Lonely Together

  “OW! WHY-” Chaii screamed, sending his playful pet spider flying across his room with a flick of his wrist. The spider stuck to the wall in front of him, motionless as Chaii looked as if he were trying to bite his own finger off. “You’re TERRIBLE,” he yelled through clenched teeth. A stinging sensation rushed from the two small punctures on his index finger to the rest of his hand and halfway up his right arm. The pain lasted for about a minute or so, and that entire minute was full of Chaii’s hisses and finger gnawing until the stinging eventually faded into a numb.

  Chaii gave out a sigh and slumped against the side of his bed as he lost the feeling in his arm. Pulling his finger away from his mouth, he stared at the bite left behind from the still spider on the wall across from him. It didn’t even look bad, and he had seen worse injuries- way worse than two small pricks from a spider. Chaii narrowed his eye and bit his lip as he examined the bite. Why did it hurt so much? Even if his little arachnid had been a little venomous, he didn’t think he would have felt anything as painful as he did without something weird happening to his skin like bubbling and major bulging. He squeezed his eyes at the disgusting thought. The bite did seem to protrude from his finger a bit, but it was more like a small welt than a full-blown infection.

  The zombie stretched his numb arm towards the little creature on the wall. “Look what you did to me! You- you... AAGH.” He groaned. What could possibly be said to insult a spider? “You’re not even a tarantula! Your name is “bug” now!!” he cried. Then he stood up, stomping his way towards the thing with his arms crossed. He had so many things to say, but before he could blurt them out, he placed a hand on his forehead and gripped at his bangs. What was he doing? Yelling at a spider was useless. It didn’t even move. With his sensitive left hand, he poked at it. “What are you doing? …Are you dead or something-”

  Chaii felt more uncomfortable and unwelcome in his necromancy class than he usually did. Being a walking corpse in a room full of dead things and all would have been a logical reason for him to feel the way he did, but the thing is, he hadn’t felt that disturbed by it before. Maybe it was the fact that he thought of himself as a bug slayer, apparently having thrown his “tarantula” to its death and such. That creature reminded him of his first encounter with a certain hyperactive skeleton boy. Chaii could always ask for another, it shouldn’t have been such a big deal… but not even his closest friends would be able to shake him from his sentimentality.

  Time seemed to be slowly dragging itself along. Each minute that went by caused more anxiety to build up in Chaii’s already restless state. He wanted to get out, yet he wanted to… stay? All he could do at the moment was listen to the professor, and listen was all he did. The words went in one ear and out the other as Chaii rested his head against his numbed hand. His mind continued to blank itself from the professor’s lecture until a ring had been placed on the desk he sat at, causing him to flinch as he came back from who knows where.

  Chaii suddenly regretted his internal absence throughout most of the class as he took glances at the other students in the room, wondering what had been going on, or even what was about to go on. Thankfully, Chaii was able to tune into his professor’s words shortly after the ring had been placed before him.

  The second the necromancy class had been dismissed, Chaii darted out of the classroom faster than most of the students. He definitely had more energy and determination than he usually did. To no surprise, he spotted Samhain around the building, and normally, he wouldn’t hesitate to wave him over, or at least shout out a hello. Instead, he hurried away in hopes that he hadn’t been seen. What was up with his nerves today? Samhain wouldn’t really mind the death of a single spider, right? There were plenty of them out there. Although the spider’s death had been the most memorable thing of the day, something else was pushing that event to the back of his mind. Something else kept coming up.

  ‘I can’t associate with students like that,’ he thought.

  Chaii rushed back to his room, pointlessly sneaking his way through his dorm and avoiding any eye contact. While he himself didn’t bother to lift his head to peek at some of the passersby, for some reason, he thought he could feel every single set of eyes on him. Had someone been watching him throughout the day? He started to believe that there were more than enough bad spirits to exorcize around with him feeling the way he did.

  Although he had been in such a hurry to get to his room, he stopped in front of his door, staring up at the letters that spelled out his name. He took a moment to rub his face and run his hands through his hair, glancing up at the name on the door once more before taking hold of his door handle. Before turning it, he whispered his name pensively. Surprisingly, it sounded almost completely foreign to him, but that must be because he was used to others saying it. It wasn’t often that he said his own name when he wasn’t introducing himself.

  “Chaii… don’t forget,” he reminded as he slipped into his room. He thought that voice sounded wonderful when it wasn’t yelling.

  Alone in his room, he didn’t really feel that way. Crouched on his bed with his head rested on his knees, Chaii loosely toyed with the ring he had been given from the professor during class. What would happen when he put it on? Would he see something different? Would he feel different? He sighed, thinking he just might be able to get rid of any spirits around him. He really believed there was something there with him, and good or bad, he didn’t care. The zombie just wanted to feel alone… or did he? Coming to his senses, he couldn’t remember any time he wanted to be alone.

  ‘I can live like this.’ Those words kept interrupting his current train of thought. Live like… what? Avoiding friends and creeping around… Could he really? Turning his thoughts towards the subject of his friends, he avoided Samhain today and he felt awful. Chaii wasn’t even able to recall why he did so.

  ‘Everyone changes. Apparently Casper did, both Sam and Avery said so. …It hurts more to stray away from people you befriend than to stay alone- not nearing anyone at all.’

  “I don’t want to,” he breathed, thinking one thing, yet saying another. It felt like someone was invading his thoughts. He whined, biting his ever-numbed finger in frustration.  What caused him to think this anyway? Chaii eventually dazed after minutes of internal conflict.

  Right before he thought of literally giving in- to himself, he paused. The boy stopped fiddling with the ring he held and his eyes widened as he thought he heard- or maybe it was just…

  ‘Did you not learn anything…?’ a familiar voice, an internal voice, questioned him for the second time. ‘Everyone is the same,’ she said, but it wasn’t her.

  Chaii didn’t even bother to think anything back towards it. After hearing those words, that was it. Vexed, he pushed himself off of his bed, tightly clutching the ring in his ever-sensitive hand. Standing upright, he opened his fist and peered down at it. Although his face showed complete disgust and irritation, he spoke indifferently before slipping the ring onto his finger.

  “Get out.”

  Chaii forcefully bit his lip as the same sharp pain he felt earlier ran from the back of his head towards his right arm. It felt as if small patches of his skin were slowly tearing themselves off of him. With a head going light, and eyesight turning dark, he let his eyes blur with a watery blink before blacking out. Alone.