned. Llevar was waiting for him at the front door.

"Could you walk home with me?"

She sounded so casual, but what was she implying? Did she want to talk to him about last night? She never talked to him, so...

"Sure."

He slowly began walking to let Llevar catch up. She stepped next to him and they walked in silence for a few seconds.

Llevar looked similar to Tovar. Long black hair and piercing blue eyes. Unlike him, though, she had straight hair and pulled off the contrasting brightness well. She was actually relatively pretty, as much as he hated to admit it. Another thing to add to the list of things she was better than him at.

"We don't really talk much, do we?" she began. Tovar shook his head. He didn't want to give anything away in case she hadn't recognised him last night.

"It's... quite sad, really. All my friends are really close with their brothers. We can barely be in the same room for more than ten seconds before we start arguing. We could argue with our own shadows, as dad would say."

She laughed. Their aunt's house wasn't all that far away from their's, so it would be a short walk.

"Dad does say the stupidest things, doesn't he?"

"He thinks he's so smart, but really... he's not. Wow, we haven't started arguing yet."

Tovar nodded. Get to the point, Llevar...

"Y'know in the first year of Middle School, back in seventh grade. The English teacher had us look up what our names meant for one of our first homeworks. Do you not what Llevar means?"

She laughed again. "Llevar is a Spanish verb which means lots of different things, changing depending on context. So my name could mean anything, really."

Tovar shrugged. "I don't think this is coincidence, but the verb Llevar also originated as the verb, directly translated, 'to carry a burden'. When we had to do that assignment, all I could find on Tovar was that in Serbo-Croation, 'tovar' means cargo, or burden."

Llevar breathed in sharply, and then exhaled. "You're basically saying we're burdens?"

He shrugged. "Basically."

"Wouldn't surprise me, to be honest. Oh wow, we're home already!" she exclaimed.

Tovar hadn't even realised how far they had walked. He walked up the door and opened it, bowing to let her enter.

"After you."

"Thanks," she smirked. She walked upstairs before pausing for a brief second on the stairs.

"I'd... like it if we could do that more."

She jumped the last few steps and walked into her room, not giving him time to respond.

Tovar didn't know what to think. He had a warm feeling inside of him. It felt good to talk to her like that, without arguing, being completely open. They had something in common he'd never realised before, too. They looked similar, and their names were similar. Maybe they were more similar than he once thought.

He diverted his attention from Llevar and reached behind the door to pick up the bag of clothes. He quickly scribbled a note that he was going out to to the shop, and walked outside.

He'd just walk down the road to the next block, put his rubbish in one of the bins, and be done. No problem. He felt that all this was a bit unnecessary, but it was better than the police turning up to his house because Llevar was close to Darren and finding out...

They didn't have his finger prints, so they couldn't match them with anyone, which was a help. He had briefly considered going back to hide the body, but decided against it. He didn't want to see it again, and if someone had already found it, it would look even more suspicious.

He turned the corner and lifted up the lid of one of the bins. He chucked his rubbish in, closed the lids, and turned to walk back the way he'd came. No one had seen him. It was noon on Sunday, and everyone was at church. Seemingly every single person in his town except him went to church. Well, him and everybody at the party today, he thought to himself.

He walked back to his house and as he walked down the path towards it, he heard shouting.

"Tovar! Tovar!?"

He ran up to the front door in panic and opened it to be met with Llevar, tears
streaming down her face. Her eyes were puffy and her face was red.

"Oh God, where did you..."

"I went down to the shop, I wrote a note. What the hell happened?" he asked, moving closer to her.

"It's D-Darren... he's dead..."


Chapter 11

"Dead... Dead..."

The word echoed round Tovar's head as everything began to fade. Then he heard another voice.

"Tovar? Wake up!"

Tovar opened his eyes and woke up from what felt like the seventh dream in the past twenty four hours. It was weird Llevar talked to him, though. They avoided each other like the plague.

The lamp post above him was gone, and Meeror stood with a concerned look on his face which turned to joy when he saw Tovar was awake. Tovar nodded and let Meeror help him to his feet.

Without a word, Tovar began walking. He wanted to find another lamp post, maybe have another vision. He wanted to know what happened next. He felt like those dreams were important scenes in his life or... maybe this was all a dream, and that was his life? Oh God, don't even start thinking that. That would be too confusing.

"So, why did you... faint or whatever?" Meeror asked, struggling to keep up with Tovar's powerful stride.

