Mind Labyrinth, Book 1, Chapter 2 (Part 1)

Chapter 2: Brutality

Warnings: Horror parts coming in! There's vore, allusions to adult attraction to a minor (16 year old) (depicted as a bad thing), and said 16-year old contemplating realistically on his own sexuality (non-explicitly). 

“If the last year was your desperate attempt to get my attention, then congratulations, Vincenzo. You got it. Now, what is it that you want so bad that you were ready to poison your school for it?”

Vincenzo’s fingers wrapped around the telephone cord, lips parted as he listened to the voice on the other line. It was his father’s deep, scratchy voice, speaking in a language he hadn’t heard or spoken in years. It was so alien to him, how he used to be that wide-eyed little boy clutching his Italian-English dictionary, flipping the pages every so often to check words he’d never heard of before in order to complete an assignment. He used to be so naive thinking being good and staying in line could get him anywhere. He understood now that the best way to capture a person’s attention was to be as awful as one could could possibly be.

Now, here he was, talking to the person he used to associate with the distant notion of “home” and thinking I don’t know you at all.

“I wasn’t trying to get your attention. It wasn’t about you…” He swallowed. “But now that you’re here, I’d like you to know that they’re talking about permanent expulsion. If that happens, they’re going to send me back to Stilo, whether you like it or not.”

“I’m not going to let that happen.”

He chuckled. “And why not?”

“I spend thousands of pounds every year to keep you and your trouble making ways at that Institution. I refuse to accept that you’re coming back without even graduating.”

“Huh. When the principal said he was reporting back to you, I thought he was kidding — you’re impossible to reach. I was convinced you just dropped me off and saddled me with a debt I couldn’t repay. I’m curious, though. How do you intend to go about this? Permanent expulsion is a serious threat, and I can’t imagine other children’s parents are going to be overtly thrilled having me around. You should hear what the teachers call me when they think I’m not listening. Nightmare child. They want me gone as much as you do.”

“Enough,” he said, exasperated. “When did you get this chatty? You were always so quiet when you were a kid. More polite, too.”

“I was never quiet. And I was never polite. You saw the version of me that was afraid of getting hit in the face.”

“What changed?”

Vincenzo grinned. “I haven’t been hit in the face for a while. At least, not by you.”

“…In any case, I’ll send a grant to the school.”

“Will they take that?”

“They should. Your damned principal’s been pestering me to sponsor a cricket team for a while.”

“You don’t expect me to play cricket, do you?”

“I don’t expect anything other than you keeping your head above water, and even that is too much to ask.”

“Then I suppose we’ll see if a cricket team is worth poisoning the entire student body for…” He bites his fingernail, considering it. “Considering how greedy the man is, you might just have something there.”

“It’s a private school. It’s meant to rob parents blind. Now, is that it?”

Vincenzo shut his eyes, frown twitching.

“Wait,” Vincenzo said, taking a deep breath. “Wait, I just want to say…”

He heard a sigh on the other line. “What is it?”

“The only reason you want me to graduate here is because you’re ashamed of the headlines, aren’t you? You don’t want your child to be known as the kid that killed his mother, so you want to at least say ‘St. Michael’s graduate’ because that’s more pleasant to the ears. You want me here more out of a sense of obligation rather than genuine concern for my well-being, because if you cared for me, you would’ve visited me at least once in the last…”

The line went dead.

Seven years.

***

The next morning, his dreams of moving out were shattered when his supervisor entered his room and told him that he was moving to the attic room. He supposed he anticipated this. As much as he longed to only be targeted by one irrational man rather than five hundred, he couldn’t deny a leprechaun’s nature when presented with a pot of gold, or in this instance, a shiny new cricket team. The groundskeeper picked up his bags and assisted him up the stairs.

The first two floors were brimming with life. The third was for teachers, and their spaces were more spread out, rooms bigger and amenities much nicer, he guessed. He’d never been to the fourth, but he recalled a memory that felt like a dream — or in this case, a nightmare. An ominous witch-light. Two dark figures, one girl and one boy. Yellow eyes.

“I can see that pale look on yar face,” the groundskeeper said smugly. “Recognize it, do ya? It’s Ol’ Billy boy’s room.”

“The room where he killed himself?”

“Aye!”

