Deep Into That Darkness Peering- Part One by: Enemyoffun Ryan Roth is a college freshman with a good life. He has a great girlfriend, a good best friend and seems to be starting his college career off on the right start. But something dark and dangerous comes into his life and things go from bad to worse.

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Author's Note: Ch. One of my brand new story. Things seem to be light and fluffy for now but I assure you that like the title, that won't last for long.I'm trying something new with one, its going to get a little dark so be forewarned. I use a nasty, hateful word a few times in this chapter---one I would never use myself but hateful people use from time to time so be warned. This will probably be the only time I'd like to thank djkauf for the wonderful editing job...and I'm glad you didn't vanish for good :). I have to also thank DC Comics for their wonderful characters once again.

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Chapter One:

It was dark and I had no idea where I was. I waved my hand in front of my face but I couldn’t see a thing. I was floating in midair like a feather, daintily drifting along. It felt wonderful at first, floating like this. I often dreamed of flying, coasting gently through the clouds without a care in the world. But I wasn’t in the clouds right now. I was in a pitch pure darkness that didn’t seem to have any light in sight. It was beautiful at first but then it seemed to suffocate me. The darkness moved closer, pressing against me, choking me. When I opened my mouth to gasp it seemed to go inside me. I tried to scream but nothing came out. I flailed my arms about but what was once weightless now seemed to be like syrup. It tugged and pulled on me, making me feel like I was drowning. I tried my hardest to fight it but it kept pulling and my body was useless against its powers.
Then it stopped.

The suffocating black let me go and I fell. But it wasn’t the floating, feather light feeling before. I fell like a boulder, plummeting faster and faster toward the ground. I reached out but there was nothing to hold onto. I kept falling, faster and faster. I screamed but I was going too fast to hear myself. My fantasies of flying were quickly replaced by nightmares of smashing into the ground. I kicked and pushed, trying to make myself airborne. But no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I looked down in a panic and saw the ground. It was rushing up on me very rapidly. At first, it was distant, so very far away. But it got closer and closer. It started to take shape. First as the color gray then it got more vibrant as I got closer. Soon it was green and it was only inches away. I closed my eyes and put out my hands to brace myself, waiting for the impact.
But it never came.

The next thing I knew I was lying on my back, the crisp rustle of something around me as I groaned and moved. I opened my eyes and saw the black again. But it wasn’t like before. This black was dotted with tiny specks of white. I blinked a few times and realized they were stars. There were thousands of them overhead. I stared at them for a few moments, remembering my stargazing as a child. My grandfather used to have this telescope on his back porch and we used to look at the stars together. My grandparents lived near the northern part of the Tonto National Forest where a vast expanse of pine trees grew. I used to love walking those trails with grandpa every summer when we visited. Grandpa’s back porch though was the best place for stargazing.

I sat up and rubbed the back of my neck. I looked around and shivered. September nights were cold while the days were hot in Arizona. I took a closer look around and noticed I was surrounded by towering trees. I rubbed my eyes; I was in “Grandpa’s forest”. I used one of the trees to help me up then brushed the pine needles off my pajamas. I took a step and winced, looking down it was clear that however I got here I wasn’t wearing shoes. The wince came from the sting in my foot because I stepped on a pinecone. I cursed and tried to get my bearings. I didn’t know this particular part of the forest because it was so hard to tell in the dark but as long as I found the right star I’d be able to follow it back to civilization. I looked up at the sky, trying to find the brightest star. It was an old tribal trick he learned from his grandfather who learned it from his grandfather before him. At least that’s what he told me anyway. He always used to say that “even if you get lost finding your way home is in your blood.” Maybe in his but not mine.

But that didn’t stop me from trying. I found grandpa’s bright star. Then I started to follow it. I found the walking to be a bitch on my feet but I tried to step in the right places. Walking bare foot out here wasn’t the brightest idea but it was the only thing I could do. As I walked, I tried to think of how I’d gotten here. I remembered going to sleep in my dorm back at Arizona State. My roommate Bart and I were out late the night before, which didn’t make our girlfriends really happy. But we were celebrating. Bart just made the track team and he wanted to get wasted. Who was I to argue with him? We’d only been at school for a few days but Bart and I had been friends since high school. Anyway we got back to the dorm late and I crashed as soon as I hit the bunk. Remembering that I looked down at my pajamas one more time. There was something off about them, something wrong. I couldn’t remember ever wearing pajamas, let alone black silk ones.

