![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
Zeke spent his whole life dreaming. As he got older, it got harder and harder to retreat into his mind, to escape the world he lived in. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the world, it was nice enough, but it wasn’t nearly as interesting as his own. His own world, which at the age of fifteen was rather difficult to dive into.
At that very moment, Zeke was trying to escape into his world in English class. Unfortunately, that involved falling asleep.
“MISTER CROSS!” Mrs. Lucille shouted as she hit Zeke’s desk with a ruler. “Would you like to explain what Francesco Montoya is about?”
Zeke stretched and muttered “It’s about a guy. Named Francesco Montoya.”
The entire class laughed until Mrs. Lucille spoke again. “Actually, it’s about a guy named Michael Davis. Francesco is just someone he meets. Good job reading the book, Mister Cross.” They continued laughing.
After the bell rang at 1:45, Zeke took his time packing his school bag. He dragged his feet all the way down the stairs, and all the way to the bus ramp, only pausing to look at a group of kids, laughing at a joke the one with blue hair told. Zeke didn’t really have any friends, and it was another reason he liked his mind better. There he had friends.
He got on bus three and got off at his stop at the end of the street he lived on. Once he got home, Zeke got on the computer in his room, where he stayed until he got tired. He didn’t feel like eating that day.
The entire time Zeke tried to sleep, he thought “Let me stay there forever. I never want to leave. Let me have friends.” He didn’t know who to, as he didn’t really believe that there was a god, but all that mattered to him was that some people had their bedtime “prayers” answered. Finally, sleep came to him.
Someone was poking his shoulder. Zeke wondered who it was, and why they were poking him. He opened his eyes, and immediately closed them again. He hadn’t been prepared for what he had seen.
Two inches from his face was another face, a face with eyes that were black where the white should be, red where the color should be, and no visible pupil at all. The face seemed to be a little shocked, he realized when he dared to open his eyes again. Zeke also realized he might have a similar expression, as it wasn’t every day you woke up with someone else lying in your bed, much less someone like that.
But it wasn’t his bed, he noticed as he looked around. Zeke’s bed had blue sheets, this one had black. So unless someone changed the sheets while he was sleeping, this wasn’t his bed.
The face had been replaced by some longish black hair. Zeke guessed that the person had turned away. But the face was talking, was he talking to him? Zeke listened.
“Jim, Jimmy, there’s a fucking KID next to me!”
No, he didn’t seem to be talking to him. The person, who Zeke now assumed was male, seemed to be shaking something (or someone) while whispering frantically.
It was indeed a someone, as another person sat up, wearing a loose-fitting dark green muscle shirt. The new person turned and looked at the first person, then past him at Zeke, making his narrow eyes grow wide.
“…What the fuck.” The new person, Jimmy, he had been called, looked at the first person again as he said this. When he received no answer, he looked back at Zeke and said “Did we…?”
Zeke shrank into a pillow and shook his head slowly.
“Okay, good. Now, that still doesn’t explain how you got into Heck’s bed.” Zeke was absolutely baffled about the ‘Heck’s bed’ part of this. Was it some satanic thing, or what?
The first person sat up, revealing a bare chest and pierced- Zeke concentrated on the face of the first person instead of continuing to stare at his torso.
“Jimmy,” The first person put his hand on Jimmy's shoulder. “He doesn't know how he got here.”
Jimmy shrugged off the hand and directed his bright green eyes to a lamp. The first person looked at Zeke and asked “Well? Are you going to just lay there like a lemon? By the way, you aren't damned by laying, sitting, or touching this bed, he called it 'Heck's bed' because that's what he calls me, Heck, short for Hector. You may call me either name.”
Zeke stared at the smiling Hector, amazed that he seemed to have read his mind.
“Not exactly, Zeke, it's a bit more complicated than that.”
“Nyuh... But... How?!” Zeke finally spoke, barely able to spit out the words.
Jimmy inspected his nails. “You'll find out eventually. You'll also get used to it. Be happy he's not speaking telepathically to you.”
Even more surprised, Zeke finally sat upright and looked around the room. It seemed dark, yet he could see most everything clearly. There was a rather large television in front of a battered brown striped couch against one wall, a wooden table stained with god knows what, and several cabinets, most filled with decorative knives. There was a single small window that seemed to be the source of light. Something was odd about it, the way light went through it.
