Young Writers Society

*This is part one of my “Bone Boy” stories. This story is underneath my folder titled “Bone Boy”. Gacha Club character designs are on my wall. Enjoy!*

Chapter One-Home sweet home

Lucy stared at the expansive interior of her Grandma’s mansion, twirling a strand of her curly blue hair in stress. It was a mansion, yes, but it wasn’t gilded or glowing. No, the paint on the walls was peeling off, flowers were escaping from their pots and growing on the cracks, and there was a stench of rot in the air.

Lucy wouldn’t mind it so much if it didn’t mean that she had to live there. Her parents died in a car accident years ago when she was twelve. They were going on a a family trip to the park when it all happened. She was the only one to have survived, but what did it matter?

She spent years of her life in a hospital, in a place that smelled of despair and sanitation, only to be “alright enough” to live with her Grandma at sixteen. At least Grandma let Lucy get her hair dyed, she wanted a look that set her apart from the life at the hospital.

But why couldn’t her home be happier? Why did Grandma have to live in such a miserable place, full of dying hope?

“Come on now, Lucy! Come see your new room, it’s quite lovely!” Grandma called out.

Lucy wiped away her tears and walked up the rickety stairs, dragging along her suitcase.

There was no use crying. She was finally going to get a life of her own.

Chapter Two-The gift

“Do you like it? I wanted to make sure that it was to your liking.” Grandma said.

On the shelves of her room were porcelain dolls, with big glass eyes and curly synthetic hair, lace and silk dresses clear of dust particles.

The walls were painted bubblegum pink. A long, white bookshelf held books waiting to be read, waiting for stories to be told.

The ceiling had violet and blue butterfly stickers, as though they were flying high. The bed had the whitest, fluffiest sheets known to mankind, like a floating cloud.

Lucy turned to Grandma, a grin on her face.

“I love it. Thank you so much!” Lucy said, hugging her close.

It looked similar to her old room, and in that moment, she was young again, visiting her Grandma for vacation.

“I’m glad you do.” Grandma said, hugging her back.

The two of them hugged, not a care in the world, until the timer screeched and Grandma had to let go, to serve dinner.

Lucy smiled to herself as she walked into her new room. Perhaps things wouldn’t be so bad after all. Perhaps everything would be just fine. Perhaps-

What was that box on her bed?

It was a small black box, like a jewelry box.

But was it a jewelry box? Or something else?

Lucy opened it.

Inside was an antique ruby gem, rusted with time, held by a long, black chain. It was an old, but pretty thing.

In the box was a yellowed note, which read:

“Welcome to my home. It’s a pleasure to have such a fair face as yours around.”

Lucy smiled. How sweet of Grandma to write that letter and give her the necklace, after everything that happened!

Chapter Three-Browned heart

Lucy spun her fork around the spaghetti, the white flecks of Pecorino swimming in the bowl. Just the thing she liked eating when she was little!

“Thanks for the necklace and note.” Lucy said, holding up the ruby necklace for Grandma to see. It hung around her neck, where it would stay for the day. It’d go to the box at night, safe and sound.

“I don’t remember giving you that necklace.” Grandma said with a frown.

“Well, thanks anyway.” Lucy said. She slipped the spaghetti in her mouth, the taste of home and familiarity.

“You’re welcome, honey.” Grandma said softly.

……………………………………………………

Lucy lay in bed, staring out of the window, watching the pale moonlight waft through the curtains. The morning with Grandma was absolutely lovely. Her first day out of the hospital, where she got a new hair color, a new room, a new necklace, and a fantastic dinner! Grandma loved her, just as she always did.

Yet she lay in bed, curling herself up into a ball, tears welling in her eyes. Grandma wasn’t her parents. Her parents, who were supposed to watch her grow and thrive, be there for her, hug her, were buried six feet under, and nothing would change that.

Lucy covered her mouth, so Grandma wouldn’t hear her sobs. Grandma didn’t deserve to hear that. She was doing all that she could, why couldn’t Lucy just be grateful?

Her closet door slightly creaked open.

Lucy shot up from bed, turning to the door.

Why’d she get so jumpy? It was just her closet, nothing else.

A skeletal claw reached out, followed by an arm, and then a body, and…

Standing in her room was a boy her age, or what was left of a boy, anyway. He had pieces of peach skin hanging on molding bones. His clothes were brown, fading away to gray. They were more sagging sacks than clothes, actually. Long, full brown hair hung somberly around his grinning skull.