My head hurt thinking about it.

I continued to walk. After what felt like forever, I thought I heard someone. I stopped for a second, resting against a tree to get my second wind. If there was a person out here maybe they could tell me where I was and help me get back to civilization. Then I could figure out how the hell I got way out here. That part was still a bit fuzzy. The first thing I could remember after passing out was falling. It made me wonder what the hell was going on. But the more I thought about it the more my head hurt so I just decided to stop thinking altogether. I could worry about specifics later. Right now, I needed to find whoever it was and get the hell out of here.

That’s when I heard it. It sounded like someone running. I pushed away from the tree and looked around. I couldn’t see anyone but I could hear them. They were getting closer. I squinted in the dark and noticed a shape coming toward me. I panicked for a second because all I saw was white. At first, I thought it was a ghost. My heart started to beat real fast and my mind told me to run but my feet didn’t want to move. I was frozen in fear as the phantom got closer. But as soon as it did, I realized it wasn’t a ghost at all. It was a girl---not much older than me. She was wearing a long flowing white dress and had long black hair. She was running like her life depended on it. When she got closer, I realized two things: the dress was see-through and she was wearing nothing underneath and she was running faster than I’d ever seen anyone run before.

She was almost on top of me before I got a look at her face. It was as pale as a sheet. There were tears streaming down her cheeks and she was scared to death. I held up my hands. She looked right at me but didn’t seem to stop. She slowed when she reached me though. She looked at me and I smiled, lowering my arms. Then she seemed to stumble back as if she were afraid of me. I raised my hands again, waving the in the air.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, showing her I meant her no harm. “I’m a friend, I’m lost too.”

“Get the fuck away from me,” she said.

At first, I thought she was talking about me but then I realized she was looking past me. I turned my head and saw a figure standing there. I jumped because they were so close. Whoever they were, they were dressed in a long brown robe looking for the world like a Jedi. They walked right past me and moved to her. I went to reach for them but my foot snagged on the tree root and I missed. I cursed as I went to my knees. The robed person moved toward the girl. She backed up but it was clumsy and she tripped, falling awkwardly. She winced and cried. I could tell just by her posture it was a bad fall. I untangled myself from the root and got to my feet. I rushed forward ready to tackle the robed dude and help the girl. But I was completely outnumbered. More robed figures appeared out of the forest, seeming to appear from the shadows. There were at least six of them, circling around her. Her head darted as she took them all in, it was clear that these were the people she was running from.

“Now my dear” said the voice of the closest robed figure, the one that came from behind me. It was a woman’s voice. “You shouldn’t have run away from us, he’s not going to like that.”

“Screw you bitch” snapped the girl, now rubbing her ankle.

I made another step toward the robed woman but my pajama top got snagged in a bush. I tugged and twisted but it only made things worse. I cursed but no one seemed to notice me.

“Mother” said one of the other figures, I couldn’t tell which one. “He told us to do it here.”

The robed woman sighed and nodded. “Very well.”

Two robed figures moved forward and approached the girl. She screamed at the top of her lungs. I screamed too, telling them to get the fuck away from her. I wasn’t a very big guy but I knew some fighting. There were six of them but if I could take at least two it would give the two of us a fighting chance to get away. I struggled with the bush, trying to pull myself free but it was no use. Instead, I watched as the two of them got on top of her and held her down. She was screaming and kicking. Another pair came forward; one was carrying a coil of rope, the other what looked like wooden tent pegs and a hammer. I could only watch in stunned amazement as they hammered the pegs in the ground then tied her to them spread eagle.

“Do you have the Goblet?” asked the woman.

Another figure stepped forward, pulling it from inside their robe. It was made of gold and looked like one of the props from the Theater.