“Um... where am I?” Zeke inquired, still taking in his surroundings. There was a picture of Hector and Jimmy on the bedside table, in which they looked like they were laughing. He looked back at Jimmy, who didn't look the sort to even smile, much less laugh.
“You're at 337 Dreaming Street.” Jimmy said as he stood up, running a hand through his messy black hair.
Zeke stopped examining the picture. He slowly turned to Jimmy, not believing what he had heard.
“The 337 Dreaming Street? The one I've heard about in stories?” Zeke couldn't possibly be there, it didn't exist!
Jimmy looked irritated when he spoke. He even added an eye roll. “Yeah. The one from the stories.”
Hector stood up also, taking some blanket with him to wrap up in. Zeke thought this odd, as it was warm in the room. One could say it was hot, actually.
“You, you've been sent here, you belong here, you need to see Stuart.” Hector gestured at Zeke and started walking towards a door. Zeke quickly rolled out of the bed and followed, Jimmy walking close behind, muttering something about everyone else using the door.
The door led to a staircase, which led to another door. Hector pulled something on the wall to the side and looked through. Zeke could only imagine the terror of someone admiring something on the wall when the eyes suddenly turned black and red.
Apparently the coast was clear, because Hector did something with a lever and the door retracted into the wall. They walked out into a hallway with dark wooden paneling and just as the door closed behind them, a tall man in a brown pinstriped suit jumped out from behind a statue, causing Zeke to jump and squeak. Jimmy looked over at Zeke, glaring once again.
“Now he's going to do that to you all the time,” he whispered.
“Well, you must be the new one! Hello, nice to meet you, my name is Stuart, but you can call me pretty much anything you want.” The man spoke fast and in a thick accent that Zeke wasn't able to place. Maybe something British, but not quite.
Stuart had the widest grin on his face, over enthusiastically shaking Zeke's hand. He looked him in the eye, and Zeke saw untold amounts of knowledge. Stuart stopped grinning and looked at Jimmy.
“Jimmy, you get to be his guardian and tour guide.” He turned to Hector. “Mr. Atra, you can go do whatever you wish.”
Hector grinned maliciously and took off down the hall, disappearing through an opening near the end. Stuart smiled after him and turned back to Zeke and Jimmy.
“You two meet me back at my office in 15 minutes or so, okay? You should be able to cover a good portion of the mansion by then.” Stuart flashed another smile, turned on his heel, and walked away.
Once he disappeared, Jimmy grabbed Zeke by his shirt and backed him up the the wall. “I'll give you a quick tour of the house, you will stay silent and you will never ask me where something is again.”
Zeke's eyes grew wide as he slowly nodded. Jimmy released his grip and walked off towards the door Hector had gone through. Zeke decided it would be wise to follow.
They went through several rooms, Jimmy explaining each one in 3 words or less. They went through the “kitchen,” the “library,” the “den,” the “game room,” “That one room,” and several others that seemed a bit questionable in purpose.
Finally, on the third story, they met with Stuart in front of a door with a plaque that read “Dr. Stuart Tennant.”
“Thank you Jim, you can be off now.” Stuart said, grinning at Jimmy and nodding behind him. Jimmy glared at the ground, muttered a “Yes sir.” and shuffled off. Stuart then turned to Zeke and smiled.
“Shall we?”
Stuart and Zeke walked through the door with the plaque into a small office, where Hector was looking through some papers on a table.
"Hector, what have I said about going through papers in my office?" Stuart's voice still had a cheerful quality under the anger.
"Oh, come on, I was just making sure that you didn't have anything weird here for little Zekey here. I read them all for you Zeke, all you have to do is take a turn washing the dishes every so often, it's a rather good deal." Hector was still leafing through the papers. "All you have to do is- come here, get a pen." Zeke walked over and grabbed a pen from what looked like the foot of some alien creature.
"Sign here, and here, and here," Hector turned the pages after Zeke signed them, going through various colors, from pink, to blue, to a skin colored one that made the ink turn red, to pink again.
Stuart took the papers and looked through them, at one point pausing and looking at Hector for a moment, then resumed examining the papers.
"All seems to be in order, you are now an official resident of 337 Dreaming Street. Your room should be built by the end of the week."
accomplished