“Do I frighten you, m’lady? Do you wish for me to leave?” The boy asked in a rasping, weak voice.

Lucy put her hands to her mouth to stop the tears. Though he smelled of death, and bugs crawled upon his body, something about him touched her heart, touched her soul.

Perhaps it was because he was almost a husk of a human, just like her, deep down.

“No, you could never bother anyone. Come sit with me.” Lucy said.

The boy hobbled over, joints popping pitifully on his feeble legs.

Chapter Four-Flower in the weeds

“Are you enjoying my home, Miss…?”

“Lucy. You don’t need to call me Miss. Just call me Lucy.” She said.

Even though the boy had a permanent grin on his face, it seemed that he was smiling even more.

“Lucy. A name as beautiful as the flowers that once bloomed in my garden. You may call me Theodore.” The boy said.

Once bloomed? Did that mean he lived in the house long ago, before Grandma did?

“Did you like my gift? The necklace?” Theodore asked.

So it was him who gave her the gift, and not Grandma? That must have explained why she didn’t remember the present.

“I did! It’s wonderful, I love it.” Lucy beamed.

“I wanted to give you a proper welcoming present, so I searched everywhere in the attic. I’m not sure if it was the best in the collection, but it was the best I could find.” Theodore said.

He seemed to lighten up, and got up from the bed, extending a claw for Lucy to take.

“Want a tour of my home?” He asked.

Lucy accepted, for who was she to deny the pure joy in his eye sockets?

Chapter Five-It all turns around

They walked down the many halls of the mansion, all of which Lucy already knew about, because she used to visit Grandma years ago and nothing ever changed.

But then, Theodore took her down a dark, winding hallway Lucy was too afraid to venture in as a little girl and stopped in front of a worn-yellow painted door.

“This is my room.” Theodore said, turning the knob.

Lucy followed, albeit nervously. Theodore clutched her hand reassuringly as they walked into the dusted, forgotten room.

There were stuffed, soft toys strewn on the bed, trains on the floor, and porcelain dolls on shelves.

“I never got rid of my toys. I couldn’t do it, not after the fairies took my friends.” Theodore said.

“Fairies?” Lucy asked, creasing her eyebrows in concern.

“Oh, sorry! It’s been centuries since I’ve talked to anyone! I tried talking to Alexandria, but she doesn’t want to associate with fairies. Or me, for that matter.” Theodore said.

Alexandria was Grandma’s real name, but how much did he know about her? Why would he mention her?

“Is it okay if I continue? I know some people don’t like to talk about fairies.” Theodore asked.

“Yes, you may continue.” Lucy said.

If he needed to let it out, then he should let it all flood out, no matter how odd or absurd it would sound.

“Alright. When I was a little boy, me and my friends, Kelsey, Wendy, and Corey, all played in my garden. At least, it was a normal garden, until the fairies Elsie, Evelyn, Ethan, and Evan showed up. When they came, it was a magical carnival, with a magical garden. A place of mystery and awe for children like us.” Theodore said.

Theodore fidgeted with a string on his shirt, looking down at his dirt-covered boots.

“You don’t have to continue if you don’t want to.” Lucy said.

She knew what it was like to have people twist a story out, to force the words out. Why did people like hearing the misery of others?

Theodore looked up, resolve in his eye sockets.

“No, I want to. It’s been shut out for far too long.” Theodore said.

Alright then. It was his story to tell, so she’d let him continue.

“At first, it was everything we could ever want. Fairies, food, and entertainment. That was, until they took their lives. Elsie took Kelsey, Ethan took Wendy, and Evan took Corey. They took my friends because they wanted company in ghosts, Evelyn wanted to take me because she wanted me dead. That was all. I still remember the screams of my friends, the hatred in her eyes…”

Theodore shivered for a moment, and yet he continued:

“It was my imaginary friend that saved me, believe it or not. A clown with pink-polka dots on her skin, and mismatched yellow and blue eyes. Her name was Rosemary Rosina Rosalind, but I just called her Rosemary. You know, your pink eye reminds me of her polka dots.” Theodore remarked.

Lucy put a hand on her pink eye. It used to be green, just like her other eye, but the chemicals from the hospital changed its color forever, and she could never get it back to normal.