The woman took a step forward and met the person with the Goblet. The girl seemed to know what was going on because she was kicking and squirming, trying desperately to break free from the ropes. I continued to tug at the bush, wondering why I couldn’t break free to help her. As hard as I tugged though the harder, it seemed to hold on. I cursed and spit but it was no use. The robed woman knelt in front of the girl. She was mumbling something under her breath, something I was too far away to hear. But I saw what happened next. From her sleeve, she pulled a wicked looking dagger. She held it high about her head, allowing the moonlight to dance along its blade. I looked from the blade to the girl and back again. I realized now what was going on. I tugged and pulled at the bush until finally I tore away half my pajama top. I fell to the ground but got to my feet quickly. I ran toward the scene, screaming at the top of my lungs.

They didn’t hear me, they didn’t even notice me.

But the girl did. It seemed like the whole scene froze and she looked at me, directly at me as if seeing me for the very first time. I saw the sorrow and the pain in her eyes. Then she spoke, cold, chilling words: “Beware the Rapture for when it comes it will bring nothing but death and destruction with it.”

Then the scene unfroze and she screamed.

I screamed too.

I woke screaming, flailing my arms about like an idiot. I nearly fell out of bed, which would have been disastrous seeing as I was on the top bunk. I did almost hit my head on the ceiling, which was just as bad. I blinked and looked around, trying to get my bearings. It took me a second to realize I wasn’t in the woods but In my dorm room. It took me another second to realize that all of that---the crap in the woods, the crazy robed people, the girl, the silk pajamas---was all a dream. I sighed in relief especially when I looked down and saw I was wearing the t-shirt and jeans I wore yesterday. I rubbed the back of my neck then pulled my sweat drenched shirt over my head. I dropped it to the floor as I turned and dropped to it myself.

As soon as I landed, a hand lashed out from the bottom bunk, smacking me in the back of the leg. I jumped and turned. My roommate Bart was lying on his stomach grumbling. He turned to me and looked like hell. Clearly the two of us weren’t cut out for all the partying we did last night.

“Dude” he grumbled. “I already have a massive hangover but with your screaming things aren’t any better.”

“Sorry I had a fucked up dream.”

He sat up and rubbed his eyes then winced because he sat up too quickly. Bart Allen and I had been best friends since grade school. He was loudmouth prankster who lived next door and I was his dweeby neighbor. It used to confuse the hell out of people that we were even friends. He was the track star in school and I was the drama geek. But our friendship transcended all of that. Even though he got decent grades, Bart wasn’t a fan of school. He hated the fact that people always put labels on things. It pissed him off whenever someone would comment about the two of us being friends. “What’s the Jock doing with the Fag?” Yeah I was a Fag because I was in Drama.

Bart used to kick anyone’s ass whoever called me a fag when he was around. I suppose it didn’t help that I wasn’t the manliest man around. Whereas Bart looked like a runner---lean and muscular, I looked like a geek. I wasn’t short by any means but I wasn’t tall either. I was thin, wore my jet-black hair to my shoulders and always seemed to dress like I’d just rolled out of bed. Bart was more put together than I was but not by much. He was just as much as a slob.
When he got a scholarship to Arizona State, it didn’t take long for me to follow. After all, they have a fairly decent theater program. Besides it didn’t take much for me to get in. With my grades---I’m kinda a brain---and my mad theater skills, they snatched me right up. It was a no brainer that the two of us were going to be roommates. We only talked about it every day for the last three years of high school. Bart wanted out of our little town and I wasn’t that far behind. Besides his uncle, Bart was the only one in his family to go to college. I was the same. My mother and I lived with my grandparents, I never knew my father. He left mom before I was born or at least that’s how she told it. There was a lot of bitterness about it so I didn’t really press the matter much. Dad was a non-entity as far as I was concerned and I liked it that way.

Besides Grandpa was all the Dad I needed.

I sat on the edge of Bart’s bed as he threw off the covers. Unlike me, he managed to get his pants off last night. He was clad in boxers and only boxers. He ran his fingers through his mop of brown hair and sighed. Then he started looking around for his pants. Thankfully, it was Saturday or else the two of us would be majorly fucked. We both had morning classes and hangovers do not work well on Monday mornings.

“So, bad dream?” he asked as he found his pants.

“Fucked up is more like it” I said and quickly gave him the Cliff Notes as he pulled his pants on.

When I was finished, he laughed. “Goth chicks and Jedis, huh?”

I laughed. “More like pale skinned Emo chick.”

“Don’t tell Katie, she might get jealous.”

