The Ash Prince

Nezirya

We bolt up from the bushes nearly escaping the flashing lights shining our way. I can hear my mother yelling my name, from where I do not know. I was shaken awake by my mother, realizing it was all just a dream. My vision is blotted because of the sudden brightness of the light. Once I can finally see, I see my mother glaring at me and then she looks out my window. I slowly turned my head toward the window realizing that my window was wide open from the night before when I had gotten hot out of nowhere. She looks at me again, “Why is your window open? I don’t just turn on the heater for you to waste my heat bill by opening your window, now do I, Nezirya?!” I sat there contemplating whether or not I should answer truthfully or lie, I chose to tell the truth. “I got hot and started to feel as though I was going to throw up so I opened my window. I forgot to close it, sorry.” She looks at me desperately and then leaves.

I let out a heavy sigh not even realizing I was holding my breath. I start to wiggle my way out of my blankets and walk to my window to shut it. I hear my mother yell up the stairs, “HURRY UP, YOU HAVE TO LEAVE FOR SCHOOL IN 20 MINUTES!!” I start skimming through my wardrobe, even though I know I am going to wear what I normally wear, ripped skinny jeans with guns and roses, ripped t-shirt, and my NYC lover hoodie. I start down the stairs toward my kitchen skipping a step or two along the way. “How do I look, ma?” I say walking towards the counter and taking a piece of toast off a plate. “The same as usual hun, now will you stop doing that? You know those are your brother's favorite! Speaking of which, will you go wake him up and tell him that breakfast is done and that he has to be at work by 6 a.m. today and not 8 please.” She says swatting at my hands. I start up the stairs towards Jayson's room with the piece of toast in my mouth and mumble, “Yeah, besides if anyone else wakes him up he seems to turn into a big ol gremlin.” She laughs at my sarcastic comment and goes back to whatever she was doing before. My father yells up at me, “HEY, MAKE SURE YOU STAY AWAY FROM THOSE STUDENTS WHO SEEM TO NOT UNDERSTAND YOU ALRIGHT!” I take the toast out of my mouth to say “ALRIGHT POPS!!” which is all I can muster out that doesn’t make it seem awkward.

Once I get up to Jayson’s room I knock on the door and very loudly say, “Yo it’s Nezi, I’m coming in!” All at once I hear him moving a lot of things around, as though he is trying to hide something, so I give him a minute or so to get situated and then go in. “You alright?” I am saying this as he turns on a chair that looks about as old as the house we live in. “Yeah, I’m all good, just had a few things that Ma and Pops probably wouldn’t like too much. You know?” He is looking at the corner of the room and I immediately know what he is referring to. “Alright, well Ma said to hurry up because you have to be at work by 6 am and your breakfast is done,” I say as I go over to his bed and sit down. “Alright Nezi, are you driving yourself to school today or am I taking you?” He states as he starts getting dressed. “Nah, I got it besides Ma doesn’t work today so I can just use her car today, Don’t worry.” I walk out of the room and start towards the stairs when I hear something from my room. I go to my room to investigate but when I get there, there is no one there, so I just ignore it.

Rys,

It is 3 a.m. when I stop reading “ The FarAway Land Of Bergalium.” I can hear the snores of my father as I get out of my bed and go to the bathroom. The floorboards creak so loudly under my feet that I think it might wake everyone in the house. I want to stop and go back to my room. After all, I don’t want to wake up everyone because I know if I do my father will get very mad and probably start throwing things again, but I persist towards the bathroom door. Once I get to the bathroom, I turn on the light and turn on the shower, I start to get ready for the shower when I hear footsteps coming towards the bathroom. I grab the nearest towel and wrap it around myself, just in case it is my mother or my sister. Someone stops just before the bathroom door and knocks 4 times.
“Who is it,” I let out barely a whisper as I started towards the door. As soon as I touch the doorknob the door flies open and smacks me HARD. I am half-conscious on the floor when I feel a sharp pain everywhere. I awoke the next morning on my bathroom floor and my mother pounding on the door yelling to hurry up. I quickly get up and yell, “YEAH, JUST GIVE ME A SECOND AND I’LL BE OUT!!!” I quickly pick up my things, wet my hair, and turn off the shower. My mom decides to walk in then and I run out as she does, apologizing for taking so long. Once I am in my room, I quickly get dressed and run downstairs grabbing toast and hopping in my car.