“I’m not going to find a corpse up there, am I?”

“No, no… we cleared that out years ago. Yer more likely to find some snot stuck to the wall than a corpse.

Vincenzo bounded up the stairs, then lurked in front of the door. He didn’t know what he’d find when he stepped in there. He couldn’t tell if the heavy feel around the area was the darkness, the associations of his memory, or if it was actually haunted. Whatever it was, the space didn’t help. There was no light source on the way to the room. He guessed he would have to run up and down the stairs to avoid the darkness just to pee. He took a deep breath. “Do you… feel that? I can hardly breathe.”

“That heavy feelin’? That’s how you know somethin’s cursed, boyo. You best watch yer step ‘round here.” The grounds keeper pulled out a key from his overalls and opened the room. Vincenzo jumped, expecting a monster to lunge at them, but it was just a plain, dusty room. He raised his collar to hide his nose and mouth, coughing up a storm, eyes all watery.

“This place is filthy! Why is it so filthy!? I’m not staying in there. No way. Just expel me.”

The groundskeeper rolled his eyes. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist. They ordered me to clean the place up for ya. Fancy school has its reputation, after all.”

The man headed downstairs, snickering. Vincenzo cautiously stepped in. He checked every corner for any boys or girls that would sneak up on him, but he was a little hesitant to check under the bed. If he knew anything about the supernatural, they liked to hide under the bed, and that was how they got their victims. He walked straight to the window and opened it up, releasing the dust to whence they came. A burst of cold air entered like an unwanted guest, splashing his face and filling up the room in the matter of seconds. It was freezing outside! The snow was starting to melt, though. Little patches of green poked out in batches from the sea of white, reminiscent of hair strands out of place. He couldn’t wait for winter to be over.

“A bit chilly out, eh? Perfect fer playin’ out, snowball fights and such.”

What an odd comment. Vincenzo turned around, snark at the ready, when he realized he was the only person in the room. He could’ve sworn he just heard someone. He froze in place.

He heard heavy footsteps heaving up the stairs, various cleaning paraphernalia smacking against the walls. Vincenzo backed up against the wall, watching who it was closely.

The groundskeeper.

He sighed in relief.

“What are ye all squirrelly for, lad?” He put his things down.

“I…” He swallowed, checking the groundskeeper’s face closely to examine if this was some sort of trick. His hands were still shaking. “I just had what the kids call ‘a supernatural encounter!’”

He snorted. “Better get used to that, then.”

“You’re not even going to ask what happened?”

“Bah. It’s yer ass that’s gonna get fucked. I’m stayin’ outta it. Don’t wanna be collateral damage. How do ya think I survived all these years workin’ here? I keep me head down, mind me own business.”

“Huh. Smart man.” He sat on the mattress. “So, should I just wait for you to be done here? I’m kind of tired. Maybe I’ll get an afternoon snack and feign a headache so I can sleep at the infirmary —”

The groundskeeper shoved a broom at his chest. He got the memo. He stood up dejectedly and started to sweep. He did so very badly, because he was a beautiful rich boy; what did he know about chores? The man didn’t have it, though. He taught him how to do it properly, and if he goofed, he was promptly called out on it. They did a deep clean of the place until it was spotless. Around midnight, he passed out on the mattress on its new, clean sheets.

***

Vincenzo’s sleepy eyes fluttered open.

Above him was a great and terrible monster peering directly — expectantly — into his face. Its skin and the shape of its head reminded him of a particularly grotesque salamander. The sheen of its obsidian skin resembled an oilslick, the predominant colors being shades of purple and blue. Hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of little yellow eyes resembling frog eggs blinked at out of time intervals. But the eyes weren’t the central feature, despite his easy recognition of them. It was the big, toothy grin with rows and rows of shark teeth. The creature breathed through its mouth, and its rancid breath tickled the entirely of Vincenzo’s tiny face. It looked both happy and ravenous, shaking with an almost dog-like excitement.

“Are you going to eat me? I would like that.”

“If you want,” it said, excitedly, with a deep, guttural voice overlaid with a man and a woman.

