In a Not-World World

In a Not-World World will be a three-part story. This is my first attempt in writing a story that's not solely focused on sex, and I intend to write more, so please let me know your thoughts in the comments. Also, don't forget to follow my profile to be up-to-date with the newest chapter. Enjoy!

* * *

I always searched for answers.

The answers that would lead me to the real world.

Because I knew the place everyone called world wasn't real.

I don't even remember being told that. I was always lonely in my memories. Except for a few ones of my dad distantly hiding in other derelict memories.

One day, you will get to know the world and yourself. When the time comes, you must fight my boy. Or the world will devour you. Fight, and don't let ____ go.

The same words my dad had offered whenever I sought an answer, no matter how hard I tried to fill the gap in them, it was in vain.

But I wouldn't give up on them. Even as I became more and more inclined to embrace the unreal world, I kept pursuing answers.

As I was strolling down the beaten pathway, my eyes looked for a sign for permanent color in passing people.

Shiny eyes evolved into a depressing shade of grey, colorful hairs became the blackest of dark. Sweet full pink lips bore the most hideous flesh.

The longer I looked at someone, the uglier they became.

No, the more real they became.

Because it was the real of this world.

Ugliness born from fake.

So I stopped looking at one more than 5 seconds.

I'd not touched a warm body in years and now I hurted even looking at them.

My steps got hastier when the need to escape burned inside my gut. I felt a misplaced peace filling me as the crowd, as much as a magnification it is, thinned out. By the time there wasn't a single movement discommoding my estranged soul, I ceased motion and found myself on the wooden mini-bridge over the lake I remembered to spend what little time I had with my father.

Look carefully, son. But not too carefully. Embrace what you feel, but not what you see.

I wasn't sure at my 22 years old if those were indeed my father's words or something my subconscious created.

I rested my elbows on the railings and followed the words anyway.

What if I didn't look careful enough until now? What if I didn't let myself feel whatever it is I should've felt? I've always been hesitant about it. Scared of looking too carefully. Scared of seeing what I shouldn't.

But today not so much. Maybe because I now know I don't feel attached to life enough to fear doing something irremediable.

I let my eyes seek the unknown in the clear water. Kept kept and kept seeking it. Passed the time I'd normally avert my eyes and be on my way to the boring routine life I felt no attachment to.

My heart rate was slowly increasing and simultaneously I sensed a lose of control on my body. It didn't feel like mine anymore. The only thing I wanted to be true, myself, didn't feel real in those moments.

And my eyelids suddenly became the heaviest possession in the world.

~ ~ ~

"Finally...Finally..." A trembling voice was sobbing. It was, to my fagged out ears, distant until it wasn't anymore. The heartbreaking quiet voice called me from dormancy. I poured everything into the challenge of opening eyes but all I could manage was shaking my eyeball in the slowest of motions.

I only knew utilizing my everything wasn't fruitless when the sounds disappeared and a warm sensation roused me through my arm.

"Adrian! Can you hear me?"

I was in a familiar place. Way too familiar. Whitewashed wood ceiling blinked at me and I instantly knew it was home.

I tried to recall the prior events of what happened at lake only to regret it immediately when an excruciating pain abused my head.

"Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere? You have an headache? Can you tell who you are?" The voice bombarded me with questions. The sudden pain dissolved and I finally managed to turn my gaze at him.

He was sitting on the edge of the queen size bed I've been laying on. His adorably slender figure didn't register immediately, the blame being on his touch on my arm.

The arm that forgot the warmth of another human being.

When I shifted to peruse his face, everything unrelated to him died a useless death around me. Every second became an hour looking into his ocean-deep silver eyes. His snowy-white cheeks and unflawed rosy lips introduced all the undiscovered intensities to me.

And I felt the biggest fear in my heart since forever.

The fear leading me to turn my head away with sharpness so rashly physical pain accompanied it.

The fear that ugliness quicksand consumes the gorgeous young man a breath apart from me.

"Who are you? And how do you know me?" I finally found the bare minimum of common sense to ask after I sat up on the bed.

"I-I'm Lear."

I sensed rather than hear the discomfort in his words. He almost sounded hurt that I didn't know him.

Hell, I was hurt I didn't know such a beauty existed around me.

"And I don't know you." He added brazenly. "I was just passing by when I saw you collapse, and people along the way kindly helped me spot your house."

"I remember you calling my name." I stated rather questioningly.

His eyes went slightly wider and I perceived he just realized his mistake. Still, however, he proved persistent when he dismissed it matter-of-factly as he said, "Your ears seem to play a trick on you. But of course, you stayed out of it for a solid hour or so."

I didn't push any further and kept suspicions to myself. Whatever happened, I owed him a few beyond humble gratitude words, not inquiry.

"Thank you Lear." I said and was fascinated how right his name sounded on my lips. "Lear." I repeated, short of momentary refrainment.

I, once again, cursed the fact I couldn't just be drown in the smile that graced his mouth and settled for a moment of study.

Following that, neither of us spoke, and for some reason I enjoyed those seconds way more than the fashion I spent my time at home for years.

It wasn't odd that I assumed Lear didn't share the same sentiment when he stood up and said, "I should go now that I know you're doing fine."

I reluctantly nodded and watched his retreating figure.

But he didn't open the door of my room.

Not before sending a chill into my bones with his sharp, alarming voice.

"Do not let your eyes wander above the lake again. Never."

Then he left.

~ ~ ~

After dad left this world, I fell reluctant to use the word 'love'. Wherever I tried to put it, it felt misplaced and awkward. All my childhood friends whom I pushed away one by one, all the neighbour elderly people who warmly looked out for me in a daily basis, even when I polluted their kindness with cold and dismissive responses, and most of time even myself. By the time I stopped believing I could love a person again, I was lucky enough to stumble across

it.