I arrive at school at 7:30 a.m. and feel as though I am forgetting something, I realize once I get to my locker that I forgot to wake up Paetin and instantly know that my father will be angry and probably take it out on my ma. I get to my first class as the bell rings and Mrs.Hopper looks up from her book to tell us the usual “” I will take attendance and then you all will do any other work you have for other classes” So I just sit in my usual spot next to Nezi, who is currently reading a book like always. You always see Nezi with a book in his hands, I kinda admire him for being able to read so carelessly. Nezi and I don’t talk because of family differences and because he doesn’t like to interact with people unless they are family. Our mothers have always been friends but I guess him being antisocial played a part in us not being friends, that and the fact that I came out as gay last month. But even so, he doesn’t have any friends, because everyone thinks he is weird and crazy, but they don’t take the time to get to know him.


Nezirya
I am sitting at my desk reading when the chair beside me squeaks back and Rys sits next to me. He prefers to be called Rye though but he allows me to call him Rys, I never knew why but I didn’t question it. I look at him for a second then return to my book, “ The Maze Runner.” It was my father's before but he gave it to me after I had asked what it was about, and ever since then, it has been one of my many favorite books. I always get made fun of for always having a book with me but I don’t mind it. Rys pulls out his black binder full of math work, meaning he will probably need help since he has never been good at math since he was little. Rya turns to me then and looks guilty, “May I borrow a pencil and can you help me with this please?” I reach into my bag and give him a pencil and as I look at the paper I realize that he is trying to figure out how to use a lead pencil, “Click on the eraser, it’ll give you lead when you do. Sorry, I just grabbed one of the pencils I have.” He turns to me and starts laughing, “Why are you sorry? I’m the one who doesn’t know how to use one!” He bellows, and everyone turns to look at him. I cringe and try to make myself smaller to avoid all the stares but it doesn’t work. I can feel my face heat up, meaning my face is probably bright red and I probably look ridiculous. I look back at the paper and start writing the building points to the answer like I always do so that he can use them to get the answer by himself.

The second block goes by slowly and Rys is sleeping soundly next to me when I hear the intercom come on, “WILL MR. FLORES AND MR. ELIES PLEASE REPORT TO THE MAIN OFFICE WITH ALL THEIR BELONGINGS!” I can feel Rys jerk awake at the sound and I tell him that we are needed in the office with all of our belongings. When we arrive at the office both of our mothers are sitting waiting for us while talking among themselves, we have to sign ourselves out too before we can leave. I have to sign out for Rys because he is still half asleep and kept messing up. My mother looks at me with a look that makes me shudder and wakes Rys right up immediately. “Please come with us, we would like to show you guys a secret hangout place that we used to use all the time.” My mother says as though it is a secret that no one else should know. I look at Rys to see if he knows what is going on and he just gives me the look of confusion, as though he doesn’t know either and I believe that he truly doesn’t. We follow our mothers from a safe distance and keep up with their pace so we don’t lose them because of how fast they walk. My mother kept whispering something to Sherry but never once stopped to talk to me and Rys.

We arrive at something that looks like a treehouse and a garden mixed. “This is The Haunted Ash Princes Garden, Boys. Me and Riley used to hang out here all the time and pretend we were the only people on the earth.” I look at Rys and I know he isn’t amused because he is just blankly staring into space like there is not a majestic place in front of him. “So this is ours?” I blurt out finally and my Ma looks at me with eyes of pride, “Yes, it was originally my mothers and she gave it to me so I give it to you guys to use as you please, whether it be for parties to just reading or just to escape the world.” I look at her and then start to descend the stairs up to the top of the treehouse. “Why don’t you go with Rye?” I hear Sherry say to Ryz, he mumbles something so quietly that I wouldn’t have been able to hear it even if I was still beside him.