Katie was my girlfriend. Like Bart and I, she came from the same town as us---a small blip on the radar called Azarath. Yeah that’s really its name. It was a tiny thing, barely a thousand people. It was so small that it hardly appeared on maps. It didn’t help that it wedged between two bigger towns on either side. We used to joke that it was its own dimension. Anyway, Katie lived a few houses down from my grandparents. Unlike me, she retained most of her Native American heritage, including skin color. I loved that she looked perpetually tan all the time. She was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. It always amazed me that she chose me over all the other dicks who tried to get her. We started dating when we were high school freshmen and we haven’t stopped since. She was an Anthropology major; she wanted to learn all about our people’s culture. Though I didn’t look it, I was actually part Apache. Well technically, it was Yavapai-Apache but you never tell that by looking at me. A lot of people thought I was Mom’s adopted son.

Whereas she looked like an Apache, me I looked like the pale faced English boy who got switched at birth. But Mom was adamant that I was in fact her son–OK, so I had some doubts in Middle School but she showed me my birth certificate and everything. I guess I just took after my father a lot more than I realized.

“Katie and I have a good relationship” I said to answer his quip. “If she gets jealous a dream girl who by the way is killed in my dream, then she’s more twisted than either of us are letting on.”

Which is saying a lot. Katie Black Crow was an All American type of girl. She was Class President, a cheerleader and every girl’s best friend all through high school. She was another one of those conundrums that no one could quite figure out. What was a hot girl like her doing with a guy like me? They still called me fag even though they knew the two of us were dating. I think a lot of guys were convinced that Katie was protecting me and that she was my “fake” girlfriend. So that didn’t stop them from asking her out constantly. Which was never good for my self-esteem, especially when they did it right in front of me.
If there was anything twisted about her, she was hiding it very well from me.

That didn’t stop us from playing a few jokes about it though. It made the two of us laugh, as we both slowly got ready for the day. When we were kids Katie was so straight laced that if either Bart or I put one toe out of line she used to berate us until we apologized over and over again. Even though we were all the same age Katie was like a Babysitter, older sister and Mom all rolled up into one---most of the time when she was like ten years old. It came from her rigid background. Her father was a military man and instilled his military discipline into his three daughters as if they were his sons---unfortunately for him he never had any sons.

Fortunately for me Katie didn’t have any brothers because they would have surely kicked my ass if they knew what I did with their little sister last Friday night.

While Bart still recovered from his hangover, I ran to the shower.

I got it all to myself. Half the guys in our dorm were at the party last night and were all probably in the same state that Bart was in. I’m not much of a drinker---though I did knock back one or two. Bart and the others got smashed. I had to practically carry him back to the dorm. When we got in last night, I was so exhausted that I dropped asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I couldn’t help but think about the drunken idiots while I stood under the hot water. I closed my eyes and sighed. No, it’s not that I like to think about guys in the shower but they were acting like such asses. Half of them had painted themselves maroon and were bouncing about like baboons. That’s a laugh worthy analogy if there ever was one.

I got out of the shower, wrapping my towel around my waist as I did so. I walked up to the mirror and wiped away the condensation. I sighed at what I saw. I had no muscle mass to speak off and my voice only worked when I was on stage. Three times in the past, I’d been asked to play girl parts when there weren’t enough girls in the cast. So you can imagine how my voice sounded. I would have been appalled but I’m an actor and a damn good one. Yep, arrogance goes along with it. I’ve been told all my life that I had a real talent for it. My acting career started when I was in the second grade. I played a Pilgrim in our Thanksgiving play. Katie was in it too, you can never guess what she played. Her parents, like my grandparents, didn’t live on the Reservation. Unfortunately for her, that meant Katie was one of the very few Native Americans in our school. It didn’t seem to bother her but when we were younger some kids picked on her a bit about it. Kids are little bastards like that.

It was me that actually talked her into the play. I told her that the part was made for her. In actuality, it wasn’t even a speaking role. She was Indian Woman #2; she gave Bart’s Pilgrim #5 a basket of corn. It was the only real thing either of them did during the play. Me, I was Captain Miles Standish, the star of the play. I got two standing ovations because of it. From there I was bitten by the acting bug. I went on to star in every single one of our school plays, right up through my senior year of high school. I could have gotten a scholarship to any school in the country but I chose to stay close to home and go to Arizona State. They didn’t offer a scholarship but Grandpa paid my way.