Dad's art collection in den.

It appeared deliberately hidden and on display at the same time. As though dad wanted me to find it just when I needed it the most. In the following years, I grew attached to art enough to say I loved it.

I loved creating art. I loved looking into and exploring art works.

That's why I didn't leave the den for two whole days unless it was necessary. I needed to focus on something and not think about

things.

The lake and the drop dead gorgeous boy who scared the pants off me about the said lake, to be precise.

What was exactly that lake? Why was I warned about it? Did it have anything to do with how I fainted? And what did Lear know about it?

First and foremost, who was Lear?

What I knew was I couldn't learn anything laying low like I'd done for two days. I'd either find the boy or gather the courage to revisit the lake. Or else it would've meant letting go of the very chance I was granted to make a change I desperately needed in my life. Which hopefully connected to

real.

Hence I moved. Left the room I'd been secluding myself in and made up my mind to leave the security of my house first. Finding some answers, second.

Shower, the most crucial emergency after a nearly three-day of negligence in self-care, was done in a jiffy. I was relishing the refreshing room temperature in my birthday suit as I rummaged through the chiffonier drawers in my room for a clean trunk during which a foul smell made its way to the room.

Something's burning.

Trailing the smell was a brief journey, whose destination was, unsurprisingly, kitchen. What was surprising was the very offender causing the seemingly small fire.

Lear.

I watched, in unprocessed shock as he shifted in the room frantically and by the time he almost proudly managed to extinguish the fire, I lifted my dropped jaw to its place and asked in a voice that panned out uneven, "What are you doing here?"

The instant Lear turned aroud he went from short of breath to out of breath.

Did he really think I wouldn't discover him doing whatever in my kitchen?

"Why are you here? What are you doing? How did a damned fire even began?" I went on and on with questions seeing he didn't bother to answer them. But it wasn't until he said what he did I realized he wasn't shocked that I discovered him, he was shocked that I discovered him

naked.

"Uhm, nice to know you're into exhibitionism."

~ ~ ~

"So you've been in MY house for two whole days without MY knowledge and figured you'd fix yourself a meal in MY kitchen since MYSELF didn't grant you the luxury." I pointed out how absurd the situation was after Lear told me what he apparently supposed a reasonable story. After I'd quickly put on whatever I found in my room, I sat him down and urged him to do exactly that. Just not the way he did.

He had nowhere to go, but he wouldn't tell me any further than that bit. I was definitely irritated, which I surely showed, but I was also uncharacteristically excited by the whole farce. The instant I intended to find him, he appeared there as if my thoughts summoned him. It was a stupid thought, yet it was one evoking anticipation inside me.

"Long story short, uh-huh?" Lear gave an awkward smile.

I sighed big time, ran my fingers through my damp hair, pushing it back.

"Wait for a bit. I'll make us pancakes." I said, on my way to the kitchen.

Until around halfway of the cooking process I felt Lear's eyes on me. Making himself at home on the couch, he kept watching my every movement like that was the most natural thing to do and when he tore his gaze away from me I came to be the one to watch him.

His arms were resting on his knees, pulled tightly towards his upper body. And his jaw was placed over his arms. Like that, he was viewing the outside through the window directly adjacent to the main entrance door. Only he didn't actually look like he was focusing on what his eyes saw. He just looked, sighed from time to time and kept the positioning.

Gone was the shameless airhead, replaced by a boy who carried all the worries in the world on his tiny shoulders. And that was how I knew I wasn't going to kick him out after the meal. I couldn't.

I chose setting the table as the excuse for getting him out of whatever thoughts burdening him. I had him place the silverware -since there was nothing else actually missing on the table- on either short side of the humble kitchen table and the pancakes were done almost at the same time. So, shortly after that we got seated and both of us honored the first actual meal after, at least, two days with an enormous appetite. Lear passed on frequent praises to my not so much cooking-cooking and I beamed at all of them.

"How about this?" I started. "I let you stay here and in exchange you answer some questions."

He stopped chewing for a second and threw a fearful glance my way, so short-lived I'd have missed it if he didn't have my full attention. Then he used all the time in the world to chew and swallow the mouthful he had.

"Some." Lear declared firmly. "I can do some."

No, you can and will do more than some. Answer every-fucking-thing I ask you.

Was what the toughie inside me wanted to say but I kept quiet, put my plate in sink and washed my hands there, thoroughly and slowly, almost painfully rubbing them together. Then instead of sitting back opposite him, one step in the wrong direction followed the other, in no time my six feet three looming over him. He winced at the intrusion of his personal space, but I wasn't sure if it was because he was intimidated by me or was there something else.

I crouched down and held back the urge to grab the hand on his thigh. "Lear, look at me." I said softly and he did just that, so trustingly my heart broke into a million pieces. "Your family, your house. Did something happen?"

He almost averted my gaze in an attempt to get a grip on himself, but he gave in to temptation and his eyes shined with abandon and fragility when he got lost in mine for what seemed like eternal peace.

"I don't belong here." He said brokenly. He was tapping his foot nervously and when it looked like a tremor was about to run through every muscle in his body, he broke the eye contact.

So this is as far as the exchange goes

. All the walls momentarily went down got their place back. Lear rose and excused himself as laid-back as possible to match what I saw as his normal self, suggesting he ate too much he needed to lay down or else the kitchen would need a second cleaning the day. I knew better than to push further and raise his defense mechanism higher so I kept quiet as he went back to his room, the guest room of the house.

Once I was left alone in the kitchen, I loaded the dishwasher and gaped when I realized it took me more than a half hour. I'd caught myself getting lost in thoughts but I didn't think I was

that

gone. Apparently I was

that

gone and more than reluctant to go back to the den. I knew nothing could keep me distracted from my thoughts.