Rys,

I started to feel drowsy during block one so when I finished my work for the second block I immediately fell asleep. I awoke to the loud intercom calling for me and Nezi to report to the office with all of our belongings. I can feel Nezi start to pack up his things and then pack up mine. He taps me on the shoulder to wake me up and carries my bag to the office. When we arrive at the office I am greeted by Nezi’s mother staring deep into my soul and I am instantly rejuvenated. I look over to see Nezi signing me and him out for the rest of the day and I instantly feel bad for not realizing how annoyed he must be having to wake me up and carry my bags for me. His mother says something but I can't hear her at all. She starts out the door and when Nezi follows her out the door I follow too.

Once we arrived where they were taking us I immediately thought it was stupid because all I saw was an old treehouse that looked older than the earth. I look over at Nezi expecting to see the same reaction I had but instead, he looks amazed. He looks the same as he did when he got his first book to read, amazed and humble but most of all excited to have somewhere to have to himself. He starts toward the old, mildewy tree and starts feeling his way up the treehouse stairs. My mother asked me why I didn’t go up and look at it with Nezi but I could tell by his face that this was going to be his new hideout spot to read and I didn’t want to take that from him. I start to leave when I hear something faint and crisp, a little like a voice but more like the rustling of leaves from the wind, it comes from down an alley we called DEMON ALLEY WAY because almost always someone would go down the alleyway and come back as a demon or hybrid and no one knew why, just that it happened.

I start down the alleyway knowing what could happen but not caring very much to stop and turn around. I feel the filtering pains spread to every part of my body and it takes everything in me to keep from screaming out in pain. I have to go out of a building and into the main alleyway so that I can be at peace. As I lay in a moss patch groaning and screaming out in pain, I can feel my insides turning inside my body. I roll over onto my stomach and start to throw up profoundly, and I watch as the color of the blood I am throwing up which was originally bright red turns to the deepest shade of black I have ever seen. Right then and there I know I am turning into something, I can feel horns grow on top of my head and my spine starts to lengthen into a tail, I know what I am turning into, it is the unimaginable and the worst thing to have ever happened to me, I am turning into a hybrid.


Nezirya

I climb back down carefully to my mother, and only when I am a third of the way down do I realize that Rys has disappeared. “Where is Rys ma?” I state as I walk towards them. My mother glances towards THE DEMON ALLEYWAY or as I call it the Mysteria because everyone that enters the alleyway has come out a whole new species, sometimes they are demons and sometimes they are hybrids, but every time I have ever entered and come back out I have been fine. I am still human and have all of the traits a human does. It has been my hideout for the longest time because they don’t bother me. The alleyway was once a human street, as we have called it, but when someone decided to start creating science experiments out of nowhere and creating horrendous things we had to leave.

They don’t usually like when people disturb them, but when I first came to the alleyway they just kinda admired my presence, and well you know some of them kinda pounced on me. I never questioned it because out of it I got a hideout and a place where I could peacefully read. Sometimes they would gather around and listen to me when I read. I look back at my mother and debate whether or not I should go looking for Rys, she gives me a look that says “ I Don't Care, Go Ahead And Look for him. I know you come here anyway. You don’t do a good job at hiding where you go” I take that as my cue and run off into the alleyway to start looking for Rys. I hear Sherry shriek as I go in saying stuff like “Why would you let your child go in there,” and “That place has monstrosities beyond our imagination.” Even though I can hear her shrieks I keep running. I asked one of the friendlier hybrids if he had seen Rys. He looks me up and down and then starts asking around, at one point he even stares and points at me. I start to get chills but don’t mind it because I know it was nothing.

When I look up again I see one of the hybrids looking at me and nervously looking farther into the alleyway, where most of the stronger, rougher beasts are, and I immediately know that that is where Rys is. I thank the hybrid, though he doesn’t realize he has helped me, and begins walking farther into the alleyway. I found him about 20 minutes after I had started walking. He looked sick and sounded like a transforming hybrid. I walked up to him and as soon as I finally got a good look at him I realized what was happening. Not only was Rys turning but it seemed as though this was not his first time.