"I... don't know why I fainted, Meeror."

"Ah, okay." Silence for a few seconds, then: "What happened before I met you that you were walking aimlessly?"

Tovar was lost in thought. He answered, "Long story," and continued his thoughts. What was he thinking? Oh yes... Llevar again. He had the image of her face as the dream ended burned into his eyes.

It's D-Darren... he's dead...

Was that acting? It was so real, though. It didn't feel forced. She hadn't known he was dead? She'd known something had happened to him. She must have just ran the hell away.

Why did Tovar care so much? It was just a dream, it mightn't mean any-

"Want to know what I'm doing here? It's a shorter story-"

"No, I don't, Meeror! Will you shut up for two seconds?"

Meeror stopped as Tovar kept walking. "Whoa, calm down. I'm just trying to cheer you u-"

Tovar turned and walked towards Meeror. "Can't you be serious for ten seconds? We're lost out in the middle of literally nowhere and I'm being called by some man of my dreams to find him! What the hell do you think this is, a game?"

Meeror blinked. "Man of your dreams?"

"For God's sake, you stupid-" Tovar began then his stress took over him. His anger, everything. He poured it into his fist which slammed into Meeror's face.

Meeror stumbled back and fell to the ground, clutching his face in pain. Tovar stood looking at his hands in horror as Meeror lay there for a second. There was a brief second, in which nothing moved, and the silence was deafening. Then Tovar ran over and helped him up, saying apologies so quickly he didn't even understand them himself.

"It's okay," Meeror kept muttering in between cracking his jaw up and down, but Tovar was crying. He couldn't control himself in his dreams, in real life, in death, nothing. He'd just shattered his best and only friend.

A strange brightness was coming from the left, and he looked up, the tears rolling back into his eyes, to see another lamp post. There hadn't been one before, where had it...?

Holding Meeror in his arms, he slumped forward and everything went black.


Chapter 12

"Dinner. Now."

Tovar woke up perfectly awake, for some reason. He was on his computer, which was blank. Must've went into sleep as he slept. He smirked at the thought.

His door closed and he realised it was his mother who'd called him unceremoniously for dinner. He stood and shrugged before beginning to walk downstairs.

His mother?

He was back in...

"Tovar, nice of you to join us."

His father looked up at him as he descended downstairs. Was he late or something? He didn't really care as he took his place. How long had passed since the last dream?

He took his seat at the table before instantly standing up, realising he'd forgotten to get himself a drink. His father sighed and began eating. Everyone already had their food. Probably late.

"So, how's your birthday been, Tovar?" his mother asked him as he returned to his seat.

His food caught in his throat for a second before he swallowed. Birthday? That much had passed?

He thought quickly. "Uh, yeah, it was good. Felt like any other day, I guess."

She smiled, then looked at Llevar. Llevar had the strangest way of eating. She'd divide up all of her foods into different sections on the plate, then eat a fraction of each of the foods in turn before she finished each of the foods in the same mouthful.

"What about your day, dearie?"

Dearie. Even on his birthday, she favoured her. Deep breath, let it pass.

"Not much. Most people were away for sports so I had today free."

Tovar's dad raised an eyebrow. "Why weren't you at sports?"

"Cuz I suck at them," she laughed, eating exactly a fifth of her steak. "I always get picked last."

"Me too," Tovar said. His parents ignored him.

"Well, in elementary school, I remember your teachers all saying you were really energetic and you beat the boys!" Tovar's mum exclaimed. His dad nodded.

Llevar went slightly red. "I don't really care for sports any more."

There was a clang as Tovar accidentally dropped his fork under the table. His father sighed again and tapped his foot as Tovar ducked under the table to get it.

"Get a new one," his father snapped as Tovar raised his head back up and hit it off the bottom of the table. He cried out and rubbed his head in annoyance as he heard a glass topple over and hit the table. He emerged his head from the table to see his drink slowly spilling across the table.

"Don't just stand there, go clean it up you idiot!"

"NO!"

Tovar stopped himself. There was silence at the table, save for the trickling water. He backed up from under the table and stared at his father.

"I'm sorry, what did you just say?" his father whispered. He looked beyond anger.

"I said, 'no'. I am sick of your favouritism, your disappointment, sick of everythi-"

His father stood, his face red. "Boy, we feed you, we brought you up, and you will treat us with the respect we deserve! I'm tired of your attitude!" he roared.