The creature stepped away from Vincenzo’s bed. He thought it would consistently look like a salamander throughout, but all five of its spider-like legs were human arms, bent backwards. It had a tail that contained a second, human-like head. Despite how difficult it was to stare at this creature directly, he was so in awe of its features that, in his distraction, it opened its giant maw as much as the space allowed it, hitting both the ceiling and the floor. Its snake-like tongue wrapped around his ankle and swallowed him whole.

He tumbled down into the void of space. He didn’t know how exactly he was still alive and breathing. He watched his hand closely. The edges of his form looked like it was blurred upwards, disintegrating into light. In the background, he could see a sea of stars migrating in a circular motion around him like a flock of birds. Other salamander-like creatures crawled around this void, untethered to the already absurd physics of this reality.

Eventually, Vincenzo landed on a cobblestone path at the middle of the void. Unlike “earth”, the path had a non-euclidean geometry, twisting like a pretzel against all odds or transporting him in areas up to fifty feet high. He walked in that path, unsure of what else to do. He walked it for an eternity, with nothing but the sound of his footsteps and the dreadful quiet that reintroduced him with his dreadful thoughts. Vincenzo never believed in an afterlife. He used to be one of those good, little Christian boys that vaguely wished for some concept of heaven, but now, the thought of going on after his flesh expired exhausted him. He wanted a void devoid of stars, a sleep devoid of consciousness. At the end of the twinkling path, he happened upon a door that led him to his dormitory bedroom.

When he opened it, it was his room, but all the colors were tinted bright purple, and the furniture didn’t make sense. Side table on the ceiling. Closet diagonal on the wall, half of it going through it. A lone boy sat in front of the same window he had. In his lap sat a hefty, sinister tome. Vincenzo approached him cautiously in an attempt not to spook him. His eyes glanced on the tome first. On it was a circle with a star, as well as runes he didn’t recognize. As soon as he worked up the nerve to face the boy, he regretted it immediately. The boy had no face — just a canvas with his features scribbled over. Vincenzo froze in fear. Everything in this dimension scared and confounded him. He watched him place the tome underneath the floorboards and stand up. He had an inch on the man, but what he lacked in height, he made up for by being completely fucking terrifying. His face sliced open and peeled back in the shape of a horrible, morbid, flesh flower, and in an instant, snapped forward to bite him — 

He woke up in a cold sweat. He threw his sheets over his head, trying to get his pulse to calm down.

“What the fuck was that,” he whispered sharply, hands pressed to his chest. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears. “What the fuck was that?”

He stayed there until, eventually, sleep overtook him.

It didn’t hold him hostage overlong. He heard someone bang on his door. He glanced outside, noticing it was still dark out, but the sun was beginning to rise.

“Rise and shine, Vince. Choir practice today.”

“Alright!” He cleared his throat. “I’ll be dressed soon.”

He got up. Instead of dwelling on it, he just concluded that he was having a particularly nasty stress dream. After half an hour, he was clean and fully dressed. He picked up his backpack, ready to get on the bus, when… he stopped. He couldn’t get that dream out of his mind. It was vivid like a fresh memory, even if there was no proof of it ever happening. He seated himself on the bed at the same spot that faceless boy was. He bounced on it a couple times, testing the frame’s durability, smoothing out the wrinkly sheets. Whoever this room was for before, it was his now. He bent down, feeling out the edges of the wooden floor panels. He found a loose one at long last. He lifted it up and saw the spine of a particularly old book. He was shocked. He didn’t expect that to actually result in anything. He pulled out a large, leather bound tome reminiscent of the faceless boy’s, and flipped through its worn pages. It wasn’t just the one summoning circle. It was a sea full of forbidden witchcraft, written in a language he didn’t even recognize.

The bus outside honked angrily, waiting for the last, bratty choir boy to get in. Vincenzo put the tome in his backpack and headed out.

He would investigate this after mass.

***

Mass went by mechanically as mass always did. Sometimes, Vincenzo wondered if god could feel his boredom throughout the entire thing, and that was why his life was as terrible as it was. The only part that truly unnerved him was that he could feel a set of eyes — no, several — on him while he sang. He had a spotlight at the bottom center. The priest insisted he be seen, and he often expressed his deep sadness whenever his voice didn’t ring the loudest inside this place of worship. He recognized well enough that his lust for him had been around for years (since he was a child), and once, his choir mate pointed it out to him and he felt mortified that it was so readily obvious.

