Imprint (2 page)

Mrs. Blackburn nodded in agreement, frowning. “Yes, that would be a good idea. But you are still expected to copy up the notes on pages 274 by next lesson without fail.”

“Can I go with him?” he distantly heard Ali ask.

“Okay,
m
ake sure he gets there safely
.”

Sean didn’t stay to hear the rest. He was feeling sick and dizzy. It felt like the room was closing in on him and there wasn’t enough air. Grabbing his bag he darted out of the door as quickly as possible and made for the school field. He was breaking plenty of rules by doing this, but he just needed to
breathe
.

He didn’t notice that Ali had followed him out until he
’d
collapsed, sitting slumped against a tree and holding his head. “Are you okay?” she asked, even though it was obvious he wasn’t. How many people had asked him that today?

“Fine,” he gritted out nevertheless. “I just need some fresh air. You should go back to class.”

“You look sick,” she persisted, sitting down next to him. “Does your head hurt?”

“I’m just a little dizzy, it’ll go away soon.”

“I’ll stay with you for a while. Mrs. Blackburn even told me to
after you ran out like that
. It’s funny, she’s the strictest teacher in the school and yet she has a soft spot for you.”

“It’s obviously my charm,” he joked, although the accompanying grin was forced. It was quiet after that, and Sean relished in the silence. The buzzing in his head was slowing down gradually and the cold air felt nice. Ali still hadn’t moved and was watching him with a strange expression, caught halfway between concern and something else.

“Any better?” she finally asked.

He nodded. “It’s fine, just go inside. You don’t have to worry so much about me.”

“I know I don’t
have
to, but I can’t help it.”

“Touching.”

“If you really want to be alone though, I’ll leave.” She looked slightly disappointed, but hid it well.

“Don’t take it personally,” he added, hoping not to offend her. “I just
need some time to think.
”

“Then I guess I’ll see you at lunch.”

“Yeah.”

“You’d better come, okay?”

He sighed in exasperation. “Okay.”

He let the mask of normalcy he’d been clinging onto fall as soon as she left. There was really nothing ‘fine’ or ‘okay’ about him at all. He was mad. Yes, that was the only real possibility. He was slowing going insane and losing his head, imagining things that weren’t there and hearing voices that didn’t exist. Maybe he was schizophrenic. Maybe he needed more sleep. The voice, though, had sounded so real and clea
r.
He’d been having that feeling of being watched for months now
too
. He should hav
e taken more note of it before.

There was no one he could tell. His mother was not someone he trusted to confide in; he knew she would just tell him it was all in his head and to sleep it off. Ali would probably assume he was mentally ill and force him to the hospital. There were no teachers or other friends he was especially close to. His father had left a long time ago. Hayden, his older brother, was really the only possibility. He was the most likely to believe him. Yet even so, Sean was still reluctant to talk to him about it. He himself didn’t understand the problem, and he didn’t want to appear weak. He
refused to
admit to himself that he was scared, or apprehensive, or nervous. He wasn’t. It was just hallucinations, just him overreacting again, and he would not pa
nic over something so minor. Sighing, he forced himself to stand: still one more class until lunch.

He found Ali in the canteen and, as promised, sat with her half-heartedly. They were isolated from most of the other people. Neither of them were particularly social, and the few friends they did have were absent. Sean didn’t mind. By now he was comfortable around Ali and one friend was enough. More would be a pain.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” s
he asked, for what felt like the fiftieth time, as she unwrapped a ham sandwich. “You’re being even quieter than usual, and you’re not eating.”

“I forgot money,” he admitted, shrugging. “I’m not hungry anyway.” Truthfully, he still felt sick.

“Have mine,” she suggested, pushing the sandwich she’d been about to eat towards him.

“Don’t you want it?”

“I’d rather you have it,” she said, flushing a little. “And I’m going on a diet anyway. Today, in biology, after you left we worked out our BMIs…” she trailed off, looking a little upset. Sean barely noticed; he was finding it hard to concentrate on the conversation.

“Right,” he said, standing up. “Sorry, I’m going to go back to my form room now. See you around.”

“But you only just got here.”

“I know, but I have work to catch up on.” Lie. Maybe in the back of his mind he felt bad for leaving her, but he was tired. He just wanted to go home and hibernate away a couple pointless years of his life.

“Fine. See you tomorrow,” he heard her say as he turned his back on the table, not staying to see the hurt look flash in her eyes, or the other similar pair that watched guardedly from nearby.

Chapter 2:
The one with the door complex

Dark. Every
thing was dark
as he fumbled
around blearily with half-closed eyes and
unresponsive limbs
searching for the blasted light switch.
Finally, after what felt like hours, he found it and flick
ed it on impatiently,
re
gretting it
a moment later when even
his
dim
table
lamp
managed to blind him.
Smart, real smart.

