To Fall from Grace

One

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Tyler wakes up with a sudden jolt, lurching forward so fast he bumped his head on the bunk bed above him. His alarm clock was ringing in his ears, a high-pitched vibration that deafened his ear in order to constantly remind Tyler to prepare for the day ahead.

Pain.

A twinge of pain flared from his head, throbbing even when he clutched it tightly in his hands, hissing and cursing in agony as he did so. His head throbbed from the bump and something else, something high, windy, and terrifying— but Tyler couldn't remember what it exactly was; the more he tried to recall, the more it slipped from his memory.

Tyler shrugged. It probably was just a dream, anyway, he thought as he tries scratching the pain from his head. A useless one, since he managed to forget what it was about the moment he opened his eyes. But what did he dream about? And why do I feel as if it was important? Curiosity spiked in Tyler, leaving him inquisitive as to what he dreamt about.

Dreams, he thought, still grasping his aching head. What was he dreaming about? Think, Tyler. Think. Could it be a wet dream, maybe? It wasn’t possible though, there were no proofs (mainly a b***r) that he had these kinds of fantasies. Then what could it possibly be for him to be this nosy?

Think. He tried forcing himself, shutting his eyes and taking in a deep breath as his eyebrows squished together in focus. Think, you stupid brain.

Think!

Then suddenly, as fast as a lightning strike, it came to him.

Sin.

The word was swiftly whispered into his ear, cold and abrupt, to the point the breath Tyler took got stuck and never made it out. The murmur made him feel as if someone from behind him grabbed his airpipe and enfolded it in their icy, stony hands, pulling him backward as they did so. Another pair of chilly hands shoved themselves in front of his eyes, obscuring Tyler’s eyesight until all he saw was black-velvet darkness. In an instant, images and sounds were swallowing him, swirling faster than a bullet train.

Falling.

All of a sudden, he was falling. Wind, lights, and sounds mashed up in one sudden scene; muted murmurs shrieked diabolic words at him as he fell. Air rushed out from his lungs, unable to get in as much air as he was letting out, rendering him incapable of screaming. The frosty wind pushed the hair out of Tyler’s face, sweeping them backward as it whipped him in the face, and yet it seemed to dragged him closer to the bottom no matter how strong it pushed back. It was too much; the rush, the lights, the air . . . they drowned him as he fell, closing him to his death.

I am Sin.

Tyler was falling. The cars below rushed up to greet him, the horns and the words deafened him as lights from different sources blinded him. The solid ground loomed at him, crying with its arms out, reaching for him—

The repeating words swallowed him up as it recited itself over and over again. Words from the bible, words that were from the Devil itself.

Sin. Lust. Wrath. Sloth. Greed. Pride. Sin. Envy. Gluttony. Sin. Sin. SIN—

"Three points!" A familiar scream and laugh pulled Tyler out of his trance, his eyes wrenching open as surprise caught him off-guard. The sudden hypnotism that overtook him slid away, disappearing at the sudden interruption, like the sea before a tsunami, or like black coating that had begun eating him away, only to jerk back at the sound of cheers. It left him within a second; Tyler was suddenly unsure of why he was sitting up his bed, clutching his head in pain, and breathing in shallow gulps. As sudden as it had come, it vanished just as fast too.

And not only for once, but a hundred times, Tyler cursed the fact that he had an annoyingly vociferous roommate.

“Team Smith scores!” Andrew came lumbering out of their bathroom, guffawing in that way astoundingly raucous way of his as he held a white towel that was way too low across his hips. His bare chest glistened with droplets of water, dribbling down to land on the moldy grey carpet. "I heard you, my man. The sound of your cusses every time you smacked your head against my bed is a jolly good way to start the day. I, in a refreshed kind of way, am already feeling revitalized with this new schedule of ours.

"You okay?" Andrew laughingly repeated, his golden hair still damp. “This is becoming quite a morning routine, you whacking your head at exactly the same moment I finish my shower.” He laughed once more. It was rather an annoying thing, Andrew’s laugh. It sounded like a cross between a pig screaming and someone dying; his friends often joked that his laugh alone was a bad omen.

It probably was, if you would base it on Tyler’s everyday misfortunes.

Tyler groaned, both from the once again throbbing pain from his head and from his roommate’s exasperating schemes. "Whatever. Shut up, at least for once, will you?" Getting up from the lower bunk, he crudely pushed Andrew aside, ignoring him as the clumsy i***t stumbled to find balance. He then stalked for the steam-covered bathroom, where he wiped the fogged mirror with his hand to stare at himself. And as he expected from the agony his head was screaming out, a thin line of ruby trickled down the side of his forehead.

"Well, s**t," he exclaimed in a tone conveying that Andrew's laugh was indeed bad luck. "I'm freaking bleeding."

He received a chuckle from his roommate. "Well, I have more good news for you." Andrew threw something at Tyler, a black object that made Tyler instinctively duck to catch.

It was a black object that made Tyler’s eyes bulge in blind terror.

His alarm clock.

“Congrats,” Andrew said, smirking as he twirled a pair of boxers around his fingers. “You’re fifteen minutes late.”

†   †   †  

“What’s your deal, Smith?”

