Project Rose Petal: Chapter 2 - The Consumption of Seeds

Chapter 2: Consumption of Seeds

Darkness crowds a hallway, windows letting in little streaks of moonlight colored by the silhouettes of tree branches, their eerie extensions and jagged joints akin to the elongated fingers of some crooked hand attempting to physically snatch the light away. This sight replicated itself throughout the hallway about every five feet or so, the floral patterns painted in bright yellows and oranges on some of the windows giving a faint hue to the baby blue carpet and pristine white wallpaper. Upon a first glance, one would find themselves devoid of appropriate words to describe the flows and curves, the waves and strokes, the pure methodical madness to be found in the pattern on the wallpaper; some would say that it’s just a pattern of random white curves tipped with ambiguous flowers for extra elegant appeal. Seven doors line the walls parallel to the windows, some closets, some rooms; one particular door happened to be the entrance to this hallway and thus faced the darkness as adamantly as a passageway hoped to. A solitary obstacle stands against the wall next to a bedroom door at the other end of the hall - a mid-torso-level stool with an expensive glass vase with a depiction of a smiling family standing within arms’ reach of each other outside of what could be vaguely described as a house of sorts, with a couple of swallows gliding in the background, their white bellies towards the viewer, their heads twisted in such an abnormal fashion as to grant visibility of their eyes despite their apparent orientation.

Carlos stands hesitantly outside of the entrance door to the hallway, a glass of water in his hand. This was a familiar occurrence for him - waking up in a place he wasn’t used to, darkness enveloping his person, a random object justifying his existence in a place he’d otherwise have no cause for being in. He remained, his legs trembling slightly as he tried his hardest to stiffen them, droplets of condensation streaming slowly and collecting to drip onto the floor, leaving cold dark spots on impact. His breathing struggled to correct itself to its typical course; it appeared his lungs could not stop their stammering amidst the intense pressure on their enclosement. His heart rate forming sharp peaks and troughs, a seismograph capable of justifying the shivering. The conflict of whether to blindly proceed away from that which he’d been attempting to escape towards the other end of the hall or to choose a place to hide had now forced his body into a state of stunned awe.

Footsteps behind Carlos broke the deafening silence, replacing it with deafening bass and the creaks of weakened wooden floor boards, snapping him back into an active state of mind. He stepped pensively down the hallway, ignoring the first two doors in his haze.

“Gotta hide...gotta hide…”

THUMP!

“Gotta hide...gotta hide, gotta hide…”

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

“Gottahidegottahidegottahide…!”

An intense snorting sound followed by a gust of wind makes Carlos’ skin crawl, his very being frozen in space and time. He turns to meet his demise, a hand on the doorknob to the 3rd door down the hallway. A tall, bulky figure towered over him, an large wooden axehead gleaming ever so slightly in the moonlight scarcely coating it.

“Freshly sharpened…”

Dread overcomes Carlos as his thoughts fumble between fighting or completing his escape. Only the silhouette of the figure can be seen in the concealment of night, but Carlos could make out a pig’s snout with a ring between both nostrils, as well as two sharp tusks, the tips of which only slightly protruded from the shadows enough that one could see a small point of light reflecting off of them. Another snort billowed from the snout as the figure held its axe still, cradling it in both of its swollen, muscular hands as if to present the prospect of death to Carlos, to say “You look upon the end...All you’ve known will cease to be. This is the tool of your demise.” Trying to keep his wits about him, Carlos opens his mouth to speak,

“Ho-Howdy, there...Nice night o-out, isn’t-t it?”

Carlos blinks, the room around him blurry and warped into a large circle of distortion. He turns his head slowly, the sudden change of physical position almost like an unconscious teleportation. In normal fashion, he pondered as to what could’ve gotten him to where he was, but struggled to maintain focus in spite of the pounding headache he’d also mysteriously acquired so rapidly. His focus attempted to shift to a separate section of the situation,

“Odd...I could’ve sworn I had said something...Wasn’t I just talking? I heard...what did I hear? Ow, my head is killing me- wait.”

