Chapter two: Dionaea Mascupula

As you now know, Shellville was a small town, but not nearly as quiet.

Street corners buzzed here and there accompanied by police sirens which zoomed through the city-like lifestyle on a Saturday afternoon, as Oliver sits and eats cereal while watching his favorite cartoons.

Typically, he would want to be left alone, stay home and mind his own business, but the night that which slowly shoved the sun down beckoned him to partake, and who was he to say no?

One after another his boredom had gotten the better of him as he huffed out smoke from his hand made joints that which he mixed with other things, his excitement made him fidgety, he wanted more than that.

Something was going to happen tonight, and Oliver would hate to miss it.

The night before to him was peaceful surprisingly so, but that wasn't what he was going for. Oliver thought as he blankly stared at the clock on the wall, which he thought was broken, and waited for the short hand to fall on the six; it was not for any reason in particular, seeing as they were just minutes passing by; but he'll be damned if he's caught in broad daylight.

Being the type of person that enjoyed the cloak of night - and in quiet rooms, would find trivial things to do while he'd talk to himself within said cloak; but what differed from him and a reasonably healthy minded person was that someone else always answered. It was a quiet voice, she was always gentle and he named her Becky; that was the name of his first girlfriend and first victim.

He kind of hated her;

'Where could I get pills?', he asked as he tapped his foot and stared at the cartoon on TV.

' Don't you have some in the nightstand?', she answered.

'Oh yeah, right.' , he thought, slowly sinking into his couch and melted to the dusty carpeted floor like an ice cream on hot concrete steps.

He hated that he couldn't feel nothing.

'Why so sad?', a question his better half genuinely asked him as he crawled to his bed in another room of his quaint yet affordably luxurious apartment.

"Because of you."

'What have I done?'

" Don't play stupid. I don't need this shit right now. And where are those fucking pills!?"

'Night stand...'

She at times had a way of making him feel bad about the things he had done once all the fun was over, he could sometimes feel her eyes all over him as she silently judged and scrutinised him while he did his work, Oliver could feel her right then and there as he now laid down on his unmade bed and remembered that his sock's sole was soaked from the milk he had spilt on the floor earlier in the day and smiled through his numbness;

'You're always fucking crying over spilt milk.', he stated his retort subconsciously, he never did allow her to say anything much, there was very little she had to say in order to make his brain hurt, for he knew what he did and what she would say, but he didn't let her say it because it was all he could think about...all she made him think about, but he could care less about it;

'Just shut up about it... You entice me with sweet words and poetry, then shame me with those damn eyes...', he thought,

'You always were a fucking tease...Just-'

" Shutup, shutup, shut up...", he continued to say like a mantra.

As he then closed his eyes hoping that she'll join him in the silence, hoping that sleep would come to him before her thoughts would if he lay a pillow over his eyes and listened to the loud bangs and bops and kabloowees of the cartoons, as he tuned into the outside world like white noise. Silence was a waking nightmare with her, recalling the eyes of those far away strangers.

Resisting the urge to hold his breath until he felt a head rush or until he passed out, but he loved himself too much to die.

He knew what he had to do to feel alive...

Three hours had passed by...

9:09 pm.

Oliver was so intoxicated by the narcotics that he slept like a child. Finding himself wrapped in his sheets and practically drooling, waking up to the sound of cartoons that he couldn't recognise playing in the background as well as miscellaneous sounds of the outside which were carried by the stale wind of the town's streets up to his third and final floor apartment.

Oliver lied there just a while longer, merely saddened by his boredom. He really was itching to do something... Anything at all to keep his mind busy, to keep it from squirming like a writhing worm in salt.

So he thought for a while as he now lay skyward and came up with an idea for a rush of exhilaration.

Grabbing his spring coat and boots and marched out the door on that note with nothing more than his wallet, butterfly knife and sudden determination to kill his boredom, wherever that would leave him.

And he felt that tonight he needed to do something drastic.

