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“Georgie! Georgie!” said Georgie’s mom.
Georgie opened his eyes. He could see the sun shining through my window, then reflecting off of his alarm clock on his nightstand and into his eye. He always thought he really should move it somewhere else, but he always forgot.
“Georgie, you awake? Mom has breakfast ready,” said Lilith. Lilith was Georgie’s 16-year-old sister. She had long orange fluffy hair and green eyes.
“I’ve just got to get my backpack, then I will eat breakfast with you guys. I’ll be there in a minute,” said Georgie.
Lilith left the room. Georgie then grabbed his backpack. As soon as he was about to leave his room, he stopped. The room, which was filled with the sun’s light, grew darker and almost grey. He didn’t know If he felt the most lonely he’d ever felt, or that he wasn’t alone at all. He ran down the stairs, skipping multiple steps at a time, and entered the kitchen. It smelled like waffles, his favorite breakfast ever.
“Yes!” he said.
“I wanted to eat pancakes,” said Lilith.
“Well it doesn’t really matter,” said their mom. “. . . it’s the same batter. Anyways, ready for your first day of high school, Georgie?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But what if Arnold isn’t in any of my classes? He’s my best friend—well, only friend.”
His mom laughed and smiled. “Well, that would be pretty sad, but if that’s the case you can always eat lunch together!”
Georgie smiled. Lunch. He loved to eat lunch with Arnold so they could sit and talk to each other.
After they finished breakfast, Georgie and Lilith hugged their mom goodbye and hopped onto the bus. On the bus, it was so loud and people were standing and jumping, so Georgie listened to music on his phone. Then he felt it. The lonely feeling that he got earlier. He looked around, all the noise was taken over by something louder. But it wasn’t a sound, it was just that he couldn’t hear anyone anymore. Everything looked grey, it even felt grey. Then it suddenly stopped.
The bus stopped. Georgie moved over, and Arnold sat next to him.
“Hi, Georgie!” Arnold said, smiling.
“Hello!” said Georgie rather loudly. He was glad that Arnold was next to him now because now he had someone to talk to.
Arnold looked at Georgie’s face. “Are you alright?” he asked. “You look rather gloomy today.”
Georgie looked Arnold in the eyes for a moment. Arnold has very fluffy pink hair, and it quickly caught his attention.
“W-what is it?” Arnold asked.
Georgie quickly looked back at Arnold's face. “Nothing!”
“My hair is naturally pink! Why won’t you believe me?!”
“Because no one has naturally pink hair!”
“Well,” Arnold said. “Will you believe me in a few years, when it never changes color, or the dye never fades away?”
Georgie smiled and laughed. “Sure, I guess so.”
While Arnold and Georgie were talking, a few of the more popular boys at the school interrupted them to talk to Arnold. Some popular people at the high school are jerks, but Arnold’s more on the popular side, so sometimes he is forced into talking to them even if he doesn’t necessarily want to. Arnold got along with two of the boys and waved at them, but avoided looking at the other at all.
The boys Arnold got along with sat on either side of Arnold, but the other boy moved to a different part of the bus. Arnold looked at Georgie from across the seat and gave an apologetic look. Georgie just smiled and shrugged.
“How are you doing, Arnold?” One boy said, then he looked over. “Georgie, right?”
“Yeah.” Georgie said.
The other boy poked Arnold in the face. “Hey, you gonna actually get a girlfriend this year, Arnold?” Both the boys laughed.
The other boy turned to Georgie. “Arnold asks, like, five girls out each year, but not one of ‘em says yes.”
“Not true!” Arnold exclaims. “I had a girlfriend last year, remember? And even the year before that! Why does it matter so much anyways?”
“Yeah,” One boy said. “But each one only lasted about a month or two.” The boys laughed. Arnold tried to laugh, but Georgie could tell he was pissed.
One of the boys was sitting between Georgie and Arnold. The boy nudged Georgie’s arm with his own and got close to him. Arnold immediately looked over.
“Hey, do you have a girlfriend?” He asked.
Georgie sat still and quiet. “No, I don’t.”
“Then what girl do you have a crush on? Unless . . ”
Arnold pulled the boy away from Georgie. The boy turned to Arnold.
“Something I’ve always wondered about you,” Arnold said, “is that if getting a girlfriend is so easy, how come I never see you with any girls?”