A warm feeling flowed its way down Carlos’ face; he reflexively wipes with little regard. He winces in pain, forcing him to clasp his wrist with the other hand. One close look revealed all to Carlos; he’d been struck through the door by the axe handle, hence the now limp left wrist he held so tightly, swollen black with blood trapped underneath his sliced and heavily splintered skin. Blood drips onto Carlos’ blue pajama bottoms, the fabric succumbing to the permeation of the liquid.

“Oh my god...my head! I-I think my head is bleeding! Shoot! What if it’s cracked open or something?! I need a doctor; I need to call 911! Something! Help! Help!”

Carlos could swear his mouth was moving and words were escaping it, but he sits in a slump in a corner of the empty room, partly investigating his circumstances, partly trying to pick large wood chunks out of his legs, wincing, grunting, and puffing his way through each tug and tear. The figure, which he assumed would still be outside the door, was gone, and all that could be seen was the shadow of the tree branches extending up the wall in the moonlight.

“Maybe if I just stay here, everything’ll be fine. I don’t think my legs are broken or anything, so I could easily leave if I wanted to...But then again, I do need some bandages.”

Carlos stood, his legs buckling under the pain of contracting sores and cuts.

“Ah, screw it. Who am I kidding? I can’t hope to move anywhere fast like this, but I can’t just sit here and bleed out! I don’t know where that monster could be, or the bandages, a phone; I don’t even know where I am right now!”

Carlos sits back against the wall, just as a small breeze picked up outside, swaying the tree branches.

“Maybe I can sleep this off; I don’t need to be in pain right now.”

Carlos closes his eyes and tries to ignore the pains of his injuries, failing miserably as time passed. Eventually, all he could focus on were the many bruises and scrapes that now lined his limbs, the blood stains on his pajama bottoms now cold and still moist, the sweat of his head stinging his cuts with their salty content. It seemed the more he tried to force sleep, the more it seemed to elude him; peaceful rest did not come to him for about 15 minutes.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The digital alarm clock buzzes and signals in its typical sequence, every beep just under a second between each other; a rhythm whose sole purpose is to disturb the sacred silence of sleep with its high-pitched noises and horribly unpredictable metronome set to counter that of your mind.

“Alright, alright al-right! Jesus, man, I get it! 7:30, time for break-”

Carlos rolled over as if to gripe directly at his clock’s face; no inanimate object was capable of triggering such quick emotion and rashness - only a person was capable of such annoyance and the purely devious tactics required to enact it. Alas, his face droops to one of disappointment and growing concern as he reads “7:55” flashing in that red toothpick font.

“Crap! I’mma be late!”

Carlos rolls out of bed onto the floor and stumbles to his feet, tripping towards his uniform hanging up on the door - a plaid yellow and grey button-up paired with tan khakis and a purple bowtie; the girls wore pretty little pink bows with ribbons flowing effortlessly down their chests and black skirts just below knee-length with clearly defined creases evident of a fresh press. “Samurai Hat Skirts”, Carlos sometimes called them.

He proceeds to throw on his wrinkly shirt and pants before slipping on some black socks and his green snake-skin shoes his aunt bought him that past Christmas. “Ugh, Aunty Faye...you shouldn’t have! Really. You shouldn’t have.” he snarkily scoffed as he used his thumb as a shoehorn and pulled the tongue of the left shoe out.

Snatching his fruit-themed backpack off of the ground by his door and grabbing a snack bar off of his dresser on the way out of his room, not caring for the fact that he dropped it in his haste, Carlos proceeds towards the kitchen, where Mrs. Davidson sits at a table, scanning a couple of documents with the school insignia in the upper right corner in front of her with reading glasses on. She looks up at Carlos, a sarcastically quizzical look on her face. “Hm…” she starts, looking back at the documents. “Well, would you take a look at that.”