It was always a symbol of her loss, but in that moment, it felt like a symbol of beauty.

“It’s because of the hospital. My parents died, and their medicine cured me, but did that to my eye.”

Theodore’s skull had hints of sorrow. He held her hand as if to say I’m sorry.

Lucy smiled softly. It wasn’t his fault, after all.

“She saved my life, but what did it matter? Evelyn came back to kill me years later, and now I’m here, trapped in this house. I want to move on, but…how can I?” Theodore asked.

“You don’t move on. It stays, because they’re people you care about, and they never just go away. You don’t move on, you just try to find positives.” Lucy said.

Theodore extended his arms out, about to hug her, but he backed away and asked:

“Can I hug you?”

“I don’t mind.” Lucy said.

He hugged her close, maggots crawling to and fro his skin. Once he was alive, without bugs to eat his flesh, but his body had since become nothing. He was absolutely nothing to the world.

He didn’t deserve that, but such was the way of the universe.

The floor beneath them began violently shaking, side-to-side, back and forth. The trains began to drive down the tracks, the stuffed toys and porcelain dolls turned their heads.

Lucy and Theodore held on to each other, too petrified to move.

Chapter Six-Where they lie deep

No longer were they standing in his room, but in a carnival with peeling paint and creaking attractions. Flowers grew haphazardly from the ground, overtaking much of the structure.

Just like Grandma’s house. Lucy couldn’t help but think.

“I…I don’t understand. We’re in the fairy carnival. Could it be that…I can save my friends? That we can save them, together?” Theodore asked. He sounded like he was too scared to hope, like he feared it was all a dream.

Lucy didn’t blame him.

“We should give it a try!” Lucy said brightly.

“You’re right. My friends are worth the trouble.” Theodore said.

Together, they went, searching for his long-lost friends.

Chapter Seven-Close and keep quiet

Every step Theodore and Lucy took was a careful one, a watchful one. Any moment, a fairy might pop out from cracks of the dirt, tiny but vicious, claws stretched out, ready to grab them into the gaping maw of the Earth.

But there was nothing. Only a calm wind to move the Ferris Wheel a bit.

“What brought you joy, when you were alive? What made you smile?” Lucy asked.

It was a random question that blurted out of her mouth, one she hoped wouldn’t offend him too greatly.

But Theodore simply replied with:

“Acting. All I wanted was to be an actor, to be lost in art and creativity. My parents didn’t want me to be poor, so they tried marrying me off to a girl named Dolores, who came from a line of doctors. They didn’t mind that Dolores herself wanted to be a doctor, they just wanted me to be rich. All of that was fixed, though, when Evelyn killed me.”

He laughed bitterly, she could hear the bugs lodged in his throat.

“I’m deeply sorry that I got off topic. You wanted to hear about what I liked doing for fun, and here I am rambling about my life!” Theodore said.

“You don’t need to apologize. You’ve spent years in an abandoned house, with no one to talk to, completely isolated. I get it. Before the hospital, people said that I didn’t focus enough, that I was spending far too much time drawing. I was focusing, they just never noticed. At the hospital, all doctors wanted to do was ask me how I was feeling, they didn’t want me to “distract myself”…but that was my escape! My hope in the dark, and they wanted to take that away from me!” Lucy cried out.

After so much of shoving it in, of swallowing it all, her tears came rushing down, her chest moving up and down with cracking sobs.

Theodore rushed over and hugged her, wiping away her tears, singing lullabies children heard before closing their eyes. She was much too old for such songs, but she didn’t care. It had been awhile since someone had sung to her.

Her eyelids went heavy…why did she keep them open so much…what was the point? If all she was going to see was misery, then why keep them open at all?

Chapter Eight-Mournful soul

Lucy was twelve again, black hair framing a pale, sweating face. She lay in a hospital bed, various beeping machines attached to her frail body. The only thing she had propped on her upright knees was a sketchbook, from which she drew on with careful strokes of her pencil.

“I think it’s time that we talk.” A woman said softly. She took hold of the sketchbook and tried pulling it away.

Lucy held on, as tightly as she could, which wasn’t very much, since her grip was as strong as a feather.

“So, what happened? How are you feeling?” The woman asked.