The other boy on the other side of Arnold laughed. The boy that was bothering Georgie shrugged and laughed it off. The bus stopped for a minute to pick up another kid, so the two popular boys got up and moved back to the boy avoiding Arnold.
Arnold sat next to Georgie again, closer to him than he was before.
“I’m sorry, Georgie,” Arnold said, “I wish they wouldn’t try to make you uncomfortable.”
“It’s alright, they don’t even know me so I don’t think they meant to!”
Arnold smiled, then looked down the aisle of seats and fidgeted with his hands.
A few minutes later, the boys got to school and got off the bus. Once they walked into the building, Georgie started walking to his class, and Arnold walked the same way.
“This is my class,” said Arnold. “What’s your first class?”
Georgie smiled. “The same classroom as you!”
They both laughed and smiled, and they walked into the classroom and picked their seats next to each other.
The teacher walked into the room.
“Hello class!” she exclaimed. “I am Ms. Fall, and I am so excited to have such a great school year here at Willow City High!”
Georgie was smiling at first, but soon he wasn’t smiling anymore. He still felt strange, like he did in the morning and on the bus. “Are . . you okay, Georgie? You still seem rather sad today.” Arnold said.
“I think I’m fine.”
“You will create a drawing of how you have been feeling today,” the teacher said. “And the person next to you will compare theirs with yours. I will be in the back of the room looking over tomorrow's lesson plan.” The teacher walked to the back of the room.
After a little while, the teacher got up and walked around the room looking at the student’s art. Georgie hadn’t drawn anything, and he raised his hand.
“Georgie! Do you need something?” the teacher asked. Arnold was looking over at him, too.
“I forgot my water today, and I’m thirsty. May I go get some water, please?”
“Of course!” the teacher said.
He walked to the drinking fountain in the empty hall and sat in a small corner. As Georgie sat down, he saw Arnold walking over and he sat next to him.
“I need some water, too.” Arnold said sarcastically. “But seriously, what's wrong? You always act a lot more, I don’t know, not depressed?”
Georgie looked at him and decided to talk.
“Something is wrong. No, everything is wrong! Everything has been going great today, but every hour I get this strange feeling.” Georgie tried to talk more, but he felt like crying. Arnold sat closer to Georgie and hugged him. Usually, Georgie would try to get away, but he stayed this time. “I’m glad you told me.” Arnold said.
“You're welcome.” Georgie exclaimed.
Arnold laughed a bit. “I never said thank you, but yeah.”
Georgie liked that side of Arnold. He could play around with the other boys and joke around, but he wasn’t as toxically masculine as the others. He could be so gentle and caring when he needed to be—or when Georgie needed him to be.
The bell rang. Next class.
“We better get up, or we’ll be trampled!” Georgie said.
Georgie and Arnold stood up and walked to their next class.
“Huh,” Arnold said.
“What?”
“Where is everyone?”
Then, they were stopped in the middle of the empty hallway by a ten-foot-tall figure. It had more than twenty arms, some coming out of its back and the sides of its body. The creature was grey and black, and as soon as it stood before Georgie, he felt the grey feeling. But this was a million times worse. He fell to the ground and his head felt like it was going to explode. He covered his ears to try and stop the painful ringing, but it didn’t help.
“Georgie!” Arnold shouted. The ground shook, and all the lights flickered. When one of the lights on the ceiling fell onto the creature, Arnold grabbed Georgie’s wrist and they ran out of the school and as far away as possible. They ran through the empty streets and into a small bakery they had been to for breakfast before.
Georgie unplugged his ears. He looked at Arnold, who was still holding his wrist. Then he looked at Arnold’s face. He looked terrified, like he must’ve been even more scared than Georgie.
“What just happened?!” asked Arnold. “Who was that?! Are you okay?!”
“I-I don’t know,” said Georgie. “But whatever it was, it was causing the weird feeling from earlier. Maybe it’s following me?”
“Well, we’re safe here, for now.” Arnold said. So they just sat there. The bakery was dark and the inside was full of fallen ceiling pieces and knocked-over furniture. Everywhere around the town things were being destroyed, like a bomb exploded. But it was a creature doing all the damage, and maybe even erasing all the people, too.