Walking the windy pavements of the town and passing by street walkers and other sketchy characters that earned no attention from him. Oliver was admittedly looking for a fight just to warm his blood or someone vulnerable or huntable that he could just kill and leave for dead to fill his apatite, but that seemed like something to end the night with; he then turned a corner and walked into a convenience store at first, for a pack of cigarettes but figured a few other things wouldn't hurt to steal.

He strolled down aisles and suddenly desired a change of hair colour and stuffed a tube of black hair dye in his large coat pockets as well as some candy bars in order to stop his ever growing craving for change.

Or in some cases chaos...

He got to the counter and before the cashier could turn to face him, he had swiped a pack of gum before handing the money for only the cigarettes to the pizza-faced brat who looked as though he suffered from some form of mental atrophy, while looking at a muted television screen with a picture of a missing girl in her mid twenties that Oliver recognised as he then grabbed his change and newly purchased box of smokes with a vacant smile on his face.

Oliver then turned to take leave on his way to the entrance slash exit, looking down as he unwrapped his cigarette box of it's sealing plastic before his eyesight slid up momentarily to a glimpse of a gentleman walking towards him in the same aisle.

And with the box now half open, he took a look again...

He had a confident sway in his walk as his eyes trailed and flicked through the items in the isles, his hair was black, voluminous and well groomed and it shone from the light above, his chiselled yet elegant face shed an androgynous light on the stranger, the likes of which Oliver had never seen in this town before as he watched him tighten and flex his jaw whilst he browsed; donning dark and fashionable semiformal attire and a leather jacket to match.

This stranger clearly had somewhere to be, but the whole ensemble made Oliver's jaw ever so slightly slack within his mouth - urging Oliver to pick his head up for a better look while he took out a cigarette. And although he tried so hard not to look at him as he would momentarily look down at his feet from time to time as he put a cigarette into his mouth, he believed this stranger's presence was personable, as they walked straight towards but past one another.

It was an awkward moment that Oliver felt he had felt alone, the short stack aisle seemed to get longer and longer until Oliver felt as though he could recall the stranger if ever they met again, but unbeknownst to himself he was just slowing down in pace. The stranger's face now etched into Oliver's brain by his sharp and chiseled features.

But he didn't really want to meet him officially, people have a away of spoiling things when they speak...

'But, maybe I could tail him... Who in perfect hell is this..?', Oliver kept a straight face as he too flexed his jaw as he stared the stranger down, horsing around with the ideas in his imagination of fooling around with someone like him; watching someone so beautiful fall away from life after possibly fucking his brains out first, whether he wanted it or not.

He could already imagine his hands around his beautiful neck...

His breath then caught in his chest and his thoughts stopped dead in their tracks once the bright eyed stranger's eyes lifted and turned their attention to Oliver.

He couldn't even recall what he was thinking about, as those piercing blue and frosty eyes gave him such a start that his heart jumped as if he'd tripped unsuspectingly or as if he was submerged into ice water. And they both held each other's gaze on one another.

Oliver couldn't stop staring at his eyes, they were as if the actual colour blue, a weird personification of the colour's meaning; they were cold but calming, bright but endless as Oliver couldn't quite spot where the pupil started and where the iris ended, as they rested behind lowered eyelids and on a straight face, as Oliver took notice of a scar that parted his left eyebrow once the stranger got closer. And there was a strange feeling of losing himself in the strange gentleman's eyes from what he could see, forgetting that those stormy oceans looked back at him.

The stranger then did the strangest thing, he smiled at Oliver in a gentle yet unapologetic way, almost as if he was well aware of what he was thinking. That he was graciously flattered but had better places to be, it was sort of sly in a way that then began an uncontrollable tingling sensation in otherwise strange places.

Ultimately dispatching their one-sided secret conversion as he coolly walked passed.

'Damn, that was Fucking...tss.', was all Oliver could think to say. Trying to shake off the feeling left behind by the attractive stranger.

He had to follow him...