"I'm tired of you! Nothing I do is ever good enough! You can't even give me the littlest bit of attention on my birthday! Dad, I'm sor-"

"Sorry doesn't cut it!" he roared again, moving towards Tovar now. "Go to your room!"

"I'm not a five year ol-"

"Then act like it!"

Silence settled in the room, the trickling replaced by his father breathing heavily. Tovar looked at his mother and Llevar, who both stared at the ground in silence. Why had he even bothered protecting Llevar like he had? Why did he bother with her at all? Not like she protected him or anything, like this. She didn't care at all. Neither did his mother, neither did his father.

"Right then. I'm leaving," Tovar said simply. He turned towards the door and started walking.

"W-What?" his mum began, but he opened the door and walked out. He didn't know where, just somewhere away from here. His hair was blowing in the wind into his eyes, but he didn't care. He kept expecting the door to open, to hear someone shouting after him, but there was nothing. Just him and the wind, him and his anger.


Chapter 13

The first thing Tovar felt as he awoke was the hair lying on his face slightly in his eyes. He rubbed them and parted his hair as he sat up from the red dust, brushing it out of his hair. He noticed sudden movement in Meeror lifting his head suddenly and a slight smile in his face.

"The sleeping beauty awakens."

Tovar nodded slowly and stood up. A lot of things made sense now. It explained some of the contradictions in his dreams, and one thing that had been nagging him for a while. He still didn't know why he was here. The last sinner? Well, the sin was obviously murder, but he hadn't seen his death. He was pretty sure the "getting hit by a car" thing wasn't actually part of the visions he was meant to see, but was just something else entirely. Especially as it was a vision created by himself rather than the strange man all in black. The only vision from a lamp post which hadn't involved the murder story was the one where meteors rained down.

As Tovar walked, he started to piece together parts of the story. He didn't know why he assumed only the murder story visions really happened. They were just so vivid, and he actually felt everything. The pain, the anger, everything. The other ones seemed so unnatural, dream-like. Which is exactly what they were.

Again, except the one with the meteors. The man had wanted to show him something in that dream, but he didn't know what. Why was the man doing this, anyway? Surely he should die in peace?

"Bit quiet there, Tovar," Meeror said suddenly, breaking the silence and Tovar's thoughts.

"Yeah, sorry. Just, eh... bit lost."

"How does one get lost in a wasteland of nothing?"

Tovar shrugged. "Dad always said I wasn't exactly geographically gifted."

"Hey, there's something over there!"

Tovar squinted to where Meeror was pointing. There was a long black thing sticking out of the ground. A lamp post, probably.

He walked.

Usually he ran everywhere, but this felt the right pace. No need to run. If he was right on his theory which was essentially about something he had no idea about, this was the last lamp post. Which meant...

He swallowed and shook his head. He'd see when he got there.

Meeror looked concerned. "Dude, what's wrong? You haven't been yourself since your house..."

"It's all right. It'll all be sorted soon, then I'll explain."

Meeror looked satisfied with this answer and nodded his head, continuing walking alongside him. There was a few moments more silence, then they were at the lamp post.