It was only the first week of classes but already there was buzz about the new theater season. The first big play of the year was direct from the Bard himself. I’ve always been a huge fan of Shakespeare. We did Romeo and Juliet in tenth grade. It was another one of those unfortunate ones where there weren’t enough girls. So the director decided we’d go old school Shakespeare when we could. She cast me in the lead as Juliet. I stole the show. I mean how could I not. I was after all the best one out there. In Eleventh grade, I was fortunate enough to slip into Iago’s shoes. He’s by far one of my all time favorites. I loved playing him more than any other role I’d ever taken on. You could almost say playing him was my crowning glory.

Well this year I aimed to top that.

They’re doing Macbeth. There are a lot of good parts in there but I already know which one I want. I want the lead. I want Macbeth himself. I already knew all the lines. For the past few days, Katie and I have been doing them back and forth---she as various characters, me always as Macbeth. I knew most of the lines in the play actually, having what one might call a photographic memory. That’s what helps me learn my lines so well. It also makes me such a fantastic student. Regardless of all that, the role of Macbeth was definitely mine, even if I was a lowly freshman.

I left the bathroom after staring in the mirror for God knows how long. When I got back to the room, Bart was fully dressed for the day. In fact, he was wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top. He looked me up and down. From the looks of things, he was on his way to work out, probably run some laps.

“I’m going running,” he said. Figures. “Then me and a few guys are going to toss around a football a bit, you want to come?”

He already knew my answer of course.

“When have you ever known me to want to play football?”

He laughed at that. He didn’t bother to even stick around to say anything more. He grabbed his gym bag and left.

Back in high school Gym class was the bane of my existence. Every guy there went out of their way to make my life a living hell. We had a small class so there was no separation in Gym based on grades. All of the grades took the same Gym class, separated throughout the day in two different periods. The Gym group you were a part of as a freshman were the same guys you were with throughout your school career. Luckily, I had Bart there to watch my back. Unfortunately, I had some of the biggest jocks in the school there too. Suffice to say they didn’t make things easy. They had fun picking on the little “gay” kid. OK, I say little but I’m actually five seven it’s just that most of them were over six foot so I was little to them. Bart was the only thing that kept them from pounding the snot out of me every day.

The phone rang, bringing me out of my bad memories. I walked over to the bed where it was currently lying---Bart never knew how to put it back on the receiver. I picked it up and clicked the button. “Roth” I said with a sigh, sitting on Bart’s bunk.

“Good afternoon to you too” said Katie’s annoyed voice.

I groaning, looking at my watch seeing it was after one. “Sorry, Kate, rough night.”

“Seriously? You?”

I laughed. “I had a drink or two.”

“Wow, Ryan Roth, experiencing all that college has to offer,” she said with a great deal of amusement in her voice.

“Laugh it up, Miss Black Crow”

She sighed. We talked for a few minutes and it was decided the two of us would meet in a few minutes for lunch. After saying goodbye, I went and got dressed.

Katie, Bart and I all went to the Tempe Campus college of Arizona State. While most of my classes were in the Herberger Institute, Katie and Bart were spread throughout. When I got down the stairs, I sat on a concrete bench and waited for her to pick me up. The oddly shaped form of Best Hall loomed behind me. I say oddly shaped because it had these funky little stone “protrusions” above each window. I’m not sure what to call them actually. I’m sure there was some technical architecture term for them but I wasn’t into that kinda stuff. I once asked Bart but all he did was shrug. He might have been there for track but his parents also talked him into Engineering, just in case something bad happened. Now normally an Engineering student wouldn’t be housed in Best but Bart’s Dad was friends with the Dean and pulled some strings. I’m not sure what he said but like I said, the two of us have been wanting to be roommates for a long time.

I pulled out my battered copy of Macbeth while I waited. I didn’t go anywhere without it these last few days. It was an old Folger’s edition, one of those covered ones that they didn’t sell anymore. This particular copy was failing apart, held together by a combination of duct tape and rubber bands. Inside almost every page was scrawled with handwritten notes, most of them not mine. I found it for a buck in the school store. I think they were happy to get rid of it. Most of the notes were written by plebeians who had no idea what they were talking about but there were some good ones too. I tried to ignore all of them and just concentrate on the text. I’d only been in school for about a week now but I was bound to make a good impression on my Drama peers.

