Of Stones and Stars by donteatpoop PG

Chapter 6 Agony and Desperation

In the morning I awoke, as always, before the alarm sounded. I started to wonder why I bothered setting it anymore, but had the sneaking suspicion that the moment I failed to set it I would sleep in.

I showered quickly and brushed my teeth and got dressed, doing all the things I normally did when getting ready for school. Before I walked out of my room I looked myself over in the mirror, taking special note of my eyes. Perhaps Kristin was right; my eyes did appear to be blue. They were dark; the blue of a midnight sky. Certainly they were not the brown that usually colored my irises.

The stones were in the drawer of my nightstand and I decided to leave them there. It seemed like a logical way to avoid following their lead to the next stone. Without another thought about it I walked out of my room and down the stairs, ignoring their desperate tugs and pulls on my soul.

I went downstairs, greeted by the smell of freshly brewed coffee and sat down to eat some cereal. My mom wished me a good day after I wolfed my breakfast down and started to slip my shoes on.

I gave her a quick hug and stepped out the door moments before my father, who was somehow managing to put his tie on around his neck as he sipped from his coffee mug, carried his briefcase, and fished for his keys. It was a wonder he was able to do so much with just two arms.

With a wave goodbye to him, I moved along the drive and to the sidewalk; following the path to school. The walk was typical of any other morning, and I followed the same streets that I always did; but something was different and it all felt unreal.

It was like I was having one of those dreams where I’d been doing something mundane only to discover I didn’t have any clothes on. Everything was typical but I felt like something was off, something was different, something was missing. I checked my body a few times to be sure I was properly clothed. (I was.)

It wasn’t long before I found myself standing outside of the school waiting for the doors to be open. Ryan seemed to have been waiting for me, and when I arrived he smiled the biggest smile I’d ever seen him wearing.

“Dude,” he said.

“Hey Ryan,” I said; “What’s up?”

“I tried to call you, but your mom said you were grounded or something,” he told me.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I can’t believe you kicked the shit out of Bull! That’s so fucking awesome, man; so awesome. You’re a fucking legend now! You know that, right?”

“I guess so,” I replied.

“Dude, fucking awesome.” Ryan was practically leaping out of his skin with excitement over the situation.

“It’s not really that big of a deal,” I said.

“Not that big of a deal?” It was almost as though I had offended him. He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “He’s the biggest asshole bully in the school! And you clobbered him something fierce from what I’ve heard.”

“Not really, I only hit him once. It wasn’t really much of a fight,” I explained.

“Stop downplaying your awesomeness. Dude, if you were a dinosaur you would totally be a Rock-a-dactyl,” he took a deep breath like some school girl with a crush. “God, I wish I had been there to see it.”

The school doors opened and the mass of students started filing in like water through floodgates. As usual, Ryan and I waited until the crowd had pretty much completely dissipated before entering the school. Neither of us were ever in much of a hurry to get back to school.

As we walked in at the back of the pack, Ryan muttered from behind me. “You’re mom should have rewarded you for fighting with Bull instead of punishing you.”

I smiled a bit at this and laughed. “I know,” I said; “What kind of moral values are they trying to raise me with?”

The two of you part ways in the hall, each of us heading for our respective classes. I made my way slowly to room 213, still unable to shake the feeling that I was missing something. In the back of my head I realized that it was the stones, but the rest of my mind was unwilling to admit such dependence.

I sat down in the class and Kristi turned around all smiles and charm. “Good morning, Andy;” she said.

“Hi,” I said, smiling nervously.

“How was your vacation?” she asked with a sly and incredibly sexy grin.

“It, uh… It was okay,” I responded; regretting the lack of confidence in my voice. I sounded like a damn idiot.

“We missed you in this class,” she said. “Mr. Kinder has been acting like a pompous ass for the last few days.”

“Oh,” I said. Then there was a long and uncomfortable silence between us. I was such a moron; just stuttering and stumbling over my words and not having anything to say despite the fact that the most beautiful girl in the school wanted to speak to me.

“Are you feeling okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I began, nodding the whole while. “Yeah, I feel okay.”

More silence.

“Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes and turning back around in her desk to face the front of the class.

I put my head down on the desk, cursing myself for a fool. Was I really so incapable of speaking to women without the presence of the shiny little rocks?

We stood for the pledge, sat through the announcements, and then Mr. Kinder took over.