Tovar never really questioned why these lamp posts did this. He just looked up at the light, becoming unnaturally bright, then felt it overcome him. "Good night," he murmured as he fell.

~~~~~

DRRRR. DRRRR.

"Urrrggghhh," Tovar muttered as his alarm obnoxiously continued. He produced a hand from under his blanket and thumped the alarm clock to turn it off. He swung his legs out of bed and slowly got dressed, rubbing his eyes. He'd been up far too late last night.

He opened the door and suddenly realised he was dreaming again. He nearly slapped his forehead, as he'd already had his mind trick him about that about seven times. He sighed and slowly trudged downstairs to make himself breakfast.

No milk. He sighed again and just poured himself some cereal without milk before flicking the television on. More cartoons. There were probably kids in the same town watching the same cartoons eating the same breakfast.

Well, with their parents, anyway.

He finished his cereal, yawned, walked outside and locked the door behind him. Then he began to run to work.

He wasn't quite sure how he knew where it was. He was dreaming, or rather, this was a part of him he couldn't remember, but as he had known where to be with Llevar and Darren, he knew where to go.

He ran up to the back door of the place, not really paying attention to where he was, and stepped in, holding his uniform under his arms so he could get changed in there.

"Hey, bitch."

Tovar stopped in his tracks as he recognised Nail's voice lazily drifting towards him. The stench of badly processed chicken invaded his nostrils and he realised that he did work in a fast food restaurant. He walked towards the counter and Nail was leaning over it, looking bored.

"Sandra's getting changed. You're late, btw."

He literally said "btw", pronouncing it "buh tuh wuh". Tovar raised an eyebrow as the boss's door opened.

"Yada yada, we're opening now. You're each on 'till six, right?" he said. He looked even more bored than Nail. He was also the most generic looking man in the universe. Bald head, small beard, glasses, slightly overweight, wearing a white shirt and black trousers.

"You said I had only until three today, Sir," Tovar replied, not quite knowing where he had stored the information until then. The boss nodded, as if remembering it, then opened the front door, letting freezing cold air in. "We're open, yeah," he yelled outside to no one in particular and then slowly walked back into his office.

It was a long day. Because it was the Christmas holidays, they each had to work basically full time, and for some reason every adult worker in the place had booked the day off today. Probably all out drinking together. Nine until three, Tovar had to work. There was one adult coming in after he was gone.

It was the longest four hours of his life.

There was no one for quite a while, so he casually chatted with Nail and Sandra. Nail kept implying that Tovar liked Sandra, for some reason. Tovar had generally realised that when people said that, the person actually saying that liked the girl. He was pretty sure he was right as well from the fact Nail kept standing strangely close to Sandra edging closer towards her when she moved. She didn't object when he did. Good for them, he thought. He hadn't known them that long, but they were best friends since he'd me-

Wait, how'd he know that? It was as if he didn't remember anything until it was completely necessary. It was a weird feeling, and he didn't like it.

The minute hand hit twelve and Tovar stood up. "Bye, bitches," he called, hoping to be ironic, but instead attracting a mean stare from a mother. He hastily edged his way out the back door and began to run home.


Chapter 14

Tovar stopped running as he came up to his house, pausing at the door to fumble for his keys and catch his breath. He pulled the door open and swung it shut behind him, threw his keys on the sofa and then collapsed into it.

He was deep in thought. Tovar had always loved the idea of dreams. He was in a dream right now, and yet he felt like he'd been living in the house for months. Yet he couldn't remember anything that had happened before today. Things happen within dreams and no one questions them. People teleport, things are illogical and yet it all seems perfectly reasonable. He loved that feeling. The fact that within dreams, everything was safe, nothing had to conform to some sort of standard, or even reality.

And yet these dreams he had been having... they were so real. They felt like real life, but yet at the same time he knew it was a dream. They felt more like vivid memories.

"Memories?" he said aloud to himself. Why would he dream of memories so realistically? Why had the man been showing him the memories, anyway?

Come to think of it, he realised, why did this dream feel actually like a dream? He was in complete control of his own thoughts and could remember what had happened in "real life" in the red plain; the lamp posts, Meeror, everything. The first vision of Darren had felt so much more realistic and the fact it was a dream hadn't even crossed his mind. He thought. It might have, and he might not have remembered it.

But... there was one thing. In the dream, he had thought that he was fifteen, and he was now sixteen. He quickly corrected himself at the time, but now he realised that he was dreaming of a time when he was fifteen; before his birthday, and before he left home. That much made perfect sense.

Everything was starting to fall into place once again. When he got a moment to think about things, he felt far more confident. He'd practically already forgotten the anger at Darren, the panic afterwards and everything else involving that horrible night. It didn't plague his thoughts, haunting him every few seconds. It's not that he felt he'd redeemed himself or something... he was just trying to forget it all. Living on his own was a new life, without parents, school, or guilt to worry about.

