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Life was good.
The sun lit up Heat and Rosie’s entire world. They were outside frolicking on their front lawn - despite its limited space, they were able to make the best of it. Rosie guided the hose toward her older brother and giggled uncontrollably as the water doused Heat. The water was probably washing off his sunscreen, but that didn’t matter. He was probably -- definitely -- going to get sunburned, but he really didn't care at the moment. Heat ran toward his sister and wrestled for control of the hose, making sure he didn’t overpower or hurt Rosie in the process. He eventually gained control of the hose and pointed it at Rosie. She screeched with laughter as the water drenched her blue pillowcase dress - the kind of raucous, ecstatic, laughter that only small children were capable of producing.
Her joy was absolutely infectious.
Out of the corner of his eye, Heat could spot a few figures biking toward his house a block or two away. Rosie took the single moment he was distracted to snatch the hose from his hands and point it directly at his face. The surprise of Rosie’s sudden attack caused him to step backward and fall over the curb while guarding his face. The hot asphalt stung.
“Oh no!” Rosie tossed the still running hose to the ground. “Heat! Are you okay?!” She shook Heat as he lay on the ground.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, Rosie.” The burn of the hot asphalt still stung his hand. Looking at Rosie, he now realized how dirty she had gotten, and how dirty he was too. His feet squashed the mud on the lawn that had, a few hours ago, been normal dirt until assaulted by the hose. Mom is gonna be so pissed, Heat thought. "We should probably stay away from the road," Heat said. "It's pretty hot and I don't want you to get any scrapes."
Rosie nodded. "It's okay. I'm getting tired of the hose anyway. I wanna go to the creek!"
"We'll have to see if Mom will let you go to the creek in the first place."
Rosie pouted. Heat scoffed. "You don't wanna get sunburned, do you? You don't wanna spend summer break with a sunburn, even if it's just a couple of days."
"Won't you get sunburned too, Heat?"
Good point.
"Well, I'm your big brother, and big brothers have to be big and strong for their little sisters, yeah? A little sunburn won't hurt me, but I have to protect you from the evil ultraviolet rays." Heat smirked. Rosie obviously wasn't satisfied with his explanation.
"I'm strong, too!" Rosie said, running as fast as her small body could toward Heat to topple him over. Heat fell squarely on his face in the mud. When he got up, Rosie giggled. "Hehe. Now there's mud on your face."
"Hey!"
Heat and Rosie looked in the direction of the bikers from earlier. They were a lot closer now, and the leader was shouting at them.
The gang of boys around Heat’s age were closing in on him and Rosie. Their bikes were dingy - some were visibly rusted, one was wobbling, and none of them were wearing helmets. “Hey, Heat,” the boy with the wobbling bike who was slightly behind the leader said, exhausted, “wanna go to the creek?”
“I dunno. Mom is at work right now and--”
“But you’ll have to wake up first.”
“What?”
“You need to wake up right now, O’Brien.”
Wake up--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Heat O’Brien was no longer playing with his late younger sister in a memory surfacing as a dream, and was now pulled back into reality by his snake of a classmate, Serph Sheffield.
“Didn’t get much sleep last night, did you, O’Brien?” Sheffield said with a conniving grin.
“...Shut up, Sheffield.” O’Brien replied groggily. “What time is it, anyway…” Before O’Brien could check his phone for the time, Sheffield snatched it out from his jacket pocket. “It issssssss~~...... Currently five past seven. PM.”
“Good God, seven pm? You’re lying.” Heat swiped his phone from the still-grinning Serph Sheffield, and was delighted to note that Sheffield had not been lying and it was, in fact, five past seven. PM.
O’Brien groaned. “And no one bothered to wake me up during class?”
“Well, I didn’t want to wake up my lovely O’Brien from his beauty sleep.” O’Brien could hear the laughter in Sheffield’s voice and grimaced. O’Brien began to gather his things. He sighed, “Well, what’d Professor White lecture today?”
“Chemical bonds.” Sheffield tapped the desk.
“Chemical bonds?”
“Come on, Heat, this is highschool chemistry.”
“We’re in college,
Sheffield.
”
He hissed Sheffield’s name, to remind him that they were on an unspoken last-name basis. Sheffield merely smirked.
“Well, you certainly belong in a highschool.” Sheffield laughed.