He
waited, allowing his eyes to adjust until he could
see his cluttered bedroom properly again in all of its non-existent glory. There was some maths homework hidden under various comics and magazines on the desk in the corn
er, probably rotting away into shrivelled, yellow paper and
illegible words. The small lap
top that sat on another desk was presently drowning in a puddle of crumpled note paper that had been his many attempts at
accurately sketching the
dragon statue that now resided in the bin. And finally, clothes were strewn all over the floor. He figured his school uniform was also somewhere among that pile. It was no wonder he could never find it in the mornings.

There was a clock, very smal
l and dusty and chipped, hanging
on the wall with wallpaper peeling on all sides.
4.09
am
. He attempted to glare through hazy eyes. What was he supposed to do at this time in the morning? He threw himself back down onto the bed and sighed. It was those stupid, stupid nightmares he concluded. They seemed to
be keeping him up a lot lately, more than usual.
This hadn’t been the first night that he had woken up to the streetlamps outside still illuminating a
darkened
street. Honestly, it was starting to scare him.
Was his subconscious trying to tell him something? If it was, then it wasn’t doing a very good job.

Tonight, the dream had been strange
r than ever
. He could still remember it vividly. There had been a door, old and worn and made of oak. Nothing else, just the oak door that didn’t fit in at all in the perfectly grey corridor. And then knocking had started, quiet at first but growing louder and louder until it echoed in his ears and rebounded throughout his head. Yet
when he had finally opened the
door, all he saw was a hazy figure with an indiscernible shape. It made no sense.

He got up again, unable to stay
still. He felt restless,
agitated about something he couldn’
t pinpoint. Maybe it was stress
playing with his mind and making him imagine things that weren’t there. The dreams, the almost constant feeling
that someone was watching him
, the voice
;
it was all just in
his head. H
e let some of his anxiety simper away and
settled
by the
window. He drew the curtains back.
Outside, all was silent and calm. The orange street lights splayed soft ginger glows across th
e pavement, dormant cars sleeping
in the driveways of
houses
.

He felt it first. His skin prickled, a shiver running down his spine at the sudden coldness that enveloped his body. He could see something, in the corner of his eye, just out of sight. It was as though the shadows of the room had come alive, and taunted him for his ignorance. He spun around, dreading what he would find. But the room was empty.
He did a double-take, not trusting either his sight or his head. He was messed up, seriously messed up. Maybe he nee
ded a counsellor
.
He
blinked again, as if expecting his hallucination to return. It did not.

That was it. He couldn’t just ignore it any longer.
He didn’t want to voluntarily appear weak in front of others, but he
was
scared dammit and he had a right to be.
Shakily, he threw on an old sweater and stumbled out of the room as quickly as he could without
waking
the whole household. Mother needed her beauty sleep after
all,
otherwise she would be in an eve
n worse mood than usual
.
So instead, he chos
e to knock on the door two rooms
down from his. He had to wait for a long time in the darkened landing, casting cautious glances about him every few seconds, but after the sixth knock the door creaked open with a weary sigh that seemed in perfect harmony with the person behind it.

“What
the hell
do you
want
?
”
came
the ever-so-polite snarl
. The door opened a little further and in its place stood the tal
l, bent figure of his brother
. He had a pale complexion
and sharp feature
s; it was a
face that ex
uded both intelligence and pride
. Two sunken, pale blue eyes encircled by dark bruises stood o
ut in the
half light
and he
ran a hand through his tousled hair in annoyance.

“Can I come in?” Sean
asked.

“It’s four
in the morning,” the other pointed out, scowling.

“You never sleep anyway, Hayden.
Now let me
through the damn door.
”

Hayden seemed to sense the urgency in his voice and did
so
. Sean slumped
onto the lumpy bed where Hayden’s
iPod was still playing. He was an insomniac, after all. He didn’t sleep – at least not for
more than four
hours a night – and music made a good distraction.

“So the
n,” his brother
started once they were settled. “What brings you here
at this hour
?
”

Sean
fidgeted, suddenly nervous under the scrutinising gaze.
“D
o you know
anything
about
…schizophrenia?”

The older boy raise
d an eyebrow
. “What makes you ask that?”

“I asked first.”

“
Well what do you want to kno
w? It’s a mental disorder that a
ffects your perception of re
ality. It makes you hallucinate:
see and hear things that aren’t there.”

“
Is that it
?”

“There are hundreds of odd little facts I could tell you about it, but I doubt you want to stay here for the rest of the night.”
Hayden paused.
“Anyway, what’s happened
? Explain yourself.”

Sean si
ghed. He knew he would have to explain
eventually, but
the idea was
unappealing. Still,
he ha
d to do this
. Hayden had taken an A level in psycholo
gy. If anyone could help
, it was him. “The truth is, I th
ink I’m sick.”
He watched with interest the various emotions that flickered through his brother’s normally impassive eyes. They were hard to discern in the limited light, but he caught the three mos
t prominent ones:
disbelief
, confusion
and concern. A tense
silence drowned the room. Sean hated silence. He had too many connections with it already, too many encounters with silences just like these. They never ended well. “So?” he prompted finall
y, unable to bear it any longer
.