[Because I Lived]
>CHAPTER I: THE PLAN<
[- - - PLAY ZO- - -]
The seconds started fleeing from the clock, it was almost 1:35. The boy sat there with a stern face, as he was ticking his pencils. He knew he wasn't supposed to be there. He was uncomfortable. The bell rang announcing the start of the summer and the end of school. The boy packed up his bag and waited for the room to clear. The teacher said goodbye to all the kids in cla**, as they proceeded out, the boy was the last one. The teacher gave the boy a strange look, staring him directly in the eyes. The boy, confused, asked if she needed anything.
"Zo..." The teacher said.
"Yeah..." The boy replied. Shaken from what the teacher had said, he found his way out of the room feeling even more uncomfortable than he did earlier.
"Aye!" A voice shouted from the hallway. The boys friend, Jordan, walked up to him and dapped up with the boy. "It's summer, bro. Let's chill in a few days?"
The boy nodded and they went on their own way.
[PLAY: JUNE]
"You keep up with all this lightskin bullsh** you know you gonna get your a** beat, right?"
"I try" said the boy. A few days had pa**ed since the last day of school. Following into the first week of summer, the boy linked up with his friend Jordan.
"I just don't understand how 'Natie' [Short for Natalie] is having a party and didn't invite us. I'm like her best friend. Maybe that's why she didn't invite me." Jordan sat there playing on his phone, extremely bored. "f** it bro, let's go." The boy sat there not knowing what to say. He didn't like social gatherings, he never liked running into people that knew him. "Get yo a** up, n***a." Jordan threw the boys white Chuck Taylor's at him. "You need to get out, looking all pale and sh**." Jordan motioned towards the door as the boy got dressed and grabbed his wallet. "I know a dude who sells bud, I'll call him up."
>CHAPTER II: THE DEAL<
Jordan cruised through the left lane of Citadel Boulevard, the boy sat in the pa**enger seat twisting the auxiliary cord trying to get it to work with his phone.
"Yeah, my bad, bro. That sh** is mad busted." Jordan said as he turned the car into a neighborhood street. The boy shifted nervously in his seat, he had never done anything like this before. He had smoked a few times before this but he didn't enjoy doing it. It always felt pointless to him. Jordan noticed that the boy was awkwardly moving his hands. "Don't worry about it, bro. We stop, I give him the money, he gives us the weed, and we dip. Easy."
Jordan pulled the car up to a beige house with a small picket fence lining the sides of the house. Jordan picked up his phone and sent a quick text, "Alright he's coming out." The dealer walked up to the car and opened the door, he sat in the back and dapped up Jordan. "Alright, imma keep it real with you guys," He said from the back seat, fumbling through his pockets. "I'm bored as f** and ion really need money, so if you n***as take me with you, y'all can have this for free." He pulled out the bag of weed, "My name is Nate by the way." He put his hand forward towards the boy to greet him. The boy shook his hand and went back to looking through his phone. Jordan tapped the boy on the chest and fell limp in his seat with laughter, "I swear that man needs some lotion, bro!"
"So it's straight if I go with you?"
Jordan looked over at the boy and asked "You care?"
"Nah, its straight" the boy replied. Nate nodded his head and picked up the aux cord, "Aye that sh** doesn't work" Jordan told him. Suddenly music was blaring through the car and the neighborhood.
"Yeah, alright..." Jordan put the car into drive and pulled out of the neighborhood.
"By the way, I was supposed to get some stuff to another dude but I'm sure he won't mind if I don't get it to him today." Nate told them over the blasting music.
[ * PLAY STRANGER THINGS * ]
>CHAPTER III: THE PARTY<
The group of boys got out of the car, the boy pulling up his pants followed by Nate and Jordan checking their outfits in the reflection.
"So you think they'll let us in?" Asked Jordan. "I don't think there will be a doorman, b." Nate answered, almost laughing. The boy crouched down on his knee to re-tie his Chucks,
"I'm telling you boi, those shoes dusty as f**." Jordan said. "Why you gotta be so negative all the time?" The boy asked, with a firm tone. “Look, I'm just tryna make sure you don't get roasted. You ever seen a lightskin in dirty chucks?”
