<~(American Continent, Earth 2017)~>

Cel Davron enjoyed Halloween because it is the one night a year when everyone dresses up in costumes-children mostly though some teenagers embrace the chance-and play pranks on each other. During his younger years, he loved dressing up as a wizard and pretending that he was one along with his best friend Sarah-who Cel knew since elementary school. They both grew up loving fantasy stories about heroes who faced world-ending situations with their head held high and ended up saving people while foiling evil plots, but somewhere between their tenth and eleventh grade year of high school, something happened to affect their relationship. A new transfer student came into class one day and introduced herself to the both of them as Cindy Roberts-who displayed her love for occult things early on by proudly noting herself firmly as a worshipper of Brigit. It did not take long for Sarah to ask questions about her religious ties and some kind of romance to build up over the remainder of their junior year of school-continuing through the summer and into their final year of school.

He did not mind his longtime best friend getting into a relationship with a woman as they both told each other of their bisexuality during freshman year-which ended with both of them casually watching a fantasy movie with pizza. Cel had even been dating a guy named Desmond by that point-who absolutely adored fantasy football and sports like a fanatic-though it imploded on itself towards the end of summer before senior year started when Cel caught Desmond cheating on him with a woman. He ended their relationship quickly after that and sought friendly comfort from Sarah-informing her of the development. After hearing about Desmond’s betrayal of her best friend’s love, both Sarah and Cindy fumed over it which resulted with most of the seniors aligning with Desmond-all of them played football or track-at the start of the new year. A few of those same football players started to blame Cel for their relationships ending too and made him suffer further harassment despite not understanding why due to his autism.

Cel’s senior year started off bad, but that only served to agitate the festering mental wounds he gained prior to the start of term. He started having vivid dreams that felt strangely foggy and almost impossibly vague about strange events which seemingly have no relevance in the present. These dreams sometimes depicted a war-torn battlefield covered in mounds of corpses endlessly bleeding out, people becoming living torches and screaming out in pain, or a looming skeletal gateway that threatens to open even just a crack if left unsupervised. They began soon after his eighteenth birthday and before Cel could do anything to describe those dreams, the memory of them vanished-leaving the young wiry man soaked in sweat just before the day began.

Halloween morning was no exception with the odd dreams though this time Cel felt something strange lingering around in his heart. It did not feel like a cancer or anything of the sort though there was an impression of a heavy chain dragging him down somewhere. He didn’t know where it led or how he felt it in the first place as whatever dream he had last night was soon forgotten. What Cel did after getting out of bed though was get into a shower since he didn’t wish to reek of sweat in his clean clothes all day long. He slowly got out of his bed and grabbed a towel on his way towards the bathroom just a couple of paces from his bedroom door.

After taking a shower and drying himself off, Cel placed the dirty towel in his clothes hamper and picked out a suitable costume to wear for Halloween. It had been designed to be similar to one of Cel’s favorite characters from a video game he liked playing though also mildly influenced by one of his writings-a conceptual story of an elven male protagonist who was forced into a political gambit that decided the fate of an entire kingdom. He had even modeled the main party of characters off of himself, Sarah, and Cindy since Cel placed a lot of trust between their trio of occult lovers and his stories usually revolved around fantasy. Both women loved reading his concept drafts which led to encouragement for Cel seeking out publishers or posting them onto websites to help generate a fanbase. Each time they brought that up, Cel got nervous and switched subjects.

Considering Cel’s relative height of five feet and seven inches, this particular costume did not require any cosmetic makeup on his part. His long wavy raven black hair looked similar to fantasy elves from the writings of Tolkien or some other author though Cel chose to often tie his hair in a celtic fashion whenever he wore this costume-which only got worn either at conventions or on Halloween. The robes-which made up the outermost layer of Cel’s costume-were styled in an elven fashion though the color palette didn’t hold up to “light” elvish standards with their black interior and dark magenta trim. What made up the main-or interior-clothing of Cel’s costume was no tunic and appeared to be some kind of faux black armor with a beautiful amethyst gemstone just above the heart-almost like the gemstone acted akin to a hearthstone. To any onlookers, the entire costume looked real despite the armored interior being only made up using plastic and cheap materials.

Once the costume had been picked out, Cel got dressed in the familiar garment.

It did not take Cel long to grab his backpack, car keys, and put on the finishing touches to his costume which required putting on a pair of black hard leather boots and a hairband. After getting ready for school in his costume and letting his mother know he was heading out to school, Cel made his way out to his car. He opened the passenger side door and placed his pack down inside then after doing that, Cel closed the door-making his way around the front to the driver side door. After unlocking the driver door and getting inside, Cel closed the door and started it up. It took around fifteen minutes to arrive and start his school day.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Most of the morning classes-dubbed as First to Fourth periods-went by rather quickly and without any notable incidents, but that peaceful time abruptly ended during lunchtime when Cel started overhearing comments about certain things involving him. Quite a few of those comments referenced how people just wished that Cel got expelled or punished severely for absolutely no other reason than “just because” while others turned far darker in nature-commenting about choice hate words against bisexuals or gay men directed in Cel’s general vicinity. Cel understood they were harassing him-in front of witnesses no doubt-and didn’t care in the slightest since teenagers were usually very hot-headed. Unfortunately, that did not mean Cel couldn’t feel either greatly offended or depressed because of their words. He normally shoved those feelings down and saved them for after things slowly waned so they could be let out later through his writings or playing a game.

“...fucking Fairy boy over there…”

“...a parasitical lowlife…”

“...loner fag..”

“He’s a fucking homo. Maybe if he got beat up, God might forgive his sins…”

Cel continued to ignore the harassers' comments that were very obviously towards him and almost like they knew his wishes, both Sarah and Cindy came to sit down at his table with smiles over his costume. Sarah dressed up as a nurse from the late twentieth century-her soft amber eyes and neck length brown hair somewhat clashing against the costume. She normally stood a little shorter than Cel himself-five feet and five inches-but her nurse costume let her wear glossy red boots that added a couple of inches to her height. Cindy dressed up a bit differently than her girlfriend did.

She went full-on witch for Halloween with a pointy hat and her black witch robes really brought out her vibrant hazel eyes along with the dyed black hairstyle. Normally, Cindy has this beautiful amber brown hair in long curls reaching down halfway to her waist though it was obvious she planned on dying her hair black over the week leading to Halloween. It actually appeared that she dressed to impress both her girlfriend and Cel with how even the witch costume was designed to attract attention-though Cel hoped not the wrong kind from the jocks who usually go the stereotypical route of letting thinking go out the window. Only both Cel and Cindy thought to go for the fantasy costumes while Sarah went for another type of costume though most of the guys in school refocused their gazes to Sarah and Cindy’s costumes while the remainder either did not care to look or continued trying to get a rise out of Cel with homophobic comments despite not looking cool for it.

“So then Cel, are we still on for tonight?” Sarah asked before digging into her vegan sandwich that she brought from home.

Cel looked at Sarah with a soft neck rub.

“Don’t tell me you forgot about it?” Sarah inquired with a little disappointed tone. “Cel, you know it is basically tradition that we go every year on Halloween!”

“Sorry, but what tradition?” Cindy asked Sarah with a little bit of a celtic accent apparent in her voice.

Sarah sighed in disappointment to both Cel and Cindy. “Every year on Halloween night, we go to this supposedly haunted mansion just outside of town and pretend we were some kind of ghost hunters looking for ghosts. It’s usually to keep some kind of thrill to last through the winter and we made it a tradition to go every year on Halloween since sixth grade.”

“Do you ever find any ghosts?” Cindy asked inquisitively.

Sarah shook her head. “People claim it is haunted with the spirits of murder victims from the fifties or some shit, but there isn’t any evidence to support it.”

Cel ate his lunch halfway while he let Sarah and Cindy talk more about their upcoming Halloween thrill-seeking which he had indeed forgotten about. Something else had preoccupied his mind since this morning almost like a faint chill slowly working its way down his spine. He did not fully understand why or how this phantom feeling occurred, but it passed before Cel could investigate further. Before too long, Cel had fully eaten the last piece of his lunch and returned to the conversation at hand.

“Well, you know I’ll be there, Sarah,” Cel replied-his voice slightly deep and easy to hear without much trouble. “After all, this is the last Halloween of our high school career. Might as well make it worth creating an unforgettable memory.”

Sarah nodded in response. “Any ideas on how to make this Halloween the most memorable event of our year?”

Cindy looked to be thinking about it just as much as Sarah looked in between them both for ideas. Cel also appeared to be thinking about it too which helped keep him focused on spending time with his bestie and her girlfriend, but just before he could voice a suggestion, something interrupted that line of thought. A lingering thought at the back of his mind like a warning gave Cel a vague sense of “avoid going anywhere near those homophobic jocks later” almost like something bad would happen if he didn’t avoid them. Obviously, Cel didn’t know how or why he felt or thought about it though that was already his plan since they were not worth the trouble. Many of the football team members were golden children that also had been scouted by colleges to join their teams based on their skills-not their brains unfortunately-and couldn’t afford messing up their futures by being publicly seen tormenting someone powerless.

They would resort to doing it outside of the public eye and away from potential witnesses though Cel noticed their antics were slowly ramping up over the course of October. Cel wondered why it was escalating, but in the end, their harassment could only affect him for as long as he allowed it. Their attempts to shake him did not work for the rest of lunch and continued well after the final class period’s expiration-though events were already set into motion that would eventually lead young Cel towards a dark fate. Once the sun set on Halloween and night reigned in place of dawn, Cel would find out things were not as they seemed...