He began drawing examples of angles and various shapes on the board. He had a bunch of complex math problems that involved letters going on the board and I can’t say that I followed everything he had been teaching. I was never bad at math, really; but I wouldn’t call it my strong subject either.

After writing out a particularly complex problem he turned around and asked if anyone was willing to try and solve the problem. Not a single hand went up, and without a volunteer Mr. Kinder was forced to select someone. Bet you can’t guess who he picked.

“Andrew,” he said. “Perhaps you would care to demonstrate for us.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head a bit. “No thank you, Mr. Kinder.”

“Come on,” Kinder said, holding the chalk out to me. “Surely you can manage.”

I got slowly out of my seat and walked up to the front of the room, taking the chalk from his hand and staring at the chalkboard. I looked the problem over again and again, but to no avail. I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was even supposed to do, let alone try and solve it. I started going blank, no longer staring at the problem but at the board behind it.

“Having problems?” Mr. Kinder asked smugly.

“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t know how to solve this.”

“Come on,” he urged. “Surely this is nothing to the young man who stumped me last week.”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure what to do.”

Mr. Kinder laughed under his breath like a low budget movie villain as he walked towards me and took the chalk from my hand. “Allow me to demonstrate,” he said.

“Sure,” I said; returning slowly to my seat.

Mr. Kinder worked the problem out on the board in several steps, explaining the steps as he took them for the benefit of the class.

“Something is wrong,” Kristi said as I passed her by.

“Yeah,” I admitted as I sat down. Something was wrong. That’s when I realized how heavily I had relied on the stones. The blue stone especially had given me the intellect to perform in class and the inner calm that allowed me to converse with the stunningly beautiful girl who sat in front of me.

The rest of the day was much like that; I had none of the answers. I felt more stupid than normal because everyone seemed to expect me to be brimming with intellect. Fact of the matter was that school had never been my strong suit, and that was becoming abundantly clear as the day wore on. If only I had an art class this year, then I would be able to feel at least remotely adequate in some area.

I struggled through the day making one foolish mistake after another, screwing up answers, making bad guesses, stumbling in the presence of women, and failing one quiz. By the end of the day I was exhausted with misery and self loathing. When the final bell rang it was as though a tremendous weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

I made my way out of the classroom and the doors outside, walking along the sidewalk with my backpack on both shoulders. It was such a relief to be done with such a miserable day. As my feet fell one after the other on the concrete walk, I noticed a series of shadows behind me.

Normally one or two other students walked the same path home that I did, and it wasn’t unusual to see their shadows stretching out before me; elongated in the sunlight. But these shadows were much larger than what typically followed me, and there were more.

Curious, I stole a glance over my shoulder and saw something that sent my heart sinking. I adjusted my pace a bit and sped up, crossing the street and following the sidewalk along the road that would eventually lead me home. I didn’t think I would make it home, though.

Behind me were Mark Freely and a few of his jock friends. Mark actually smiled a bit at me. Looks like I was in for a beating.

I held no delusions about the part the black stone played in my battle with Bull yesterday, and was fairly certain that I would be in a lot of pain in a few moments.

“Why don’t you slow down, Andy?” Mark said.

“I can’t,” I replied. “I have to be home soon.” He and his buddies laughed at that.

“Aw come on,” one of them said; “We just want to talk to you.”

“Okay,” I said; “talk then. I can hear you fine.” I couldn’t tell if I was being wise in continuing along, or incredibly stupid. Would they make it worse for me if I failed to cooperate? I didn’t think it mattered much to them except that they would have to work a bit harder if I resisted.

So I resisted. I was certain that they would defeat me, but I wasn’t going to make it easy on them. I continued walking until I heard their paces quicken. That’s when I started to run.

I am by no means an athlete. They, by all definitions of the term, were athletes. They caught up to me in no time.

As I heard their footsteps closing in on me I wondered if they were just going to tackle me to the ground. They didn’t, though. One of them reached out and grabbed the back collar of my shirt, pulling my sprint to a sudden halt and ripping the fabric a bit.

I turned around to see that it was Mark “Bull” Freely who had stopped my run by grabbing onto my shirt. He greeted me with a malicious smile and a heavy fist to the gut that doubled me over and knocked what breath I had in me right out.

