“Don’t talk to strangers”. That is how the banal saying goes. This should apply to me, I know, and that is what I have been living with for years of my existence now until the boy who introduced himself as Zelo came into my life. Not that I was attracted to him in any sort of courtly way—well maybe you can say that, but that is definitely not the case. It’s only been days now, since I met him and yet I feel as if I could talk to him about anything and everything. This may seem a little too cosmic, or romantic, or whatever you call it—but the day I met Zelo felt like being reunited with an old friend. I’ve come here for almost every day since I last betrayed him by not going. I even feel a little weird myself, making a cemetery the place I most like to hang out. But it’s not the place I’m after, really. More like the person. Sometimes I like to stay at the cemetery for too long I have to do my assignments there. Once, the boy even helped me with it. this is kind of surprising since Zelo isn’t the type who seems to be exerting that much effort in school, judging how rebellious he may seem. It was one of those evenings when we could fall silent and though a conversation has died out, no one would seem to need to do an effort to start one again. No awkward silence. On that night he sat beside me, wondering what I was doing. “What is that?” he asked.

I showed to him the paper, too tired and annoyed by the problem to explain.

He reads it for a while and smiled. “I get it.”

I frowned. He’s not bluffing, right? “You do?”

He nodded twice, and that was when our little tutorial began. He taught me, without necessarily getting the pen from my hand and he would direct me what to do. Where this thing was derived from, how to use it in the formula, where it really belongs in the figure shown. Everytime I would ask a question he would pause, and when there’ s something he can’t answer but he understood, he  just laughed and told me, “Just believe it.” it felt comforting, having him taught me. It pretty much reminded me of having someone to do that with me at school. One of the smartest persons I know, the one whom I look up to and have as my role model (though I’m too lazy to function just like her), my best friend, Bunhong. I don’t know why, but he reminded me of her that much. Sure, Bunhong speaks in a softer, nicer voice, very much unlike this boy, who speaks in a tad higher, rough singsong voice, but there’s just this unnamed factor that would make me consider them on the same boat. More like a vague resemblance. Yes. Very much like that.

This particular night I have slept with him—underscoring heavily, boldly, literally. I’m a free teenager, so is he, and we’ve spent the past hours of the night clapping over heavenly bodies and making silly wishes that are too close to impossible. Well maybe the last part only applied to me. When I told Zelo to make a wish he didn’t; he just watched me while I was doing so. I told him there really must be something he should wish for. But then, as if I stepped on a landmine, that usual naughty boy expression on his face was wiped clean off and was replaced by a sad, lonely one. “I don’t make wishes.” Was the only thing he said. That made me shut up.

A piece of my consciousness surfaces and I perceive, without necessarily opening my eyes, that it’s the middle of the night. The deeper part of the night, I mean—I think it’s already 11:30 or so. That part of consciousness easily sinks back down again, to join me in my slumber, and eventually my dream.

I’m a girl who has a lot of dreams. Literally. Most of them are nightmares, and when I say nightmares I mean remarkably scary ones, the type you could barely get out of, alive. My dreams mostly consist of gore things and horrible specters, and they’re there every night; dreams that are haunting, incorrigible ones.

In this sleep, for the first time in ages, my nightmare comes in an entirely different form. No boy asking for help, or the child version of a girl I know asking why? Instead, I think this is worse than what I am accustomed to.

In my dream it is afternoon and the sun is rooted in its position on the horizon, unsure yet whether to set or not to set, spreading orange and purple and pink streaks of light across the sky, it makes me want to paint it. I realize where I am at. I am at the cemetery, at the position where this boy Zelo would frequent, and it kind of bewilders me that he is not here. I’m wearin