No, mass aside, the tone of the bus ride shocked him. The boys of St. Michael were usually so oblivious to anything that wasn’t games and sports, but now, their interests delved into more sexual places. Many of them lamented that there weren’t girls around. 

“Well, there are,” one boy said, “but I mean a pretty girl, not the crones changing our sheets and serving us lunch.”

A pretty girl. A girl they could crush on. Soft, sweet and warm, unlike the smelly, oily, lumbering people in their school.

Vincenzo knew what sex was in theory. Books rarely cut corners, unlike the old, conservative teachers in his school. Poetry was rife with vivid imagery about women’s tantalizing curves and lovely voices. Having people talk about something he’d read about for years felt like everybody was finding out about a secret he’d always known. Was he interested in it? Of course, but he felt like these were desires one should only be having in the dark, not discussed so crassly and openly.

His warm breath tickled his cold lips. He felt a bit of a chill bite the nape of his neck, so he fixed up his scarf, fluffing it up so it covered half of his face. He didn’t have time for locker room thoughts, however. He headed straight for the town library.

He frequented this library often, mostly because they had newer releases faster than the school did. The school had a solid non-fiction and classics section, but most of the newer books only came in about once every two years, and they were salvaged from donations and used bookstores. That meant they were either painfully generic, or they were specialized in a way most people couldn’t relate to, like fifty volumes of shoujo manga. At the library, they featured new books almost every month! Vincenzo thought most modern fiction was lame, but he’d find gems here and there, as well as interesting non-fiction entries like those Ripley’s Believe It Or Not books. He enjoyed those a lot. Humans were very gross.

The librarian wasn’t at the counter, so he was probably at the back with the returns. Vincenzo knelt down on the carpeted floor, stalking the edges of the counter with only the top of his head peeking above it. With a last survey of the area, he concluded the librarian was definitely at the back so he pressed the bell as many times needed to summon him back. He appeared from the back, rubbing his temple.

“Vincenzo,” he said, exasperated. “Good to see you again. Are you here to return your copy of Lovecraft’s Selected Works?”

He frowned. “I’m only halfway finished with that. His prose is so dense! I like taking in the atmosphere.”

“You borrowed that two years ago.”

“…I got sick. Hospitalized! Look, I said I’d return it eventually, didn’t I?”

The librarian frowned. “Then what are you here for?”

Vincenzo brought out the book and slid it to him. “Can you… understand what language this book is in? Can I get a dictionary for it, if you have it?”

The librarian put on the dinky glasses he had strapped on to his vest. He turned the pages, humming as he examined the text. Vincenzo bounced on his feet excitedly. “I’m not an expert, but let’s see here… it doesn’t seem to be any type of human language that exists.”

He frowned.

“On the upside, it seems to be a language at least. Look at the similar letters. Similar words and spacing. My dear, you don’t need a dictionary. You need a linguist.”

“I don’t know any linguists…”

“You can certainly learn. We have introductions to linguistics that cover grammar and syntax in the Linguistics section, right next to the Languages section — I remember you wanted to learn French and Latin before, yes?”

“Oui oui!”

“Then you should know where it is. Off you go, then.”

He bounced back to his feet. The Linguistics section was such a mysterious entity to him, a familiar neighbor he’d never had the chance to talk to, but he checked out three books, hoping they’d aid him in his quest. With his backpack pregnant with knowledge, he returned to the street. It was mid afternoon. It was a cloudy, foggy day, but the streets were bustling with rowdy boys from St. Michael’s. A number of them headed to a restaurant. He followed after them, wondering what was so interesting about it.

It looked like a high end establishment. The extravagant curvy floral decal and heavy velvet curtains signified wealth — old money, instead of the more modern, minimalistic noveau riche. Vincenzo didn’t have a single pence in his pocket. But the people in the area were enticing. Aside from the boys he recognized at the tables, he saw a beautiful, older crowd with striking clothes and silhouettes, smoking and drinking at the bar. There were beautiful girls on stage, dancing in revealing outfits. He wondered if this was a glimpse of what adulthood was like. It was like stepping into a new plane of existence.

For the rest of the afternoon, he watched everything in awe, cheeks flushed with fascination. He was stepping into a new phase in his life, and it filled him with dread, curiosity, and delicious anticipation.