Imprint (12 page)

The more Sean watched Drew, the less he hated the boy. There was something about him,
something infinitely aggravating and yet
likable. He had a unique flare, but it was more than that. It was something he couldn’t place or understand.
He made the most out of life and Sean suddenly realised that ever since he had met this strange boy, things had actually become more interesting. He hated himself for thinking that way. And yet, he found himself compelled to f
ind out more about this whole ‘I
mprint’ thing and about Drew.

And so, it was for this reason that one night Sean decided to
put aside his feelings of unease and
visit the only two others like himself that he knew of; Brian, and the little girl. Penny, wasn’t it? He snuck out of the house
during
the night while Drew was asleep, feeling like a rebel,
and wandered the streets for a little while. He wasn’t sure how
he would go about finding them, but they said they’d be there.
He noticed a few other I
mprints wandering up an
d down the dimly-lit
pavement
(it was fairly obvious for some of them because he watched them walk through lampposts) and eventually, after s
earching for nearly half an hour
, came across the
eccentric pair.

“Brian?” he asked hesitantly. They stopped in the light of a streetlamp, and the ominous yellow glow flickered and pranced across the shadowed
walls
.

“Ah, nice to see you again, Sean.”

“Where’s Drew?” Penny added, looking around furtively.
She seemed to be rather attached to him.

“He’s alive n
ow, dear,” Brian explained gently, giving her a reassuring smile
. “He’s probably asleep, am I right?”

Sean nodded. “Yes, he is. I thought this would be a good time for me to come and find you.”

The old man grinned
crookedly, revealing a
row of uneven teeth that glinted
gold in
the lamp
light
. “I thought you might have some questions,” he said.

“You can answer them for me, then?”

“It depends what they are.”

“
What does Drew
want
with me
?”

Brian seemed thoughtful for a moment, but
then finally shrugged. “I don’t
know, he never told me,” he admitted, but then continued at Sean’s disappointed look: “I’m sure he has a good
reason, though. From what I know
of him, he never did things without a good reason.”

Sean narrowed his eyes. “Whatever his reason, what he did was wrong. I need to get my body back.”

“I’m sorry,
” Brian just smiled sadly a
nd shook his head. “But I can’t
help you with that. Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

And that was that. Sean wanted to argue more, to grab the old man by his frail sh
oulders and shake him
until he could hear his ribs rattling about under that pasty skin and demand answers. It would be no use, though. He
could tell that the man wasn’t
ly
ing when he said that he didn’t
know of Drew’s true intentions.

“Why me?” he hiss
ed
instead, and a part of him felt
powerful but another part
felt ashamed when he noticed out of the corner of his eye the fear that tainted the innocent blue of the girl’s eyes.

“Drew never told me much about himself,” Brian spoke, but this time his voice was colder. “All he said was that being around you made him feel stronger, and that he wanted a chance to get to know you better.”

“Get to know me better?”

“He
said that he knew you once
, while he was still alive.”

Sean blinked in surprise. “Really?” When the man on
ly nodded gravely, he added:
“did he say how he knew me?”

“No,” Penny
murmured quietly, and shuffled her
feet
in a nervous manner. “He just said that…he could’ve been good friends with you, if he’d had the chance.”

Sean could not help the scowl that surfaced. “If he wants to be friends, he has a funny way of showing it.” He continued quickly before either could answer. “How
did
he die, anyway?”

“You should ask him yourself.”

“I did. He told me he drowned, but I think he was lying.”

“He wasn’t lying. He told me that, as well,” Brian countered. “He
only talked about it once, when I first met him, and he was rather embittered. He said he was…murdered by someone, drowned in a large lake somewhere around these parts.” The old man frowned anxiously, the wrinkles marring his forehead like contour lines deepening. “I worry about that young man, sometimes.”

Sean felt like his breath had been forcefully punched out of his lungs – no, make that he felt li
ke someone had just used a life
size rolling pin on him. Or a bulldozer. Whenever he thought about dying, he had pictured it as a rather clean and natural affair. He knew it happened all the time, the murders and terrorist bombings and suicide, but it suddenly made it seem a lot more
real
that it had happened to someone he knew, someone he had talked to.

“A-are you sure
he was
murdered
?” he finally managed to pull his thoughts together to ask.

“I can never be sure when it comes to him,
” Brian
shook his head sadly, like a disappointed parent
. “
I told you, he
never told me much about himself.
He was pretty closed off. Maybe
you’ll be the one to change that.”

Sean loo
ked up at the mention of his involvement,
a little dazed. “
Me?”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Penny gave a shy smile,
staring up
from under her auburn fringe. “Drew…well, he’s alone a lot. I think he’d like to have a friend like you.”

“I know you’re probably still angry, and you don’t like him much,” Brian elaborated. “But just giv
e this a try. Drew is a good kid
at heart, I know it, and his intentions may not be what you assume they are.”