These words came from Tyler’s dreaded basketball coach, seeming casual and nonchalant. But when these kinds of verses are said by a usually formal person in a slightly upraised voice alongside furrowed eyebrows and frowns with a matching hands-on-the-hips posture, consider them as attacks for your sorry lame ass.

“Sorry, coach,” Tyler apologized, standing in front of his coach and pulling up his socks as he did so. “I had some sort of accident along the way—”

Coach Paul harrumphed, repositioning his arms so that he had them crossed over his chest instead. “You had that as your excuse last week too.”

“But it’s true!” Dropping his gym bag, Tyler frantically pointed at the side of his forehead, where a square adhesive bandage was applied. “I even have a gash! Please, I’m not kidding, coach. Don’t make me run—”

“Ten extra laps,” Coach Paul declared.

“—ten more rounds again,” finished Tyler in a mutter, shoulders slumping at his misfortune.

His coach tsked, shaking his head as he turned, walking away to watch the other players run over their laps. “Excuses, excuses. Even tried to fool me with props. Just because you are one of the best players this school has doesn’t mean you could lay back and use the title as an excuse for everything,” he droned on, still shaking his head in disapproval. Coach Paul peered back at Tyler who stood stock-still by the benches. “Oi! Smith! Run your laps! Don’t just stand there and mop over your poor boo-hoos!”

†   †   †  

Needless to say, that was pretty much how Tyler’s morning ran by, full of exhaustion and terribly unfortunes. And since his basketball coach not only exhausted the crap out of him, but he also had his professors screeching at him within a fifteen-minute time radius, Tyler wanted to just evaporated into air. The fact that lunch got held up by a few minutes did not help either.

“What happened to you?” Andrew asked Tyler when they met up at the cafeteria for lunch. They both had separate classes, with a sole exception for History since it was their last class, so they usually didn’t get to see each other unless it was lunch or last period (and thank goodness for that, because Tyler didn’t think he could afford to have any more miseries from hearing Andrew’s odd chortle daily, much less every minute). “You looked like you’ve been dragged out of a steamer.”

Tyler slid his lunch tray onto their lunch table, ignoring the orange juice pack as it fell sideways. “It’s either the professors aren’t getting their pay, or your stupid laugh is ruining my f*****g day,” he exclaimed.

Andrew sat across him, peeling the aluminum wrap of a peanut butter sandwich and stuffing it in his mouth. “Woah, bro. First of all, that ain’t my fault. I wasn’t the one who woke you up by hitting your head on my bed. Second, that was a pretty rhyme, but undeniably stupid.” He took a fry from Tyler’s untouched tray and beamed his wolfish grin, a sign that he had a new rumor to talk about. “Oh, yeah. By the way, I’m not sure if she’s a new transferee or just an old student I’ve never seen before, but there was this gal in my English class who was talked to by Mrs. Dale. Apparently, she had these weird bruises around her arms and neck that appeared dangerous if uncared for, so Mrs. Dale tried to get her to the clinic, but she didn’t want to—”

“Your professor seems nosy,” interrupted Tyler. He poked his salad beans with a fork, waving it around before pointing it at Andrew. “It wasn’t her business; she should have just left her alone.”

His friend shrugged. “Perhaps she thought it abuse or something. Anyway, that isn’t the point. What happened was when Mrs. Dale tries to touch the bruise on the girl’s arm, she jerked back and choked her. It was sick.”

Tyler narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “No shit.”

“Yes s**t!” Andrew spread his arms. “I was there, man.”

“Nah, bro. You’re leading me on. No one would get to do that here.”

“Come on, man. It’s true! She choked Mrs. Dale with both hands, then everyone kind of panicked, so they were shouting and everything to stop her. Then Derek—you know, one of those football players—was able to push her away. He wasn’t even able to push her that far, Ty. Her eyes went wild. I even thought she was gonna go ballistic and start killing everyone for stopping her, but she just pushed everyone out of the way and ran out. It was like she’s possessed or something.” Andrew continued, “If Derek didn’t try to break them up, my English class wouldn’t have a professor by tomorrow. We’d be having a funeral instead.”

“Where is she then? If what you said was true, then she would have been caught already.”

Andrew leaned closer and lowered his voice in a whisper. “That’s the thing. No one seems to able to find her. Why do you think lunch got held up by a few minutes? Did you even look around you?” He pointed towards the cafeteria doors. “We have security. That didn’t seem strange to you?”

Tyler scanned the area where Andrew pointed. There was indeed a police standing guard. In truth, he never noticed his surroundings, so Tyler wasn’t really surprised that he wasn’t able to catch anything odd. “Hmm. What’s the girl’s name?” he asked. The whole thing sounded like a joke. He wasn’t going to say it out loud, but it was.

“I’m not really sure, but I know it had like an ‘ie’ at the end. Maddie, I think. Or is it Andie?”

“Oh, well,” said Tyler, losing interest at the stupidity Andrew was spitting. It was unbelievable, and Tyler himself chose to not believe Andrew’s tales. His roommate was a listener, but he listened to the wrong stuff: the gossips. Plus, Tyler was once tricked into believing something by no one else but Andrew, so it was better to not trust his roommate’s talks. Turning back his attention to his lunch, he shook his head at Andrew. “It isn’t our business, anyway.”

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