The group entered the house, the music became even louder than they had imagined. People were lined along the walls, the couches, and the stairs. Nate had said something about the number of people there, but no one heard him over the blasting music. After about 30 minutes of silence among the circle of people the boy stood with, he noticed a girl... The boy, mesmerized, looked at her before she glanced back. The boy had a strange feeling in his stomach, it was warm but it made him feel more distant.
The night went on.
PLAY
[>MONOLITH <]
Towards the end of the night the boy found himself talking to this girl. She was telling him about her experiences in school and her cla**mate she mistook for a "great value" Joel McHale. The boy just sat there, listening to her words. She smiled at the boy and asked, "Are you ever going to talk?"
The boy started to tell the girl about himself, "I mean, I-"
"Oh my god, you have to see this!" One of the girl's friends called her over from the side of the room. She took the boy by his hand and pulled him along with her. The girls friend and pulled a small bag filled with a light brown colored, crystallized material.
The girl gasped, "Oh my god, you brought it." The girl motioned towards the boy, "Do you want to try this with us?"
The boy became uneasy; he wasn't sure what it was or what it did. The girl was smiling at him waiting for an answer.
"Sure, I guess..." the boy said with a break in his tone.
"Cool," she said very playfully. "You shouldn't limit the things you try in life. And that's why I want to try this." she stated.
[PLAY DMT]
>CHAPTER IV: THE DREAM<
[PLAY DREAMSCAPE]
*AS YOU READ*
A singularity of colors mixed themselves into a sphere denser than the boy could imagine. He lay there, levitating in a pool of black and dark blue. Small stars lined the backdrop of the infinite space where he lay. Rings, like Saturn orbited the boy, crossing through him, shifting the inner workings of his emotions with each pa**ing.
"Where am I?" The boy asked himself. His lips moved, but the lack of sound from his mouth made it apparent he was somewhere else. Words repeated themselves from experiences the boy had gone through.
"Always"
"Forever"
"d**h"
"Infinite"
The words echoed through the time-space, representing themselves in different frequencies and colors with each spoken word.
Silence. The space became void. The sphere of dense colors above the boy became lighter and lighter with each moment of growing silence. The sphere became white, blinding the boy. A silhouette slowly became more apparent as the sphere became lighter. The boy, completely paralyzed in amazement, locked gaze with the silhouette. The silhouette stood about seven feet tall and levitated within the sphere. The figure slowly stepped out of the sphere.
"Zo..."
The word rang through the deep black void. The silhouette returned to the sphere as it grew brighter from that point on. The boy was blinded; he couldn't feel his body.
"Was this transcencion?" The boy asked himself. The void became white and enveloped the boy within the stark color.
>CHAPTER V: THE FALL<
Cups and bottles of drinks surrounded the ground around the boy. He slowly shifted his leg to his torso, pulling his body up along with him. He sat there with his legs crossed trying to piece together what had just occurred. The boys phone vibrated in his pocket, it was a private number.
"I swear this dude keeps calling me, I'm going to flip the f** out..."
The boy was still in the house after the following night. He didn't know what had happened to anyone else or where Jordan and Nate were. He picked up his belongings and stood up in the place where he sat. He didn't see anybody else in the house on his way towards the door. No owners, no Natie, or the girl he was talking to the past night. He looked around the home before he walked out the door.
"Yeah...."
He opened the door and started walking back to a bus stop. He had a long ride home.
The boy sat atop his bed with his knees tucked into his torso and his head down. The boy was confused. He was sure about what he had saw last night or what happened to the girl and his friends.
"Why am I like this..."
The boy wiped his face, stopping the growing tears from his eyes, at that same point in time, his phone started to vibrate. He got a text from Jordan.
It read: "aye, sorry bout last night my dude, sh** went down with Nate so we just dipped. I didn't see you tho