The doorbell rang.

Tovar's head snapped up and he instantly noticed it was dark. He looked at the clock and realised he'd been sitting in what was almost a snooze for two hours, thinking about different things. That was certainly one way of wasting an afternoon after work. He sighed and got up from the sofa as the doorbell rang again. He shouted that he was coming as he rubbed his eyes and yawned, letting the yawn finish to not look lazy before opening the door.

There was a brief moment of silence as his eyes settled on the person in his door. How had she...?

"...It's cold. Can I come in?" Llevar said, almost a whisper, hugging her sides. Tovar stepped outside and ushered her into the house, still having said nothing. Screw "how" she had got here, what was she doing here?

They stepped into the house and Tovar closed the door behind them, before turning to see Llevar looking at him, tears running down her face. Then she did something that Tovar never would have expected.

She ran the short distance between them and hugged him, wrapping her arms around him and sobbing deeply into his chest.

Tovar was so stunned that for a second he didn't even move, just kept his arms in the pose halfway between normal and closing the door. Then he slowly moved his arms around her and patted her head. Hell, he didn't know what to do. Human contact was never exactly his strong point.

Llevar choked back some of her tears and tried to say something before crying again, and Tovar quietly whispered "shhhh", holding her with both arms now. He led her a bit further into the room and she slowly broke off from him, still occasionally swallowing loudly with tears running down her face.

"Llevar, what are you doing..."

She shook her head to interrupt him, before rubbing her eyes and trying to look normal before talking. It wasn't very effective.

"Dad and I had a... big argument and..."

She looked up at him, tears starting to form again. What the hell had happened?

"He..." she tried, then shook her head and rolled up her blue T-Shirt sleeve to reveal her shoulder, with a huge, purple bruise in it.

There was another stunned silence before Tovar held her in his arms again, being careful of her bruise, whispering variations of "it's all right". She didn't cry, but just shook from the cold. Again, she broke away and the tears were gone.

"Tovar... I'm so sorry for everything I've done to you... I've ignored you, mistreated you, I never stuck up for you and it's my fault and I'm truly sorry..."

Tovar didn't know what to say. He stood motionless and let her talk and get it all out.

"I don't know what I can do. I don't even know if it's legal to live here with you, but I want to... to show I really am sorry. I'm not going back home, and I just want to be here with you, Tovar.

"Despite all the bad I've done to you and watched you suffer through, I didn't help you when you left... and I even knew that..."

The look in her eyes was intense. It wasn't sadness, it wasn't happiness, it was something else that Tovar couldn't place. It looked like true honesty, a feeling he didn't know could be expressed in looks.

"That night, you killed Darren."

There was suddenly a rush of cold wind and they both turned to see the door slowly close, and a guy a bit older than Tovar walk in. He smiled maliciously and Tovar realised with a sickening thud in his heart that he recognised him.

"So it was you who attacked us? Really?"

That one time he was coming home from work, and those thugs had tried to annoy him. He'd beaten them up, nearly ran out in front of a car-

"Tovar, who's this?" Llevar said, fear creeping into her voice as she backed away into the living room. The guy laughed. He wore all black, except a dark navy baseball cap. He looked relatively well built. Not someone Tovar wanted to fight without the element of surprise on his side.

The guy laughed. "Who's this, your girlfriend? Incest is bad y'know, you sick freak-"

"What do you want?" Tovar asked, stepping forward very cautiously. He was trying to not start anything. Just explain away, maybe take a bit of pummelling at the worst, and then leave. He had more important things to discuss with Llevar.

"Why did you start on us?" the guy snarled, trying to sound menacing. Not very effective.

Tovar paused for a second. "Er, I think you'll find I was casually running home when you threw a freaking rock at my head. Then you ran after me. One would imagine that-"

"I have no idea what you're even saying," the guy laughed. He stepped obnoxiously close and Tovar was forced to take a step back next to Llevar in the living room, who was eyeing both of them back and fourth quickly. "Do I have to talk some sense into you, you little prick?"

Tovar paused for another second. "Uh, no." He was sure he could hear Llevar quietly mouth a sentence forsaking a certain four letter word. "I would have thought by this point it was quite obvious I didn't mean any harm and I'm in the right here-"

"In the right!?" the guy roared, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a knife. Tovar didn't have time to look terrified as the guy continued, "So you're saying beating the crap out of three of us and walking off like nothing happened makes you 'in the right' because you're so clever, you freak!?"

Tovar was pushed aside out of the way and he stood, stunned and speechless for the third time that night, as Llevar stood in front of him, holding her arms out.

"You go for my brother, you go through me, you sick prick."

He raised a fist and lowered it so quickly Tovar didn't even see it connect with Llevar's face. Blood exploded across her face and Tovar ran to try and grab the knife, but Llevar pushed him back onto the floor, using his momentum against him with surprising force.

"No," she coughed. "I said I'd be here for you, Tovar."