“What? Take a look at what? What’s wrong? Is it important? I’m kinda in a rush he-”

“You park your behind in that chair right there, mister! You’re not rushing anywhere until you explain to me why you have a notification from your school about mandatory detention tonight!”

“What?!”

Mrs. Davidson hands Carlos one of the papers, her lips pursing as he reads aloud,

“To Whom It May Concern,

Carlos Davidson has been recorded by his teachers to be perpetually late for his first few classes and sleep almost irremediably through the ones he does attend. He has managed to score an overwhelming 0% in 3 out of his 7 daily classes, two of which are non-essential electives that don’t impact his graduation in the slightest; one, however just so happens to be English, a Common Core required class that he cannot proceed to the next grade without earning a credit for.

Please know that summer school is an option for students who’ve achieved at least 30% in any Common Core class as per the new mandates, and thus your son does not currently qualify for Credit Recovery. Provided he does not earn at least a 30% in English by the end of the quarter next month, June 18th, 2085, he will be forced to repeat the 9th grade again.

As a consequence your child's underperformance, he will be forced to attend mandatory afterschool detention everyday starting on May 8, 2085. 

During this detention, he will have extra credit work assigned to him in an attempt to rectify his poor grades, the point values of which will be exponentially boosted to accommodate for 3 quarters of missing assignments. 

We do not assign blame to anyone at Waterbrook, nor any parents of our student body. Please know that this is not the fault of anyone involved, and that every day is another learning opportunity.

Attached to this document are several resources for counselling, tutoring, and other programs we are mandated by law to dispense to you in hopes that they assist your child’s learning process.

Remember that at Waterbrook High School, when you fall, there will always be someone ready to pull you from the depths; no matter how shallow, no matter how deep, this is a promise we’re ready to keep!

Regards, Mrs. Jetts”

“So?”

“‘So’? Young man, have you lost your mind?! What do you mean, ‘so’? ‘So’, you’re grounded until you get these grades up! There’s no excuse for you to-”

“‘-keep getting these notifications from school about your grades; this is, like, the fiftieth time I’ve told you this and you still-’ I get it, Ma. We’ve been through this before. It’s tired. I haven’t even touched an electronic in about 6 months anyway, so I don’t care anymore.”

“Well, you should!”

“Really? Why’s that?! Those kids don’t care about the classes; all they want to do is look good on Junebug and stir up drama! The teachers don’t care, eit-”

“Now, I’ll hear none of that, young man! You’re grounded until these grades are up, and that’s final! Any oppositions or explanations can go to the Moot Argument Jar on the mantle! Now go on, before you’re late for school!”

“Ugh, whatever. Have fun at home.”

Carlos starts out of the orange front door before his mother runs up to him and hands him a blue pill and a bottle of water.

“Take this before you leave.”

“Why this again? Didn’t I tell you I hate these things?”

“Yeah, but your doctor said multivitamins are good for you, and you need them every morning.”

“Oh my gooooddd, whatever, Ma.”

Carlos downs the pill and takes a quick sip of water before running out to the school bus at the end of the street that’d just started its engine back up to drive off before seeing Carlos in the rear-view mirror.

“Bye, sweetie! Have a nice day at school! Love you!”

Carlos shoots back a glare of mild discontent and rolls his eyes as he bolts to the bus, the contents of his backpack shifting left and right with every step. Mrs. Davidson simply sighs and closes her door.

She walks back to the kitchen and stops at the table to look at the papers again, specifically the counselling suggestions. Entering the number of a particular agency into her cell phone, she sulks a bit before being met with a prerecorded female voice,

“Hello, Hallowsville Therapy. How may I help you today?”

Before answering, she takes a look at the chalk agenda for the date of May 8, 2085. It reads in red chalk, “Schedule doctor’s appointment. Make sure you take anti-depressants and schedule a refill date. Smile today.”

“Yes...I’m calling to find a counsellor for my son.”