Wondering what on Earth that was meant to mean, O’Brien got up. “We should go. Before they lock us in here.” He let out an exasperated sigh.
“Still tired, I see.” Sheffield remarked as he began to gather his own belongings.
“Shut up, Sheffield.”
“Have it your way, O’Brien.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As the pair made their way through the expansive campus building, they noticed that it was raining outside. O’Brien let out another groan. The weather forecast for the day didn’t mention anything about incoming showers, so O’Brien didn’t bother bringing an umbrella. To make matters worse, O’Brien didn’t have a car and instead biked to and fro the school campus to his nearby apartment.
“Something the matter, O’Brien?”
“I’m going to get drenched.”
“Oh my.”
O’Brien could tell Sheffield felt no sympathy for him at all.
“I could drive you home, dear.”
“
”Dear”?”
Sheffield chuckled.
“Well, you don’t really have a choice.”
“I really don’t, do I?”
As often O’Brien got tired of Sheffield’s antics, he didn’t mind having to ride in Sheffield’s car, though he’d really prefer going home by himself.
“You got an umbrella?”
Sheffield produced a black, somehow expensive looking umbrella from the pocket of his backpack. “Indeed I do.”
After leaving the building, the two huddled under Sheffield’s umbrella and first headed for O’Brien’s bike and started walking with it toward Sheffield’s car. When they reached his car, Sheffield fished in his jacket pocket for his car keys, and having found them, unlocked his car. Before getting in, O’Brien opened Sheffield’s trunk and lifted his drenched bike into it.
“Ready to go?”
O’Brien nodded.
The two climbed into Sheffield’s car. Sheffield put his keys into the ignition and the car sputtered to life.
“Aren’t you going to put your seatbelt on, O’brien? That’s dangerous, you know.”
“My apartment’s not that far away.”
Sheffield smirked. “All right, then.”
Sheffield began to pull out of his parking space, and once he was out, slammed his foot on the gas pedal, lurching the car forward.
“Jesus, Sheffield!”
And just as suddenly, he slammed his foot on the brakes, sending O’Brien’s face straight for the dashboard. O’Brien reoriented himself and shot Sheffield a particularly nasty glare. “This is why you should wear your seatbelt,
O’Brien.
” Sheffield was obviously trying not to laugh. O’Brien scoffed and begrudgingly fastened his seatbelt.
Maybe biking in the rain would be better than riding with his loser,
he thought.
Amused, Sheffield began driving like a normal person would.
“Turn left at the stoplight and my apartment building’ll be there, you can’t miss it.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
The ride was quiet
Sheffield stopped at the redlight. O’Brien could see his apartment just around the corner.
“Right there. You see?”
The smirk on Sheffield’s face began to sow worry in O’Brien. “I do see, O’Brien”
The light turned green. Sheffield drove forward.
Right past O’Brien’s apartment complex.
“Hey -- Serph, what are you doing!?”
“O’Brien, have you ever seen the movie Bird Box ?”
“Literally what does that have to do with anything, Sheffield?”
“There is a part in the beginning of the movie where the main character, a pregnant woman named Malorie Hayes, goes to meet her sister Jessica to accompany her to the doctor’s office for a checkup. As they are leaving, the sister goes insane and topples the car over--”
“Sheffield. Just tell me what you’re up to this time.” O’Brien sighed and looked to the window.
“We’re going to my apartment instead. I have something to show you.” Sheffield looked at O’Brien “I do hope you have no objections, O’Brien--”
“Get your eyes back on the road.”
Sheffield did as he said and chuckled.
O’Brien looked back at Sheffield, grimaced, turned back and let out another tired sigh. What could Sheffield possibly want from him this time?
“Music, O’Brien?”
“Whatever.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After a mostly silent ride, Sheffield pulled into a parking space outside of his apartment complex. The rain tapped gently against the car windows.
“If you haven’t noticed, O’Brien, we’ve arrived.”
“Tch.”
Sheffield unlocked the car doors and undid his seatbelt. He grabbed his sleek umbrella and opened the door on his side and stepped out. To O’Brien, it seemed for a moment as if Sheffield had disappeared into the wet, black night, but the illusion was broken when Sheffield reemerged to open the car door from O’Brien’s side.
“I could’ve gotten out on my own, Sheffield.”
“But then you wouldn’t have an umbrella, and I do recall you saying that you didn’t want to get wet from the rain.”