Llevar kicked him in the leg and he swore, before she swung a fist at his head. He moved his hand up and blocked it, holding her arm away with his left hand. Tovar stood to charge as he thrust his right hand holding the knife towards her.

And then Tovar saw it. Right there, in that instant. It seemed to last an eternity. Llevar, her face bloody, her mouth open, ready to scream. She realised it was too late. The knife was inches from her stomach, its serrated edge reflecting off the light. That one moment of sheer hopelessness. There wasn't enough time for Tovar to stop it. Everything was coming undone.

The knife entered Llevar's body, and she screamed. That scream he had seen but not heard for so long made a point and pierced his ears with it, driving him down into all his most negative emotions. It was so real, so lifelike. It was the sound of everything ending. All of Llevar's emotions and feelings were projected into that one sound, and they washed over him, clear as day. Nothing had as much power.

Then the knife was removed, and she gasped, the scream ending. She crumpled, not like people do in movies, but in a pathetic way, hitting the floor and staying there, breathing heavily, holding her stomach. Blood spilled onto the floor, onto her hands, onto her clothes. Her life was draining through her fingers and she couldn't hold it.

Tovar stared at the guy, who held the knife almost in horror at what he'd done. Every emotion in that scream washed over him at once, fuelling him as he charged, roaring and shouting, resorting to basic human instinct. He grabbed the knife hand and twisted it, raised it over the guy's head and kneed him in the stomach. Then he blocked a movement, a punch, anything, from the other arm and crossed it with the first arm. The guy was bent over, his arms over his head, shaking. Tovar paused for a moment, the briefest of moments in comparison to the one before, then uncrossed the arms and stood the guy up straight. He grabbed the knife hand and pulled it back to himself. Plunging the knife straight into his own stomach.

"NO!" someone shouted from somewhere. The pain was unbearable as his organs tried to function with a hole in them. He removed the knife and pushed the guy away, who stared at them in horror before bolting from the door, slamming it against the wall of the house so hard it rebounded and closed again. Tovar fell to one knee before his strength left him and he landed on his back. He breathed for a second, his shallow breathing the only sound and feeling he could sense, and he felt his hand being held by something. He twisted his body painfully to look, and he saw Llevar holding his hand, looking at him with that look of pure honesty once again. There was something else there too. Not regret but... gratitude. Their blood collected in a pool on the floor, and Tovar used his last remaining bit of strength to pull her closer.

"Tovar..." she mouthed, blood trickling out of her mouth down her beautiful, innocent face. He closed his eyes for a bit longer than a blink, and then spoke the most innocent and honest words he'd ever spoken in his short, broken life.

"Thank you..." he murmured, and he thought he saw her smile before the black around the edges of his vision began overcoming him, and then there was nothing.



Chapter 15

Darkness everywhere. Tovar couldn't see "the light". Black as far as the eye could see.

He felt weightless. He didn't feel anything else. There was nothing around him. He couldn't even feel himself. He tried reaching out with a hand, but couldn't feel it or see it.

Is this what death felt like? Pain then nothing? It was rather disappointing. Tovar had always been fascinated by death. What happens after one dies? Is that it, just nothing? How can one define nothing? The concept of having just emptiness and no state of mind is very difficult to understand. Yet here it was. He was floating, alone.

Oh God, this is boring, he thought.

If he had to have this for the rest of eternity... he was beginning to regret how he'd lived his life. All the things he could have done but never bothered. Maybe he should have asked out that one girl last year. And as for how it ended...

...Strange, he thought. He couldn't remember how he'd actually... died. Who had he been with? He had no idea. He tried to recall his last day. He was working at a fast food restaurant... came home and some random guys attacked him.

Oh, then he'd been hit by a car! He remembered now, clearly in his head. He was walking home, beat up some guys who had attacked him, then he'd got hit by a car.

Pretty bad way to go, he thought. Not much warning. Just bam, dead. Better than other ways, he shrugged. Or rather, he made the motion of shrugging with no actual body.

Then he saw it. Like how a black hole is visible simply by the absence of everything in it, he could see something red. He couldn't work out how far away. It was getting bigger, though. Blood red. He tried to swim away from it, but he couldn't move. It got bigger and bigger, until it enveloped him on all sides. He could see pictures in the sea of red. Images from his life, perhaps? He saw himself as a child, in school, with his family. He saw himself living his entire life in these images.

And then one which he couldn't see entered his mind. He couldn't turn, but it entered his mind, and all the images slowly changed to become a girl, her face covered in blood, her mouth open to scream. He recognised her but he didn't know where from. She looked to be in pain. The real pain was just about to come, but she had resigned herself to the fact that she would suffer. There was no struggle in those eyes, but... welcome? This girl welcomed the pain?

The images shuddered, and Tovar began to get scared. They closed in from everywhere, the girl, with blood covering her face, etching their way into his mind, carving themselves in. He started whimpering without a voice, crying to no one. "No," he murmured, his voice suddenly aloud, real. His voice scared him as much as the images. "Go away..."

