Tale Zero: Screaming Scorpion (11)

I couldn’t clearly make out her words – or so I pretended, not feeling like ending the day on a fight between us two that would serve no purpose.

What I could say without a doubt, having nothing else to do during my trip back home than think this to myself, is that I wasn’t lying when I said what I said to Emma. I really hadn’t evaded the topic on purpose, I hadn’t made a conscious effort not to talk about it, but even so – it seemed like it had slipped out.

If I had noticed, I would actually have corrected it as to not make her worry for nothing. I probably wouldn’t have told her anything of value, or anything that was actually true, but it would have sufficed… Damn it, what I’m trying to say is, it’s really easy to make shit up. I’m kind of an expert at it too. It really would have been that easy to keep Emma away from what she didn’t need to know. But now that she had noticed something was ‘wrong’, all I could hope for is that she wouldn’t bring it up again – because if she did, it would make it hard for me to even interact with her, period.

Ugh.

I should probably stop overthinking this.

This will do me no good after all, it’s best if I just pretend nothing happened starting tomorrow.

… Oh, well, the fact I’m still thinking about meeting her tomorrow must mean I’m not actually mad at all. I guess I really have been making a mountain out of a molehill.

So went my thoughts throughout my walk back home, and surprisingly enough I managed to get there without a single negative thought left in my mind. By the time I took my keys out of my pocket and opened the door that led into a familiar and– as per usual – empty living room, all I could think of was how much fun I’d had that day. It might sound cliché or cheap, but it had been very long since I’d felt this free. The only other relatively recent times I could recall had all been with Claudia, but after how the last of those had ended-

It was hard to call my memories with her pleasant anymore.

After getting home, the rest of the day passed me by as I holed myself up in my room and played videogames. What kind of videogames, you may theoretically ask? Well, theoretically as well, I would reply with something along the lines of ‘all kinds of games, from Tetris to JRPGs to that one game starring a plumber who must be eating more than humanly possible if he’s still fat after jumping this much’. Though that is, as I said, hypothetical. In truth, I struggled to decide for a long while until my eyes landed on a certain box. A box containing the game Claudia had given me back that day.

… I really do have no cure, do I.

Maybe it’s not wrong to want things this way. To want to forget. To want to start anew.

That day, for the first time in months – I went to bed just a little bit later.

And by some miracle, even though I’d just slept eight hours, I didn’t feel tired at all the next morning.

Grabbing my phone and headphones as usual the instant I woke up, I was surprised to find a notification waiting for me. Apparently it had ben sent the day prior, just fifteen minutes after I’d gone to sleep… Damn it, I’d missed it by so little.

“A message from… Emma, huh.”

I said to myself aloud. Nobody would hear me anyway. The message was short and simple, quite cheery and full of your usual internet lingo, the kind you would find in any online forum or social media. Which in grammatically correct English would translate roughly to-

“Hey, James! Want to meet at that park close to the school today at 11? I’ve spent some time catching up with my friends tonight, and one of them brought up a really interesting topic. I think you’d enjoy it, and it gives me an excuse to go outside mwahahaha. Tell me when you know if you can come!”

It was barely 8 o’clock, so there was plenty of time left to get breakfast, play some games and go to that park. Maybe I’d even arrive on time.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll be there. Now you got me curious.”

… That was only somewhat true. I wasn’t sure if she actually had anything to talk abut or if it was a simple excuse to get me to agree. Whatever the case, it wouldn’t hurt. I would probably have agreed even if she hadn’t tried to intrigue me – no, who am I kidding, I absolutely would have.

And as I said I would, I was right there at the park at 11.

I may or may not have arrived a few minutes late, and it doesn’t matter either way because technically it was still 11.

There she was, waiting for me on a bench – the bench where I’d sat back then, reading a mystery book about the supernatural. It really had been a good book, maybe I’d drop by the library on my way home and buy the next volume.

“Hey, James! Took you long enough!”

“I’m only a few minutes late, cut me some slack. My game of Tetris just refused to end.”

“And whose fault was that?”

“The game’s. If it had only been a bit more difficult, I could have lost earlier.”

“Wow, so much gamer ego. I haven’t had those kinds of delusions of grandeur since I was a whole eight years old.”

“Shut uuuuuup. Anyway, now I’m here – finally – so tell me what was that interesting thing you wanted to talk about.”

“Ah, yeah, that. If I was being fair, I’d make you wait exactly as long as you had me waiting here – but that would probably be more painful for me than for you. So, hmm, where should I start? There’s so many parts to it, ehehehe, I can’t decide!”

“Oh for the love of God. Stop messing with me, I’m sorry, I won’t arrive later ever again!”

“I don’t believe that for a second with that smug face you’re making. But suuuure. I’ll stop teasing you, you boring ass jerk. So, you see, this old friend told me about a movie she’d watched, and I found the premise quite interesting…”

Supernatural beings causing problems all around people’s lives, problems that seemed to have no explanation or solution and drove their victims mad – only for them to be nothing more than the simplest of issues, magnified and complicated by delusion and unwillingness to accept the truth. So went Emma’s explanation. Very similar to that book I’d read not long ago – and the main theme was obvious just from hearing that description. But to me, it was particularly interesting how people managed to twist their perception of reality to make it the most convenient version of itself for their selfish eyes.

Still, I couldn’t help but think – maybe people shouldn’t be laughed at for blaming their issues on supernatural beings. After all, many of those issues were not ones that could be solved by the victims themselves. It wasn’t in their control – so for them, they might as well be the product of supernatural entities.

“Hmm, if you put it that way… yeah, maybe you do have a point. I did not expect you to go with that angle, though. You keep surprising me, good job James, wooo!”

She slapped me on the back, the sarcasm increasing with every single one of her sentences and finally proving to me that I was in fact a bad influence on everyone my age I came close to.

“Jeez, thank you, Emma. I’m so glad you think highly of me. But yeah, funnily enough, those kinds of themes seem to be common in stuff I read or watch as of late. Might watch that movie when I get home.”

“Mhm, sounds good. But hey, you aren’t going home NOW, right?!”

“N-no, I imagined we’d stay here for a while longer. It’s barely been half an hour since I arrived here.”

“Good, good! Then, do you want to go shopping with me?”