I fell to my knees, one arm gripping at my stomach and my other waving over my head to ward off whatever blows may come. They just laughed at me and waited until I got back on my feet. Bull jabbed me in the face and his three friends took turns hitting me. I felt like part of their athletic training, my body being a bag for them to punch and kick at.

Each hit I took became less painful until I was unable to feel anything but a numb pain that covered my entire body. My vision started to blur and I wobbled a bit on unsteady feet.

“Next time I’m walking,” Bull said leaning in real close to my ear; “get the fuck out of my way.”

He shoved me to the ground and walked away with his friends, laughing the whole way. I lay there for a while, staring up at the clouds as they passed over the sun. The silver linings mocked me with their optimism.

Eventually I rolled over on all fours and spit out a bit of blood. I got slowly to my feet and whipped the blood from my nose onto my arm. As I started walking again, I winced with each step. If I turned the wrong way, my sides ached. My stomach felt like hell and I was certain I would be vomiting soon enough.

It was a long walk home, full of pain and agony.

When I finally reached the front door, I was thankful that my mother wasn’t home to fret over me; that would only have added to my embarrassment. I pulled the key out and opened the door, slipping my backpack off at the bottom of the stairs and stumbling up to the bathroom.

I started the water and undressed before stepping into the shower. The chlorine burned me all over and I screamed a little at first. I turned the hot water down a little and the cold water felt a little better, even numbed me a bit. I stood in there for a long while, watching my blood cloud up in the water at my feet and drain slowly in a whirlpool.

Eventually I got out, dabbing at myself gently with an old and rough towel. No sense ruining a good one with blood stains. I made my way back to my room and fell backwards onto my bed, a cool breeze from my window chilling the dabs of water which clung to my body.

Then something seemed to speak to me. Well, two something’s actually. I pulled open the drawer of my nightstand and stared down at the stones. Without even realizing I was doing so, my hand was reaching out for them.

The moment my hands wrapped around the stones I was jolted with a sudden and unbearable pain. It shocked through my system and kept on hurting for a while before slowly fading to that comfortable level of pain that I was used to. I realized soon that I was screaming. Thankfully no one was home to hear my cries of pain.

The blue stone attempted to soothe me a bit but the black seemed to be giving me the shrug off. It didn’t matter, though. Everything came rushing back to me; the intelligence, the threshold for pain, the calm, the keen mind; everything. I felt whole again and almost cried out with joy.

I hadn’t even held them in my hands for more than a minute and I had forgotten about the pain the black had struck me with, had forgotten about the bruises all over my body from my encounter with Bull and his friends. It was as if everything had disappeared and the only things that I was capable of feeling were what the stones allowed me to feel.

The front door to the house opened and closed and I realized that my mother was home from wherever she had been. I set the stones down on the ground and went to my dresser for clothes. Between grabbing random article of clothing I glanced back at the stones longingly. It was difficult to break contact with them, even for the moment; after nearly a full day without them.

Once I had my pants on, I slipped the stones into my pocket before I bothered trying to find a shirt. Once I had the shirt over my head I went back to staring at the stones, not breaking from my concentration on them until I heard my mother call me from downstairs. I left my room and walked down the stairs to see what my mother had wanted and when she saw me she put a hand over her mouth and gasped.

“Oh Andy,” she said; “what happened?”

I gave her a strange look. “Nothing, why?”

“Your face is all beat-up,” she said.

“Oh,” I said; “that.” I had completely forgotten about the beating I had received. There was no pain beyond that of the black stone, after all. And the pain from the black stone was both welcome and comforting.

“Did you get into another fight?” My mother asked, her voice somewhere between concern, disappointment, and anger.

“Kind of,” I said. “That kid I got in a fight with last week had some of his friends jump me on my way home.”

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I assured her, shrugging it off a bit. “At least it happened outside of school so I don’t have to be suspended again.”

My mother didn’t see the humor in that statement. She just frowned, shook her head a bit, and said; “I want you to stay away from those boys.”

“Mom, I didn’t seek them out. Last week Bull bumped into me in the hall and started fighting with me, today he and his friends chased me down when I was walking home from school.”

“Just steer clear of them, okay?” She said.

It was pointless trying to rationalize with her so I just agreed to stay away from them. “Okay,” I said, “I’ll try and avoid them if possible.”

She seemed somewhat satisfied by my answer and smiled a bit.

“What did you call me down for?” I asked.