~~~~~

"Leave me alone!"

Tovar's eyes shot open. He was lying on his back, staring up at the clouds. They looked bleak and grey, as if they had lost interest in their role.

Tovar blinked. Everything came to him at once. The red plain, the lamp posts, Darren's murder, Llevar's murder, his death... they all came rushing back as he sat up in the familiar red plain, only to be interrupted by a voice.

"Welcome, at long last."

The voice demanded Tovar's attention as he stood up quickly, dusting himself off to look more presentable and gazed at the voice's source. A man wearing knee-high boots, black robes and a cloak.

"You..."

"Me. Come, Tovar. We have much to talk about, and I feel it would be awkward if we were to stand perfectly still while we did it."

The man walked off and Tovar quickly ran to catch up with him. The questions once again bounced around his head at a furious rate, none of them letting another be asked before it.

"Why am I- Who are you- I mean to say- Is this like- Lamp posts?"

The man glanced at him out of the corner of his eye in bemusement. "You have many questions, but try to make them... comprehensible."

Tovar nodded in embarassment, then looked at the ground for a second. "I have worked out a few things myself, though."

The man tilted his head. "Oh?"

"Well, the most obvious thing is that this is the afterlife, right? I died, and people are brought to somewhere after they die. I assume everyone has a different place they're brought."

"Hmm, yes and no. This is what you humans call the afterlife, yes, but it exists for a very different reason."

"And that's- hang on, you act like you aren't a human?"

The man smirked. "For someone who says to have worked out certain aspects of this 'afterlife', you are very... slow. I, of course, am God."

Tovar nodded and took this in. "...God."

"Well, not actually a God per se, but I suppose I am what, again, you humans would view as a God."

"So..." Tovar said, his voice tinged with a little bit of disappointment. "Does this mean that... er... the Christians were all right or something?"

"I like to think that every religion is right to a degree. I don't mind people worshipping me- it is good for one's ego, after all- but the main thing is that I would like people to simply live a good life, being kind to one another and not 'sinning', as again you humans would put it."

"Does that mean...?"

"No, I did not create the world. Everyone asks me that. And I'm not going to answer any more of your questions on how the world came about, or about my Godhood either. We have much more important matters to discuss, such as this afterlife.

"There are three 'levels' of this afterlife, if you will," the man said, scratching his nose. "There's the place of punishment, the place of paradise, and here. Here is what you might call 'purgatory'; it is the place in which I judge whether you go to paradise or punishment. Some people go straight to either, some people like you just come here."

"I'm... slightly confused. Why did I come here, exactly?"

"To give you a chance to redeem yourself, whether you knew it or not. Being 'God', I'm rather good at reading emotions, so I can actually watch you and tell if you are truly sorry for your sins, or if you even meant them in the first place."

"Ah, I understand now. Now you say that, it makes sense."

The man raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yes. Which also reminds me; you called me 'the last sinner', right? Well, that's a lie, isn't it?"

The man laughed. "Ahahaha... Impressive. No, you are not 'the last sinner'. In fact you seemed very... underwhelmed by my accusation."

"You tell everyone they're the last sinner, don't you?"

"Correct again. How did you work this out?"

"I was pretty sure, but before I came here I became certain. I was floating in a black void, watching images of my whole life-"

"Oh yes, that's where you go between death and this place. I'm a busy man, I have lots of people to talk to. You waited there for roughly two hundred and thirty seven years, your time."

Tovar stared at him.

"I apologise, carry on," the man said, putting his hands in his pockets and continuing walking.

"...In this black void, they began to get replaced by... by my sister Llevar, the face she had just before she..."

The man nodded, smiling to himself. "Continue."

"The first day I woke up in this afterlife was when you tried to scare me with the TV broadcast shouting at me and then the image of my sister. It worked," he laughed. "Scared the crap out of me."

"Aha, yes! Please go on, this is entertaining to hear from your side."

"The first lamp post I came to was one in which I followed you through a red plain for a few seconds, and then came to my home town. And then you dropped a pile of meteors. Subtle. I saw my sister, and she gets hit by a meteor, and adopts the same facial expression as before.

"This face just kept popping up while I've been here. The meteor storm and that were too... obvious. And finally, the very first dream I woke up from, you walked to a church, and then destroyed it in the next dream. A meteor storm, destroying a church, calling me the last sinner? That Armageddon was too obvious, too... cliche'd, if you will? Every single other vision I had contradicted me being the last sinner. To be honest, it felt like you just wanted to scare me.

"Which is another thing I've worked out. The reason that face kept popping up is because it's the most terrifying thing of my entire life that can be expressed in visual form. That moment, even in the dream, froze me to the spot and seemed to last forever... and that was before she screamed. You chose the moment of complete terror, just before all hope was lost to recur through my time here to scare me."

The man was actually grinning now. "Absolutely right. To drive you to insanity. That's why it appeared so much. It's also the same reason I called you the last sinner. It's a good way of gauging whether you meant your sins or not, again."

"And that brings me to another topic. Meeror."

There was a loud snap, and Meeror suddenly appeared before them. He looked around in shock then focused on them. "What just...?"

"Meeror isn't real. Even the name makes it obvious, I'm stunned I didn't see it at first.

"Meeror is my mirror."

At that moment, Meeror suddenly stopped moving with a pained expression on his face. Then, amazingly, cracks began to form in his arms and legs, all round his body, until he couldn't take the strain and he cracked. There was no blood. Instead, where he had stood, was just red dust falling to the ground and a cracked mirror on the floor.

"Drive me to the point of insanity, and give me my mirror image who only has all the positive traits about me. How am I doing so far?"

The man was beaming from ear to ear. "Best in centuries."

"Unfortunately, I'm going to have to disappoint you there as that's... all I've got."

"Certainly very impressive as that is most of it. As you probably worked out, I showed you the important parts from your life from the start of your obvious major sin... murder. While you dreamt these, I was actually watching you to see how you reacted, if you truly meant them or not; that's why the dreams felt so real. During the actual parts I wanted reactions, they didn't feel like dreams, did they? The four parts of your life I showed you; the actual murder would obviously invoke reaction. Meeting your sister for the first time afterwards and how you felt when you saw her expression upon her discovering the news; even though she already knew, she's a damned good actor. Then when you left the house, leaving your sister on her own after all that... how would you feel? And finally, of course, you and Llevar's deaths. And now I must ask you a question, Tovar. After your sister was stabbed, why did you choose to kill yourself?"

Tovar stared at the ground for a long time. "I... I felt guilty. It was all my fault she died. Everything that happened to her was from me not supporting her enough, among other things. When Darren tried to... rape her, I just lashed out and ended up killing the guy. I stormed out of the house and left her alone, I let her into my house and watched her die by the hands of a man that I had angered. Llevar has done nothing wrong and I wanted to feel her pain and show her I cared, hopefully live alongside her if that's how the afterlife worked and... I didn't want to live any more. In those final moments I had no reason to. I don't regret that decision."

They had stopped walking now. The man looked at him with those attention grabbing eyes of his. "You're right. Llevar suffered so much pain, not just by your hand, and she was murdered for trying to defend you. She's in paradise now. Not to say she's 'perfect', but she definitely deserved it."

There was silence for quite a while, save the sound of their feet shuffling along the dust.

"Strangely, that's actually most of my questions answered," Tovar said, amazing himself.

"You've taken this exceedingly well, I think. There are a few things I'd like to address though, and the only reason I'm explaining this is because I really enjoy talking to you about this. You may recall your... lack of remembering anything, as strange as that sounds. In the black void, you came up with a different way of how you died, which you actually had a dream of I believe at one point. The life I had showed you in the black void never actually happened. All the memories you had of your life were simply from that. That's how you got your death, and also all your memories of Meeror were a part of that. I didn't want you to remember the parts I wanted to check your reaction for, if you will."

"This is... pretty demented, if you think about it."

"Oh yes," the man smiled. "That's why I love it so much."

Tovar paused for a second. "So, what now?"

The man sighed. "I'll have to finish with you, then talk to someone else about the same thing. Very nice talking to you."

He raised his hands and started moving them to clap them. "W-Wait, what are you doing?" Tovar asked, reaching forward.

"Oh, when I clap, you'll go to paradise or punishment. I made up my mind long ago, actually, before we had this conversation."

Tovar blinked. "Huh?"

"I've enjoyed talking to you, but some things can not go unpunished. Or unrewarded. Depends on how you look at it, doesn't it?" he said, tilting his head.

He raised his hands.

"S-So where am I going?" Tovar interrupted, fear starting to trickle into his voice.

The man smiled. "You'll see."

He clapped his hands.


The End.