She was a Nurse, she only wanted the best for her, but she was asking Lucy about the accident…

Machine crushing into her parents, their screams shrill and frantic, the car crumbling…

“You’ve got to tell me. It’s important.” The Nurse said.

“Can I have my sketchbook back?” Lucy asked. She hated the way her voice sounded so haggard, so broken.

“Not until you tell me. You can’t hide from this forever.” The Nurse said.

How was she supposed to explain it? Everything was a mess in her mind, a jumbled story. To say it would break her heart, to tear through her soul.

Lucy reached out, trying to snatch the sketchbook from the Nurse, but she held on.

“Come on now, don’t be difficult.” The Nurse said, as though Lucy were a misbehaving toddler.

How come she couldn’t just draw? Why did she have to talk about what happened to her? Why did she have to tell a stranger everything?

Her limbs grew tired, and she lay back on the bed, dried tears on her face.

…………………………………………………….

Alexandria tossed and turned in bed, a pink-haired fairy hovering over her head. The fairy grinned with pointed teeth, a glimmer of delight in her eyes. From Alexandria’s closed eyelids, pink liquid spilled through.

She was being tormented, but no one would believe her.

Lucy woke up, in Theodore’s thin arms, tears dried on her cheeks. She had dreamed of her past, and somehow of Grandma’s past.

Grandma, who, like her, had no one to turn to. No one to share her troubles with, to heal with.

That was, until she met Theodore.

“Thank you, Theodore. For everything.” Lucy said.

She wiped the tears from her eyes, for no longer did she have to suffer alone.

Chapter Nine-Out of the Earth

“Ah, how touching! Compassion for one another, despite all differences.” A tinkling voice cackled.

Lucy and Theodore turned towards the sound, Theodore gripping her tightly.

From out of the shadows, there fluttered a pink-haired fairy in a dress of the rainbows, white, angel wings flapping on her back, yellow snake eyes glimmering brightly.

The same fairy that haunted Alexandria. The same fairy that had done it all.

“What’s so funny, Evelyn?” Theodore asked.

He let go of Lucy, but still held her hand, as though he were afraid to completely leave her to Evelyn.

“You can find your friends, but that doesn’t mean I’ll make it easy.” Evelyn said.

From the muddied dirt, the flowers began to rise, thorns sharpened as if to kill.

Chapter Ten-As the rose grows

Lucy and Theodore fought through the flowers. The thorns wrapped around him, but stabbed her skin.

Blood rose in her eyes, but Lucy fought on. She could do it. She could save them both. She could stop Evelyn.

Amongst all of the wildflowers, there was only one that caught Lucy’s eye. A pink rose, one as pink as Evelyn’s hair, blinking light in and out like a steady heartbeat.

Lucy reached over, towards the rose. The thorns were sinking in further and further, piercing her flesh, deepening inside, but still, she reached.

With all of her strength, she plucked the rose from its deeply rooted place in the soil.

Chapter Eleven-As the morning comes

Suddenly, the flowers shriveled back into the ground, back into the dirt where they belonged. Lucy fell into the arms of Theodore, and watched as flickering specks of light floated to the sky, as though they were waiting for that exact moment to be free.

“My friends, they’re safe.” Theodore croaked happily.

Lucy smiled, glad that at least he got a happy ending.

“No! No, no, NO!” Evelyn cried out.

The ground opened up a hole to swallow her in, her rainbows colors melded all together, as though a child had scribbled her on paper. She looked up at Lucy, irritation in her eyes.

Evelyn opened her mouth, all teeth showing, words flowing out like a poem:

“Never too happy, always in a daze.

Trapped in a nightmare, one that spins on and on.

Alive not quite, poor sweet maiden.

So let the skin melt away.

And show its skeleton.”

At last, the soil completely closed Evelyn in. The carnival was beginning to fade, too. Theodore’s room was starting to form, sunlight wafting in from his dusty windows.

Lucy looked down at her body, watching as her skin dried up and fell off, as her blue hair faded to a scraggly brown, as her organs began to twist and turn, melting away.

Did she really win? She was losing herself, just like Theodore. She was dying, just like Theodore. She was-

“We’ll get through this. Together.” Theodore said.

Although Lucy had no physical heart, she could still feel pure elation, pure joy within her, and brought him in for a maggot-infested, nearly lipless kiss.

Theodore kissed back, and together, they shared in their decay.