I was engrossed in the book that I didn’t hear the car pull up until the horn beeped. I looked up and smiled. Katie drove a little Focus; it was a gift from her parents when she graduated high school. It was a nice little car, got good mileage and all that. At least that’s what her Dad told her. Me, I didn’t really know much about cars. As long as it had four wheels and could seat more than two people, it was fine by me. I stuffed the book in my back pocket and walked to the car, opening the passenger door. When I got inside, I pecked Katie on the cheek.

“Such a gentleman” she teased as I buckled my seatbelt and we drove off.

If you saw the two of us together, we didn’t really look like boyfriend and girlfriend. For one thing she was much too gorgeous for me---I accepted that a long time ago. Though I didn’t dress like it, I really did come off as the gay friend. We were affectionate enough, holding hands and kissing but we weren’t all over one another. What made matters worse was the fact that Katie was the same height as me and when she wore heels, she was taller. I always felt inferior when she wore them on dates. I looked at her feet as she was driving, she was wearing three inch ones now. She wore them because she liked to tease me more than anything.

“Three inch today huh?” I said and she laughed.

“You know if you would only wear a pair of four inch ones then you wouldn’t complain all that much.”

I frowned at that. Though I didn’t mind dressing up as a girl during plays, I was completely against it any other time. But she seemed bound and determined to get in a dress. It was all in good fun of course but sometimes she scared me. The last time I complained about her heels was the other day. I was in her dorm room while she was getting ready for our date. She was dressed in this tiny little sheath dress and I made a comment about her shoes. She pulled out another pair and tried desperately to talk me into them. She seemed to think that with the right dress, shoes and padding I’d be able to make a passable attempt at a girl. She knew how much of a sore subject it was with me. Because with a dress, wig and makeup I made far more than a passable girl---I was downright gorgeous. When I was playing Juliet, some guy who didn’t know who I really was asked me out after the play, offering me a rose in the process. I was so embarrassed. But not as much as he was when one of my tormentors walked by and asked him if he was gay---pointing out who I really was. The next day my would be suitor and two of his friends jumped me on the way home; I got a fat lip and a black eye out of it.

Katie turned her head slightly and saw my frown now. She leaned over and squeezed my hand. “I was kidding, babe,” she said.

I nodded. “Sometimes I wonder.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked defensively.

“Nothing” I said quickly.

We drove in awkward silence after that. When we got to the café, Katie huffed as she got out of the car. I cursed and ran to catch up with her. I apologized three or four times by the time, we got in. If I didn’t like the teasing about dressing then she definitely didn’t like the teasing about her supposed lesbianism. Suffice to say there was an incident at cheer camp two summers ago. One of the girls from another state got some mixed signals and threw herself at Katie, going as far as kissing her. Katie was pretty shaken up over the whole thing. She only told me because we agreed to be honest with one another. When she got back from camp and told me about it, she cried in my arms for a few hours. So even though she did a little light teasing about my stage cross-dressing, picking on her “lesbian” experience was off limits.

By the time we got to our seat, my comment in the car was all but forgotten. We were laughing and holding hands when we got to our seat. Things were going good until the waitress came over.

“What do you ladies want?”

Ok so I’m baby faced. But in my defense I’m half Native American and Native American men don’t have facial hair. But when she called us ladies both of us frowned. We didn’t bother to correct her but the conversation during lunch was a bit strained to say the least. We finally did get talking about a topic that seemed to interest the both of us and things picked up from there. Though she wasn’t a big drama person herself, Katie loved talking about the plays. She was a big fan of Macbeth partially because it had such a kick ass female character in there. I can honestly admit that if I wasn’t going for Macbeth then I definitely would go for the role of Lady Macbeth---gender be damned. She was in fact very awesome.

‘Hey you know what would be really cool for the audition?” she said as she munched on one of my fries.

I sighed. “I’m not letting you put makeup on me again.”

“It was one time,” she said with a laugh. “And even you have to admit you were pretty cute.”

