SCREAM!!!

Cedric Rivers woke up to the faint smell of rain and the sharp tang of graphite.

His sketchbook lay open beside his pillow, pages curled from last night’s feverish drawings. Pencil smudges coated his fingers, and the alarm clock blinked 6:32 a.m. like it was mocking him. Today was his seventeenth birthday.

He should have felt excited. Sparkly. Invincible. But all he felt was a tight buzzing in his stomach — a mix of nerves, caffeine withdrawal, and that familiar knot of awkwardness that birthdays always brought. People stared on birthdays. They expected smiles. And Cedric didn’t do smiles unless they were drawn in ink or pencil.

He pressed the sketchbook to his chest. Its cover was rough, frayed, worn from years of secrets and imagination. It wasn’t just a notebook. It was his world. Filled with survival games, maps, twisted villains, and alternate realities he could escape to when life outside became unbearable.

“Happy birthday to me,” he muttered, pushing himself upright.

His reflection in the mirror looked tired and unimpressed — dark curls in disarray, glasses slipping down his nose, a faint smudge of graphite on his cheek. The classic nerd prototype.

Maybe today would be different. Maybe Elaine would remember.

Elaine Parker.

She was golden. Graceful, charming, the kind of girl who lit up a room without trying. Cedric’s first love. His first kiss. The girl who had smiled at his drawings, praised his imagination, and made him feel like maybe he wasn’t invisible in this world.

He hoped she had planned something special for his birthday.

---

By the time he reached school, the morning sun had burned through the rain clouds, leaving the asphalt steaming. Students clustered around lockers, loud and bright, oblivious to the world beyond. Kevin, his best friend and fellow nerd, jogged to catch up, backpack bouncing.

“Yo, Cedric! Happy birthday, man!” Kevin said, breathless. His glasses slipped down his nose as he handed Cedric a thermos of coffee. “Thought you could use some fuel for surviving Elaine and her—uh—people.”

Cedric managed a weak smile. “Thanks, Kev.”

But the smile faded the moment he stepped into the cafeteria.

There she was. Elaine, pressed against someone else — Harry, the captain of the soccer team. Hands tangled, lips locked, laughter spilling into the room like gasoline on fire.

Cedric froze. His heart stopped.

For a brief, awful moment, he told himself it was a mistake. Maybe she had tripped. Maybe it was a dare. Maybe it wasn’t happening.

But it was.

Harry kissed her back. Elaine’s eyes flicked toward Cedric for just a moment. Not regret. Not shame. Only something sharp and cruel.

The cafeteria’s chatter faded to nothing. All Cedric could hear was the pounding of his own heart.

“Elaine?” His voice was a hoarse whisper.

She looked at him, unimpressed. “Cedric,” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I can’t do this anymore.”

“You… what?” Cedric’s stomach twisted.

“I need someone normal. Someone… not obsessed with that stupid notebook of yours,” she said, glancing at his backpack. “You live in your little fantasy world, Cedric. I can’t do it.”

Harry laughed. Elaine smiled. Students around them snickered.

Cedric’s chest felt like it was being crushed by something sharp and molten. Rage. Embarrassment. Heartbreak. All of it molten in his veins, burning his tongue and stomach.

“You’ll regret this,” he muttered, voice low, but icy with fury.

Harry snorted. “Sure, nerd.”

The laughter followed him like a swarm of locusts as he stumbled out of the cafeteria. Kevin fell in step beside him, eyes wide.

“We… uh… should probably go somewhere,” Kevin said, voice low. “Away from… that.”

Cedric didn’t respond. He barely even registered where his legs carried him. Behind the gym, past the trash cans, past the overgrown weeds where no one came. There it was — the long, rusted cylinder that students used to dump cigarettes. The halo tin.

He dug into his bag, fingers trembling, and yanked out the sketchbook. The drawings inside — his worlds, his monsters, his survival games — stared back at him like a mirror of his own shame.

“This is nonsense,” he whispered. “Just… nonsense.”

The wind picked up, rattling the trash bins. Cedric’s chest burned, a storm of emotion he couldn’t contain.

With a shout that echoed his heartbreak, he threw the notebook into the metal cylinder.

It didn’t hit the bottom. It didn’t even make a sound. It was as if the air swallowed it whole. For a brief, terrifying heartbeat, he saw something flicker inside the tin — a faint golden shimmer, like fire reflected in ink — but when he blinked, it was gone.

Cedric’s knees buckled. He felt hollow, broken, and yet a strange pulse of anticipation flickered somewhere in the back of his mind.

Kevin grabbed his arm. “Cedric… what did you—”

But Cedric didn’t answer. He didn’t even look back. Something in him whispered that this wasn’t the end. Something darker, something alive, had been awakened.

And deep down, Cedric knew: he had just made a mistake.