After about five minutes of sitting next to each other, Arnold got up. “Come on, I think we should get up and look around. I don’t hear anything!” He smiled and held out his hand. Georgie grabbed his hand, and they walked out into the street.
The big city they had lived in was now full of rumble. The building’s windows were mostly shattered, and all the lights were out. But it looked, strangely, really beautiful. The way the sun reflected off the not-yet-broken windows and the shadows making the streets shady and cool was really peaceful. Not hearing all the people and music coming from buildings and people was really nice, and it made Georgie want to run down the street, and so that’s exactly what he did.
“I bet I could beat you to the grocery store!” Georgie shouted.
Arnold laughed and started to run. “Hey no fair! You’re so much faster than me!”
Georgie and Arnold made it to the grocery store. Georgie had won by a good twenty seconds and teased Arnold about it for the next minute. But Arnold didn’t really mind and just laughed.
“Look!” Arnold shouted. “Look at all the boxes of donuts sitting by the bakery section! We can eat all of them!”
“I’m not so sure we should do that . . .” but before Georgie could finish his sentence, Arnold dragged him to where all the donuts were, and they started to eat as many as they could. Georgie looked over at Arnold, and he was laughing and smiling. Georgie couldn’t help but be happy and smiling, even though the whole city was being destroyed and it felt like they were the only two people on earth.
But Georgie stopped. He dropped the donut on the ground, and Arnold also stopped eating and looked over at him. “It’s here, isn’t it? We should probably leave before it finds us.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Georgie said. He didn’t want to leave, though. “But can you promise that you won’t leave me? I’m too scared to be alone, and even more scared to lose you, to not be with you, and—”
“Why would I ever leave you?” Arnold said smiling.
Then they paused, and as Arnold was about to say something else, they were startled by a loud sound coming from the back of the store. They were in the front of the store at the time. They quickly stood up and froze in place. The creature was there.
Georgie tried to stay quiet. After every encounter with the monster, the next hurt him even more. This time, even though the monster was all the way across the store, Georgie’s head started to hurt. His vision became blurry and he felt like curling up on the ground and not getting up.
“Come on, Georgie!” Arnold shouted.
Georgie stood there, though. “So we’re just going to keep running. It’s obviously following me, Arnold.”
Arnold looked at Georgie. He thought about how Georgie felt weird, but he himself didn’t. Georgie was right. “Well,” he said. “I’m not going to leave! I promised I would stay, just like you said.”
Only a few seconds later, the ground began to shake. The ceiling broke, the sun shone through, and the floor cracked apart. The floor cracked between Arnold and Georgie, and when Arnold tried to jump to Geogie’s side, the ravine opened up and Arnold held onto the side of the wall and the crack.
Georgie gasped. He ran towards Arnold and grabbed his hand, but he wasn’t strong enough to pull Arnold up. Then the grey started. It was painful, but Georgie kept holding Arnold’s hand.
“Wow, you are weak.” Arnold said, but Georgie was far too terrified to laugh. Giant pieces of the store were falling into the ravine, and the noise of metal pieces and concrete cracking and hitting the ground was so loud, that they had to shout. Then the monster shot up from the ravine and grabbed onto Arnold and tried to pull him down, so Georgie used his feet to grab onto a metal beam that hadn’t broken yet.
Georgie looked at Arnold’s face, and instead of being scared of the monster pulling him towards the bottom of the ravine and into the dark, he had a smile on his face.
“You know, “ Arnold said. “You can’t hold on for very long.”
“No, it will be okay! I am not letting go of your hand!” Georgie shouted. He was crying, and he was holding Arnold’s hand so tightly that his hand was shaking and hurting. “I shouldn’t have told you to stay! This is all my fault, and you probably hate me for all of this!”
“We will always be together, even if we are apart!” said Arnold. Georgie cringed, but blushed.
“That sounds like something straight out of a movie,” Georgie said. He tried to smile a bit, but he couldn’t help but be sad. His head hurt from the monster’s power so much, but he tried to hide it. Arnold could hear that the light pole that Georgie was wrapping his legs around was being pulled out of the ground, and if that happened, Georgie would fall into the ravine, too.
Arnold had a face like he was lost in thought, then he looked up and smiled. “You’re so dumb, Georgie.” He said. Georgie laughed a bit, but Arnold just kept looking at Georgie smiling.