I frowned. She made me wear makeup for my Romeo and Juliet audition. It was actually to cover the huge zit I had on my cheek but she went a little overboard. Not only did she use foundation but she put in a little blush and eye shadow without me knowing. With my high voice and feminine features---coupled with my shiny black hair---the teacher in charge thought I was a girl. Even the name Ryan could be used for a girl. When he found out, I was a boy he was a bit upset but I did have the role of Romeo for about a day. That is until he came up with a crazy idea and made me Juliet. I think he secretly wanted to see me in that tight dress and bodice---damn perv.

I groaned. “Does this idea of yours involve anything feminine?”

She laughed and shook her head. “No, I was thinking of a really cool prop or something. There’s this store around the corner that sells stuff like that.”

After we paid our check and grimacing at the waitress saying “goodbye ladies”, she led me to the store in question. We left her car parked in front of the café because it was right around the corner. It was one of the places that looked like it should stand out but I never really noticed it before. It was rather creepy looking. Whereas most the places around it had sparkling displays in the window and a welcoming atmosphere, this place looked downright frightening. I gulped as Katie took my hand and the two of us stepped inside, the dinging of a little bell above the door announcing our presence. The first thing I noticed was the smell---it was old and musty. The second thing I notice was the lack of moving space. It was cluttered with junk and I do mean junk.

There were a lot of shelves, some on the wall, some in the middle of the stuff. All of the shelves were packed with crap. What wasn’t on the shelves was crammed on the floor, making it really hard to move. It was a lot of cool stuff but there didn’t seem to be anything that might interest me. It was clear that the place was some kind of prop shop though. There were a lot of swords and shields, racks of costumes near the cash register. There was this really cool wooden trunk in one corner that looked like a pirate’s chest. On the wall behind the counter was a mounted Bison’s head---clearly fake---on its head was a cowboy’s hat.

Katie and I held hands as we wove our way through the racks. But when she caught sight of something that interested her, I felt her fingers slip from mine. I was looking at a really cool suit of armor and only noticed she was gone when I turned my head and saw she wasn’t there. I shrugged it off, hearing the click of her heels as she disappeared into the mess. I left the armor and started wandering myself. I found myself in an aisle with some really old books, stuff that a prop master might stuff shelves with on stage for a realistic look. As I was browsing the books, my butt bumped the shelf behind me. There was a rattle and a clang. I snapped around and cursed. Some weird metal urn thingy fell off the shelf, the top popping open.

I looked around, hoping I didn’t break anything. I quickly scooped it off the floor. As I was setting it back on the shelf, there was something behind where the urn came from. I could tell the urn hadn’t been moved in a while because there was a clear circle in all the dust. I held onto the urn and reached into the space it left, going for whatever was behind it. My hand felt something thin and metal. I wrapped my fingers around it and pulled it out. It was a funky looking crucifix on a chain. I say funky because it was unlike any crucifix I’d ever seen before. I wasn’t very religious but I knew enough about crucifixes to know this one was wrong. For one there was no Jesus on it and for another it had two crosspieces instead of one. I was about to set it back on the shelf and put the urn back but something about it interested me. It was definitely different and it would definitely be noticed.

I smiled big. This was exactly what I needed to set myself apart from the others. I put the urn back on the shelf and took my funky find to the counter. There was an older gentleman at the register, Katie was talking to him. She was holding up a Renaissance style dress and haggling a price with him. She had him down to a hundred bucks when I walked up. I dangled the crucifix from the chain. “How much for this?”

He squinted his eyes and adjusted the glassed on the end of his nose. “Where ever did you find that?”

I told him. He frowned. Katie smiled big. “That is awesome, I love it.”

The man didn’t seem so enthusiastic about it. He rubbed his chin. “I’m not sure where that came from but I guess I’d be willing to part with it for about two hundred bucks.”

Katie didn’t like that one bit and started to argue with him. I listened with a smile. If there was one thing, I liked about Katie it was how to negotiate. She managed to talk him into giving us both the crucifix and the dress for under a hundred. The man wasn’t too happy but seeing as he made a sale, I think it evened things out. I thought about slipping the thing around my neck but I decided to carry it out in the bag. It was chance that I found it and I didn’t want to jinx things by putting it on now. So I’d wear it tomorrow for my audition and hope for the best.

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF