Chapter 5 2: PART ONE

[2] : PART ONE

The Stevenson's son locked his bedroom's door at 5 on Monday and Wednesday. Each time, he heard a ring of small rusty golden bell across his room before he decided it was the time.

There was no specific reason why Jimmy started locking his room at 5 every Monday and Wednesday. He had long not joined in his parents, he had no reason to since he made up his mind. Both were quite understanding, never pressed him into anything. It might be fear, it might be the dimmed curiosity, one that was light up again yesterday night.

The spirit was something different than what Jimmy expected, even when he had asked his mother what form spirit could take and was answered with 'everything', it wasn't processed until that specific morning after he went to sleep and dreamed of the same man.

He looked like a human more than anything. He thought what his mind formed about the information had something to do with the lack of interest he had before regarding spirits.

Jimmy winced. His mother wouldn't be happy for sure if she found out he was in presence with a spirit.

That might be another reason why he was never allowed to communicate with spirits despite his parents having a strong beliefs of the otherworld. Some said all spirits were manipulative, cunning deceivers, another said some were deceivers then yet another side of spirits were almost like a human. However, he guessed, humane or not, spirit was a spirit. What they thought, how they moved, how they behaved wouldn't be humane as much as humane they were. Still not a human, still was different.

His mother would often warned him regarding the spirits in their little home back in his hometown. She would stay with him until he fell asleep, at time even after morning. His mother would mentioned in front of his friends and him most spirits took a toll on her, most spirits in their house had find a way to touch Jimmy.

It was a good thing she mentioned it when he was a 10, his friends were not as scared anymore. His mother warned many things that when everything is out in the open, they started giving out warnings too. Never stopped since then.

He often wondered whether his friend's obsession towards spiritual things, or unexplainable incidents was caused by his family's own interest. If it did, he wondered whether he should feel guilty or not. His friends had become an obsessed, single teenagers who revolved his life around otherworld and only had interaction with another human being unless it was necessary.

Last time, they came over unannounced on Monday after his practice. It was when they wrote on a piece of paper, written in red and blue, smudged with brown and black, about his habit that could come and bite him in the ass anytime soon.

Jimmy wasted no time crumpling it. He threw it away somewhere.

He heard someone knocking on his door. He walked over his door and unlocked it.

His mother stood in front of his room, smiling at him softly, "Hey, son."

"Oh, hey, mama," He frowned, leaning on his door frame, "What's wrong? Something happened?"

His mother shook her head, laughing, "Oh no, don't let your hair catch on fire. Nothing happened, but two of your friends come over."

Oh, hell no.

"Is it the Mcwoods?" His mother hummed in confirmation. He sighed loudly, he ruffled his hair before pouting.

"I told them to come upstairs, you might want to clean you room first," His mother peeked for a second or two, "Clean it, son. It definitely needs more of cleaning."

"Sure, mama, I'll do that," Jimmy smiled, "Thank you for telling me."

"You're welcome," He closed his door when he finally smiled one last time at his mother. He looked around, thinking his room was clean enough, so he just sat on his bed, waiting for his friend to barge in. Not even a five minutes later, two figure barged in. The sound of plastic bags rubbing against something filled his room.

It was two of his friends. Trevor and Nate.

"Have you gone nuts now, man?" Trevor started while opening a bag of potato chips in care less manner, a few fell down on Jimmy's bedroom floor, "Oops, sorry, Jim."

"Oh come on!" He threw his hands up, looking down at his previously clean floor, "I cleaned that yesterday."

"You can always clean it again," Nate piped up, waving him off. Jimmy huffed, standing up reluctantly and walk outside his room. He walked in front of the radiator which placed at the wall, almost touching the floor. His hand grabbed a light-blue sweeper, he carefully moved his index finger away from a broken part of it, swiftly placing an old wooden dustpan on his other hand.

Jimmy made an eye contact with Trevor, who was busy fumbling around his own watch and two snacks on his lap. He then tilted his head, creating a motion using his eyes the same direction as his head to left part of his room indicating they should move away. Trevor tapped Nate's shoulder, moving away without saying anything. Surely they both moved away without saying anything, however, Jimmy was ticked off and sure they were messing around with him when he saw more crumbs fell down.

He swept crumbs of chips over his floor. He finished in less than five minutes, putting both the sweeper and the dust pan on his bedroom's all, near his desk. He moved it further away when he saw his stacks of books blocking the way. He used his left hand to push his stacks of books away and his right hand to put the light blue sweeper at the wall, leaning on his desk. He decided he did well as his room was cleaner than before.

Jimmy sat beside Trevor, who by the way was still busy looking down at his watch. He snatched both snacks into his own laps, taking all for his own.

"What are you two doing here anyway?" He found himself asking after a few minutes in silence, both his friends were busy doing their business, "Have you not gotten any assignments to do today?"

Trevor was faster than Nate to answer, he said, "Well, teachers did hand out assignments. Some paper tests, we did it real good, Jim."

"Got a minus on my hour paper based test," Trevor muttered under his breath, looking up at Jimmy and grin, "We both avoid getting our asses beaten."

"Don't exaggerate, man, your dad loves you lots. He had never even touch the hair on your head," He swatted Trevor's hand away when it was reaching for the snacks.

"If you say so, Jim," Trevor pulled another bag of chips from the supermarket bag, "For sure, I wouldn't be able to contact you for weeks."

"I could come over," Jimmy said lightly, it wasn't a big deal, "It's not a big deal, buddy."

- END OF CHAPTER TWO PART ONE -