Sean wasn’t sure he had an answer for that.
Maybe he should feel angry, that they were taking Drew’s side instead of his, but he was too confused to be angry. I
n the
end, after a prolonged
silence, he absently lifted a hand in farewell. “Thank you for talking to me tonight, anyway,” he murmured. “I
have to go
.”

“Are you sure? You can stay longer,” Brian offered. “We could talk
properly
, you know.”

“Maybe another time. I really need to go, sorry.”
And then he left.
Just like that. It was anticlimactic and he still had more questions, but he knew
that neither of the other two I
mprints would have the answers.

He spent the remainder of that night standing by his bed, staring down at
the
figure huddled asleep in it, and trying to pick out any subliminal differences in the physical appearance of his own body. He couldn’t find any. Asleep, it looked as if nothing had changed.
As if everything was normal. But the sole fact that Sean was
thinking
about his own body
like this
was definitely
not
normal, and for the first time the anger receded completely to be replaced with untainted, poisonous fear that coursed through his body and caused him to shudder. What if he never managed to get his body back? What if he just faded away, and Drew lived the rest of his life for him?

He was suddenly aware of the alarm clock, with its brilliant green illuminated numbers. He was beg
inning to think of it as a time
bomb. When the numbers ran out, when they reached 00:00, he would implode and spray translucent body parts everywhere. Drew would watch on in horror, and he’d remain in that horrified state for the rest of his life, and regret everything he’d done. He shook the dire thoughts out of his head. Fading out couldn’t possibly be that painful or grotesque. He should just accept it now and get it over with. Unless there was a miracle, he’d just get gradually more translucent until one day he’d be transparent and would stop existing. Just like that.
He would go out with a whisper, not a bang. And n
o one would
know or care.

He had a sudden urge for human
contact. An irrational urge,
it was
more like
a craving. Like the cravings pregnant women got for strange foods at the strangest hours, but they would have their husbands there to go shopping for them. He didn’t have anyone anymore to satisfy this craving. It was probably a human thing. Humans needed stupid things like that every once in a while: touch, comfort, security. It made him feel like such a pansy
.
It was unfair that he’d managed to lose all of his physical needs, but the mental ones remained.

It was okay to do this
, to be weak, just for a moment he assure
d
himself.
He reached out and lightly brushed his fingers across the body’s exposed arm. He refused to refer to it as Drew right now. Right now it wasn’t Drew he wanted, it was the container.

He was shouting something. “I hate you,” maybe, or “leave me alone.” The words blurred into ea
ch other, mismatched and distant. They felt wrong. He was in a hallway. Of course, he recognised this hallway, it was the one that connected the front door to the kitchen. The builders had probably been thinking with their stomachs.

Mum was there. She seemed pretty pissed, but of course she would be. He was throwing a tantrum, a proper l
oud one that was six years before
his time. He was too old to be throwing tantrums, wasn’t he? He didn’t even know why. But he knew that his throat definitely felt hoarse from screaming, that his head spun, that the anger and pent up frustration was almost unbearable. He needed to get out. He needed to breathe. Which way was the door?

He was bursting out, splitting at the seams, and the door was slamming shut behind him. There was someone shouting, probably trying to call him back, but he ignored them and ran.
You’re being immature, voice of reason said derisively. He ignored. The burning in his lungs felt too good, the rain in his hair too soothing and icy. It was cathartic in a way. He wanted to
keep running like this, until his
legs became jelly noodles and wouldn’t carry him any further. He hoped that wouldn’t happen any time soon.

He crashed into something, having been running blindly along unknown streets. It was a hard thing, large and annoying and in the way. He was angry and he wanted to run, how dare this thing block his way? He fell to the ground with a small cry, hands scraping painfully on the rough road.

“Sorry,” the thing apologised somewhere above him. “Are you okay?” A hand came out of nowhere into his line of sight. He blinked, in surprise, and the anger faded a little. He hesitantly took the offered hand and with impressive strength it pulled him up. He came face to face with a boy, a few years older than him, with uniquely bright eyes.

“I’m fine,”
he murmured breathlessly,
glancing away.

“Where are you heading?” the boy asked.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s raining hard,” he continued. “You seem
kind of
lost. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” he
repeated
. Before the stranger could say anything else, he pushed past him and began to run again. He
just
needed to breathe.

Sean blinked, pulling himself from the memory. What was
that
?
He absently rubbed his forehead, despite the
fact that it made no difference
.
He felt like he should have a killer headache right now.
But still, what he saw had been real. It had happened. It was far too vivid and clear in his mind to be anything other than a memory.
Then surely the amnesia wasn’t permanent, then?
But it was
like water trickling out of a hole in a
bucket. After a few minutes, the memory lost its sharpn
ess. He couldn’t smell the rain anymore and the stranger’s face became
blurry, just
a vague looming figure,
blending into splodges of colour.

B
y morning, all would be forgotten once again.