“Whatever.” O’Brien undid his seatbelt and stepped out the car and next to Sheffield under his umbrella.
The apartment building O’Brien currently resided in was not bad by any means, but Sheffield’s was still nicer than his own. A chic, perpetually open gate greeted anyone visiting the building and introduced them to the driveway and parking lot paved with neat, orderly gray bricks. The entryway was guarded by two well-kept and operating lampposts, to the sides of which were garden beds occupied by aesthetically pleasing greenery, though O’Brien couldn’t identify exactly what kinds of plants they were besides bushes and flowers. It looked more like a hotel than an apartment complex, much less an apartment complex a college student could afford.
Where on Earth is Sheffield getting the money to pay for all this?
“Do you know what kind of shrubs these are, O’Brien?”
“No, and I don’t care.”
“Well, then.”
The water on the ground made a continuous splat noise as Sheffield and O’Brien walked to the automatic sliding front doors of the apartment building.
The apartment lobby was, unsurprisingly, well-decorated and well lit, and cemented O’Brien’s postulation that the building was more like a hotel than an apartment complex. It was incredibly weird, but everything surrounding Serph Sheffield was weird. Keys in hand, Sheffield silently guided O’Brien toward the elevator.
Sheffield pressed the glowing up arrow button to call their elevator, and the two waited for a moment. With a mechanical hiss, the elevator doors opened and the two men stepped in.
Once inside, O’Brien quickly noticed that there were only five floors, not counting the basement. Sheffield pressed the button for the fourth floor, and started fiddling with his keys once the elevator began to rise.
O’Brien glanced at Sheffield’s occupied hands. “We aren’t even at your apartment yet, so why did you take your keys out before we even got in the elevator?”
“No reason.”
Whatever . O’Brien was pretty sure there was a reason for it, since it would be uncharacteristic of Sheffield otherwise, but didn’t pursue the topic. It likely didn’t matter, anyway. Probably an attempt to mess with him, like earlier when he suddenly started talking about Bird Box.
The elevator dinged when it reached the fourth floor. It opened, and O’Brien and Sheffield stepped out of it. The hallway the two were in was also nicely decorated, as the lobby had been. The floors were carpeted, and large paintings adorned the walls that occasionally a stylish vase was placed in front of. Now that he thought about it, the place probably wasn’t as expensive as it looked, but O’Brien still wondered how Sheffield could afford a nice car and nice apartment, when to his knowledge, Sheffield was unemployed.
Sheffield led O’Brien down one end of the hallway, and before too long stopped in front of a door that read 415. Sheffield stuck one of the keys into the keyhole, turned it, and unlocked the door. He placed his hand on the doorknob and opened the door.
“After you.”
O’Brien rolled his eyes. “I’m not some dainty lady.”
“Oh, really? This whole time I thought you were a Disney princess.”
“Shut up, Sheff.”
“That’s no way to treat someone letting you into his apartment. Work on your manners, perhaps, O’Brien.” Sheffield chuckled and entered his living quarters, with O’Brien following behind him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As expected, Sheffield’s apartment was as nice as the rest of the building, and certainly better decorated than O’Brien’s (speaking of, he really needed to replace his couch already). Shelves upon cases adorned the walls of Sheffield’s apartment, filled mostly with books or strange knick-knacks. The clock positioned to the right of the entrance read 7:30 pm.
Sheffield had been kind enough to prepare dinner for O’Brien. Despite his conflicting feelings toward Sheffield, free dinner was always accepted by him, regardless of who was offering.
“How’s the food, O’Brien?”
“Pretty good, actually.”
Sheffield smiled. “Good. I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”
O’Brien took a look around the apartment once more. The kitchen was minimalistic in contrast to the heavily decorated living room. It had all it needed -- a toaster, microwave, knifeholder, fridge, stove, oven, and pantry. More than his kitchen had, if he were being honest. A calendar that had every single day blacked out except for the current date hung on the fridge door, most likely attached by a magnet. O’Brien found it very off-putting, but didn’t pursue the line of questioning.
“So, what exactly did you kidnap me for, Sheffield? To make me dinner?”
“One moment.” Sheffield left the room, brought back a stack of papers and placed them on the table. They all displayed strange drawings.
“What are these?"
"My tutoring tools."
O'Brien breathed a sigh of resignation.
This was going to be a long night.