“That’s why I love you so much.” said Arnold.
Georgie was so surprised, and he was still crying, but he froze, his eyes open as wide as they could ever open, just staring right into Arnold’s eyes. Arnold had a few tears running down his face, too.
Arnold had been holding Georgie’s hand with one of his hands, so Arnold’s other hand was free. He reached for his pocket, grabbed his pencil, and stabbed Georgie’s hand.
And Georgie finally let go.
The creature and Arnold both fell to the bottom and the ravine and then everything went silent. Georgie’s head stopped hurting, but he now had to deal with a far worse pain. His heart hurt knowing that Arnold was gone. But if he had held onto the light pole for a few more seconds, he would have been pulled into the ravine with Arnold. Arnold saved Georgie’s life.
Georgie sat near the edge of the ravine. It was so quiet, even silent. Georgie was disgusted at how peaceful and beautiful it was when Arnold was lost. He sat there silently, but he couldn’t help but cry the whole time he sat there and stared down the ravine. Then someone appeared at his side.
“Upset?” she said. Georgie looked up.
Next to him was a very tall ghostly woman in a beautiful white and pink dress. Her hair was in braids and she had a top hat on that matched her dress. She was also carrying an umbrella which was closed.
“Y-Yeah,” Georgie managed to say. “A lot.”
“May I ask why?” She said, but Georgie didn’t reply.
Then she had a startled look on her face. “Oh, how rude of me! I haven’t introduced myself! I am Lovely, and you?”
“Georgie.”
Lovely looked around. Her expression went from happy to confused and sad, almost concerned. “You are here on your own?”
Georgie looked down at the ravine. He hid his face with his hair and fell silent for a moment. Then he stood up.
“. . . yeah.” Georgie said. Lovely picked him up like he was as light as a feather, and she was so gentle and she held him like a baby. Then Lovely opened her umbrella. The wind suddenly picked up, then they started to fly. The wind was cool and it was peaceful, the clouds had become orange and pink and purple and the sun was setting. Georgie looked at the sky through his hair, which was blowing everywhere and in his face. He closed his eyes, and when he opened his eyes, he was on top of a building not yet destroyed.
He stood at the edge of the building. The wind and the light made him feel like tearing up, but he didn’t cry. He managed a very weak smile. Lovely came and stood next to him.
“I thought you knew another boy,” Lovely said. “I thought I saw you before with someone else. Where did he go?”
“You’ve seen me before?” Georgie said.
“Yes, I’ve been here since the monster arrived. I followed it.” She had a face that looked like she had told a lie, but Georgie hadn’t thought much about it.
Georgie looked away quickly, but decided to talk to Lovely about what had happened to Arnold. When he looked at her face, she was smiling, but looked very calm.
“That is. . . was, Arnold. He was my best friend. He saved me, but now he’s gone. He fell, and that weird creature thing took him.” Georgie said. Lovely hugged him. But Georgie started to feel strange.
“Best friend, definitely,” Lovely said. “You looked very close!”
Georgie looked down. He smiled and blushed. “Well, actually. . .”
Lovely looked at Georgie with a wide grin, and then Georgie quickly looked away smiling.
“Yeah, we were very close.” Georgie said. He was kicking some dirt with his feet
And had his hands behind his back, tearing up.
“He must have really loved you if he sacrificed himself for you.” Lovely said. Georgie hadn’t thought about that.
A few seconds later, the building they were standing on top of was cracking and shaking. It felt like an earthquake, but then Georgie’s head started to hurt, and he knew that the monster was near.
“This really is the end of the world, isn’t it?” Georgie said. He was running from the crumbling edge now and was about to fall.
“Hmm,” Lovely said. “Only if that's what you make it.”
Then Lovely opened her umbrella and started to fly away, leaving Georgie atop the building falling down.
Georgie screamed “Wait! Wait!”, but Lovely had gone into the pink and purple sky and wasn’t visible anymore. Then he turned to look behind him, and near the edge of the building was the creature. Standing. Staring at Georgie.
Georgie stood still, and when the monster came charging right at him, Georgie ran to the side. And before the creature could turn, it was falling off the side of the building. When it fell, it was covered with heavy metal and concrete from the building and was crushed. It let out one last blood-curdling scream, which was so loud that Georgie backed up and fell off the side of the crumbling building.
