Short Stories

Dead Space

Author's note: I wrote this story for a creative writing class during my junior year of high school. This isn't my best work, but this website is to save my old writing.

"Something sacred, something new / Cannons in the harbor dawn / Crawl down here to dig for bones / One more season then I'm gone" -In Memory of Satan, the Mountain Goats

Aster’s phone went off at three in the morning. Ugh. It was way too early for this bullshit. Probably the University calling, telling them a road was closed. They could email him about that. He rolled over in bed, moving closer to Wren as he tried to ignore it. The ringing stopped, and he closed his eyes again. Then it started again. He sighed, trying to ignore it again, but it just kept going off, an incessant buzzing that was driving him insane. And it would probably wake Wren up soon. That was what drove him to actually go answer the call.

He sat up, snatching it from under the blankets where it had lodged itself. He answered it blindly, swiping at the screen to accept the call. Probably some scammer, he decided, burying all thoughts of the other options down in his mind. He carefully got out of bed, doing his best not to wake Wren. Neither of them had slept well the night before, and he didn’t want to do anything else to bother him. He already felt guilty enough, a constant cloud of worry on his mind that he was a burden. No matter how much Wren reassured him that it wasn’t true, Aster still felt dread deep in his stomach whenever he asked him for anything. Maybe he’d stop feeling like that some day, but right now, he didn’t know what to believe. The call connected, and there was dead space on the other end.

“Hello?” Aster asked, walking over to his desk. He hadn’t bothered looking at the caller ID, still hoping it was just some scammer, unsure of who else it could be at this hour. Wasn’t like he was going to look now. His phone always did this weird thing where, once he answered calls, the screen would turn off. More effort than it was worth to turn it back on. He grabbed his keycard from his desk as he pulled his sandals on. He walked out into the hallway. They had the room at the end, and he walked to the window, gazing out at the lake as he waited for the other person to respond.

Aster could hear ragged breathing on the other end of the line, like someone was trying not to cry. “Hey, who’s there?”

He was getting a little freaked out, and was about to hang up. But the other person spoke, and he recognised their voice instantly. Sage. His older brother. He said something, probably ‘hello’, but Aster’s mind was swimming. Why was Sage calling? Had something bad happened? Why was he calling this early? Sage’s phone calls were always a sign that something bad was going to happen, a warning that he needed to hide before his dad came home. He didn’t live with Sage’s dad anymore, but that fear still remained.

He felt sick, even before Sage spoke, his voice warmer than it normally was. Sage only spoke like this when he was going to get hurt, when he’d done something wrong. What had it been this time? He barely picked up on half of what his brother said, but somewhere in his statement, he said “..dad’s dead.”

“...My dad?” Aster whispered, his voice so quiet he was shocked his phone picked up on it. His breathing was going all weird, he noted. He pressed the palm of his hand against his chest, trying to steady himself as he considered the other option. “Or...your dad?”

He was disgusted with himself at the slight note of hope he could hear in his own voice at the possibility that Sage’s father might be dead. Was it really so awful to wish for the death of his tormentor, the man who had made six years of his life miserable? Maybe it was. Maybe he was just as bad for that.

He could hear Sage’s deep breath through the phone, the quiet ‘hold on’ he was directing at someone there with him. It was probably Thomas, their little brother. He could practically see the kid curled up on his lap, head on his shoulder, Sage’s arm around him. He felt an odd spike of jealousy. He didn’t want Sage’s attention. He knew what happened when he got too much of someone’s attention, and he never wanted that to happen again. He just wanted to know why the fuck he was getting a call, and whose father was dead. Eventually a sigh came through, and Aster could practically see the way he was nodding, lips pursed together.

“Yeah. Your dad. Kid, I’m so-” Sage began. Aster pulled the phone away from his face like he’d been electrocuted by it, letting his finger fall on the bright red ‘end call’ button. He knew it was rude, knew he’d likely be shouted at when he came home, but he just couldn’t stand it. He wanted to sob right then and there, but he forced himself to walk back into their dorm. He sank into the desk chair, leaning his head back and staring up at the ceiling. He felt numb, oddly enough.

He turned it over in his mind, thinking about it. It was odd. His dad was dead. It seemed impossible, somehow. He’d always seemed infallible. He was strong, fighting through all of it. He’d been brave, and when Aster had hugged him last week, he’d pulled him close and told him that he’d see him in March, over spring break. Aster hadn’t been planning on returning. He couldn’t be dead.

He’d been the one to sit with Aster in the hospital when he was fifteen, the only one who wasn’t mad at him. He’d been the one to stop Sage and his father from coming in. He’d known that it was their fault he’d done this. He’d protected Aster, even when he didn’t deserve it.

Aster remembered sitting behind the wheel of a car, his mother in the passenger seat. THe rest of that night was a blur. He remembered being unable to breathe, choking on the dark water that was rising around him. He remembered waking up in the hospital, Sage’s father in the corner of the room. He’d caught Aster’s gaze when nobody else was looking and given him a single, slight nod.

When Aster left the hospital, Sage tried to hurt him, and Aster’s father had protected him. For that night, at least. He couldn’t protect him forever. And he’d never be there to protect him again.

It didn’t make sense that he could be gone, just like that, even if he’d been sick.

When the news about his mom had broken, he’d been angry. With Thomas and Sage’s father, sure. But he’d mostly been angry with himself. If he’d stood up to his stepfather, if he’d said something to anyone, his mother would still be alive. Thomas wouldn’t have been mourning their mom when he was eleven.

And even if he hadn’t stood up to him, if he’d just told his mom what was going on. Things could have been so much different. He could have saved her.

Aster wouldn’t have had to hide, even with that and his dad’s protection, Sage had still found him, and Aster barely remembered any of what happened. There had been a cut on his face, though. It was scarred over now.

Aster remembered feeling something like this, though, during the weeks after that He remembered being so blank, so numb, that if the world around him had been aflame, he could have stood there without noticing. He’d hated living like that. He knew it had scared Wren, too, even if he’d never admit it. He didn’t want to be stuck in that state again. It was too early for him to think about his emotions and how he felt about all of this.

He remembered what his therapist had told him, explaining how to force himself awake. He was supposed to focus on how he felt physically. He could do that, right? Yeah. He closed his eyes.

He felt…nauseated. Like he was going to throw up. That wasn’t very helpful. He couldn’t do anything about that. He felt like that a lot, now, anyway, so it wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar sensation. He closed his eyes again. He felt cold. And he felt tired. Okay. He could do something about that.

He stood, slowly, and walked over to the bed. His nausea was getting worse despite everything he was trying. Wren was still asleep.

Aster climbed into bed as carefully as he could and closed his eyes. He heard his phone go off again, and sat up, trying to figure out where he’d left it. It was on the desk. He couldn’t. He couldn’t get back up. He couldn’t do this right now. It went off again.

And again.

And again.

Aster was almost at the point of going to get it. He was beginning to worry that it might wake Wren. But Sage, or whoever that was, stopped calling after the fourth try. They left him alone.