“Oh,” she said, suddenly remembering that she had called me down in the first place. “I was going to have you do the dishes.”

I nodded a bit and made my way over to the sink.

“Thank you,” she said, walking out of the room and leaving me to the task at hand. I went through the motions, my mind somewhere else entirely. It was as though my mind were in another world, a dream world. And in that dream world there were five stones of different colors; each color intensely brilliant. But the stones weren’t stones at all, they were stars; fallen from their rightful places in the heavens.

In my mind I watched them fall, enveloped in flames of blue, green, red, black, and white as the atmosphere burned at them. They were the most beautiful comets to ever grace the night, and where they landed they were worshipped by the people.

For years no one would come near the great glowing holes in the Earth, choosing to hold their rituals of worship around these deep pits. Decades passed and the stars remained in their respective holes, illuminating the darkness with their internal lights.

Then they began reaching out for the humans, the black star being the first to do so. They called to the people; speaking to them in their dreams. The people responded as anyone would when their god called out to them; they followed the voices and instructions of the stars and climbed down into the depths of the craters.

Within a night, five separate people each held onto one of the star gods. Each of the fallen stars imbued their wielder with aspects of themselves; what the natives of the planet referred to reverently as gifts. The gifts were given by the gods and those who had won the star gods favor were worshipped as somewhere between royalty and deity. These “gifts” were powerful gifts, the wielders of the star stones were able to do great things; miracles.

For nearly a generation, everything was good among the people and the star gods. The peace ended when the black star ordered it’s wielder to kill one of the others and to take that persons star rock. For some time they feuded, until all five fallen stars were placed in a crown of silver and affixed atop the head of a human.

For several generations, the person who wore the crown ruled. The people worshipped the crown wielder as a god, forgetting that the stones themselves were their star gods. Human worship mattered little to the stars, and they continued to rule the masses with the assistance of he who wore the crown.

And then something happened that separated the stones from one another. A flash of light from above, cries of pain, and an intense jumble of emotions clustered suddenly in my head.

I stepped backwards, my mind reeling in confusion. I found myself standing before the sink and slowly remembered that I had been doing dishes for my mother before the visions came.

I finished up the dishes and returned to my room, pulling the stones from my pocket and setting them on the bed. I stared into their depths… So they were fallen stars? That explained the pulsating light, I guess. I wondered if other stars were sentient as well and felt both of the stones laugh at me in the back of my mind.

*******************************************

That night I dreamed something different from what I had been dreaming of late. That night I dreamt that I was someone else; that I had been awakened by a bright and colorful light which fell from the sky. I ran from my hut to see what it was and saw blue smoke in the distance.

I took off running, bolting into the forest that we weren’t supposed to enter in the night, and leaving my village far behind. I followed a soft and strangely colored blue glow until I reached the edge of a large crater in the earth. Dust and smoke was everywhere and every bit of it was tinted that same strange shade of blue.

I had never seen a stone from the heavens fall to the earth before, but my grandfather had spoken of one before. My grandfather claimed that the heat around it was intense; but where I stood there was no heat. The cold in the area was bitter and yet comforting, and it was coming from the hole in the ground where the blue light glowed.

I stared down into the depths of the crater, staring down at the soft yet intense blue glow. And then it began whispering to me. I couldn’t understand what it was saying, but it was clearly speaking to me. I stumbled backwards, falling to the ground, and then ran back through the wood and to the village where I told my people of the god star that had fallen from the sky.

The next day we all came back to the hole in the earth to see the star god. It spoke to all of us and none of us could understand a word it said. But we knew a god when we saw one and we built our village around the hole in the earth where our blue god resided.

And then suddenly I was seeing life through different eyes, a young man whose grandfather claimed to be the first to witness the star gods decent from the sky. He claimed the star god used to speak to the villagers, but it didn’t speak anymore. Maybe it realized that none of us could understand the language of gods, or maybe it had bored with our presence.

And then one night I started to get visions. I awoke from sleep and walked to the hole where the star god spoke to me in images and emotions. It was desperate for me to take it from the depths of the shadows. I’d never thought a god could sound so frightened. I did as it said and climbed down into the depths to find the star god, for all its power, was little more than a pretty rock.

In the night it spoke to me and bonded with me and shared with me the secrets of its power. It told me many things, things that I could not repeat; secrets.