This was it, he thought. The end of the world. Georgie was now falling, and he thought he had no chance of surviving. But then he looked at the beautiful sky and the pink. He thought of what Lovely had told him. Then he thought of everything Arnold had ever done for him, from the first time they talked to each other to the last.
So for every second he was falling, he was smiling. He was remembering and he was even laughing, almost like Arnold was there with him, and he was crying. All these emotions were in his head all at the same time. Happiness. And pain, physically but mostly mentally.
Then the ground below him, where he was falling from the top of the city's tallest building, opened up. It was just like the ravine that Arnold had fallen in. He started to fall even faster than before, and there was no end to the pit. Soon he couldn’t see the sky or the ground anymore, and the walls became colorful. There were lights in bright colors flashing in patterns that hurt his eyes, and a terrible screeching sound came from a new bright light at the bottom of the pit. As he fell into the light, he was blinded, and before he was fully consumed by the bright blinding light and ear-piercing noise,
He woke up.
Georgie got up with a start. He was breathing heavily, like he had just finished running a marathon. It even felt like he had been running for his life. It was all a dream, no, a nightmare.
“Stupid,” Georgie said. “I’m so stupid!” He started to cry. He got out of his bed and walked across the room. It was the messy basement of a building, and there were no bright lights so it was very dull and grey. All the small room had in it was a bed, a bed stand with a clock facing the wall, and a dresser with a mirror. All the furniture was random, but all old and dull.
Georgie looked in the mirror. His hair was messy and tangled, a very shiny black color. His grey eyes, now full of tears, looked at the door behind him. He put a knitted sweater over the white short-sleeved shirt he was wearing and headed into the living room.
The basement had three rooms. What was once storage for food in a bakery was now two bedrooms and a living area. Another person came out of the second bedroom and sat next to Georgie, who had his head in his hands.
“Wow. Morning, sunshine.” The other boy said sarcastically as he turned on the string lights strung around the room. Georgie laughed and raised his head. Georgie had very teary eyes but tried to act like he wasn’t just crying his eyes out for the last five minutes. “You had the dream again, didn’t you.”
“Yeah,” Georgie said. “I’m sorry.”
The boy looked at him surprised. “What?! You have nothing to be sorry about!!” He walked across the room and grabbed a towel. He then walked towards Georgie and sat next to him and wiped the tears off of Georgie’s face.
“It seems like you have that dream every night. You know that the crazy light show at the end never happened.” The other boy said.
“I know,” Georgie said. “I don’t know why that happens. I don’t know if, like, it means something? I don’t want to think about it too much, anyways.”
The other boy tried to change the subject, but just ended up saying random things that had nothing to do with each other. Georgie started to laugh.
“Well what do you want to talk about then?!” the boy said.
“Nothing. You should just shut up!” Georgie said. “And how are you wearing short sleeves and shorts?! Didn’t your room used to be the freezer or something?!”
“I like to be chill. It’s chill.” the boy said, but Georgie just laughed at him and ran around the room while the other boy chased him.
The other boy walked over to an area with food from multiple different stores and grabbed some graham crackers and crackers with jalapeno pepper in them. The two boys sat and ate breakfast, and then Georgie got up and walked to the stairs to go up into the bakery.
“I’m going to get a sweater on, then I’ll be upstairs.” the other boy said.
Once both the boys were upstairs, they walked through the bakery and to the door to head outside. It was just like how the destroyed city looked in Georgie’s dream, because it was the same place. There were still buildings that weren’t all torn down, but a lot of them had at least a few top levels destroyed.
Unlike the dream, the city was taken over by beautiful plants and animals, because the dream took place three months ago. The roads were covered by cool shade. This was Georgie’s favorite place to walk.
“When I was looking in the grocery store the other day,” the other boy said, “I saw some ingredients for that strawberry cake in the cookbook we have. We should make the cake for your fifteenth birthday!”
“Okay, that sounds great!” Georgie said.
So Georgie and his friend walked to the grocery store. Though they might seem to be the only two people left in the world, they are happy together. Georgie walked across the city laughing and smiling alongside his best friend, whose fluffy pink hair was blowing in the cool wind.