Addicted to YA discussion

Nobody wants to buy any gummies when there’s a dead lady on the ground. At least that’s what I’m thinking after reading the text Chef just sent me. It makes sense. But at the same time, I’m punching the air as I shove the edibles back into my backpack, hop on my board, and roll down to the crowd that’s building up in front of the school. I haven’t sold anything since lunch, when usually I would have sold out by now.

Up ahead, I spot Quinn at the back of the crowd, her skateboard peeking out from her backpack. She waves me over, and I carve a smooth turn in her direction.

“Hey, where’s Chef?” I ask, scanning the area.

She shrugs. “Probably in someone’s face, being all loud, as usual.”

Chef has a habit of getting in people’s faces, being obnoxiously loud. It’s funny, until it’s your face he’s hollering into, spit flying everywhere. I step on the tail of my board, lifting it up, and grab it. “So, any luck selling?”

Quinn shakes her head. “Nope. It’s been dead out here, no pun intended.”

We share a nervous laugh, but before we can say anything else, Chef pops out of the crowd, his eyes wide with excitement. “You guys gotta see this!” he exclaims, grabbing our arms and pulling us into the crowd.

When we finally break through the mob, everyone is standing at a distance around the lady. She’s lying there on the pavement, painted in that same eerie black and white, the way he always does his murals. The only color on the lady is the crimson oozing out of her chest, pooling out all around her. I walk closer, curiosity getting the better of me. Her chest is all marred up, raw and red. She’s slashed right through, over and over. She has long dark hair that sprawls out everywhere in a mess. Her face would be nice if it wasn’t for that messed up looking scar on her left cheek sticking out. She’s got on a zebra print short top with a short leather skirt, like she’s at some kind of party. I walk around her head, and for the first time, notice the toys scattered around her. There’s a big Buzz Lightyear figure with some different toy cars and robots all around. They all have some crimson dripped on them.

“Yo Ezra, you in my shot,” I hear someone say.

“Huh?” I look over and its blondie Asher with his shadow Mike, but we all call him Mickey cause he’s so little, he’s even shorter than most girls in our class. Mickey always following Asher around like a good little lackey. We’ve all been in the same school since 1st grade and we tried to save Mickey but he doesn’t want to be saved.

Asher swaggers over with his shadow following behind to where I’m at, his baseball bat in his hand. I swear he’s always carrying that dumb bat everywhere he goes. 

“Ya think it’s real?” he asks, looking over my way. 

“No way,” Mickey chimes in.

I look dead at him. “Wanna bet a hundred on it?” 

Mickey stays mute, as Asher taps on his iPhone and holds it over the painting. On the screen, the painting is gone; there’s nothing but pavement. I look back and forth from the phone screen to real life, and it’s still trippy as hell. But that’s how he got his name: Blek le Phantom. He paints these weird ass murals around the city that you can’t ever see with a camera. You gotta see it with your own eyes, and after a couple of days, they end up vanishing. Murals of who’s next up on his list, and how he’s going to kill them.

“It’s legit,” Asher announces out loud to everyone, like he some expert and we need his stamp of approval. 

I head back to where Chef and Quinn are at standing with the rest of the crowd. Everyone is talking about the first time they saw a phantom mural. For most of us, it goes back to 2011, when a painting of a room with dead bodies stacked on top of each other showed us all we live in an upside-down town.

The first time I saw that room, it hit me like a truck. It was a sunny ass day, the type that makes you feel all pumped and high on energy. Chef, Quinn, and I were cutting through an alley to get to their place when we stumbled across the mural. It stopped us in our tracks. It was something straight out of a Saw movie. The room was small and cramped, the walls closing in like they were about to squeeze you in. Walls all stained with red and peeling, and lying sprawled on the floor, a family, their bodies carelessly tossed on top of each other, bones protruding out of their skin. Their faces all stuck in that similar frozen look of pain and fear: a dad, mom, and little daughter.

I remember feeling a cold sweat break out on my forehead, my heart pounding in my chest like it was trying to break free. I wanted to run, to escape the nightmare in my face, but my legs wouldn’t move.

That was six years ago, we were little kids. All the adults told us the same thing about the Phantom. “Get in the house before dark.” “Don’t go out by yourself, or the Phantom will get you.” It worked so well; they started using it on everything, and we believed it too, like if the Phantom comes, you could be like, “I’ve been a good little boy, you can’t get me.” We used to be so scared to say Blek, like it would summon him to you. But now, look at everyone here. The effect is not the same anymore. Now it’s just something to talk about. You see anything enough times, and it loses some or all of its effect on you, even if it shouldn’t. It becomes ordinary, and maybe that’s a good thing. The dead family mural—I kept seeing it so many times in my head, all those nightmares every night until all the sudden they stopped, cause I got use to it.

Nobody wants to buy any gummies when there’s a dead lady on the ground. At least that’s what I’m thinking after reading the text Chef just sent me. It makes sense. But at the same time, I’m punching the air as I shove the edibles back into my backpack, hop on my board, and roll down to the crowd that’s building up in front of the school. I haven’t sold anything since lunch, when usually I would have sold out by now.

Up ahead, I spot Quinn at the back of the crowd, her skateboard peeking out from her backpack. She waves me over, and I carve a smooth turn in her direction.

“Hey, where’s Chef?” I ask, scanning the area.

She shrugs. “Probably in someone’s face, being all loud, as usual.”

Chef has a habit of getting in people’s faces, being obnoxiously loud. It’s funny, until it’s your face he’s hollering into, spit flying everywhere. I step on the tail of my board, lifting it up, and grab it. “So, any luck selling?”

Quinn shakes her head. “Nope. It’s been dead out here, no pun intended.”

We share a nervous laugh, but before we can say anything else, Chef pops out of the crowd, his eyes wide with excitement. “You guys gotta see this!” he exclaims, grabbing our arms and pulling us into the crowd.

When we finally break through the mob, everyone is standing at a distance around the lady. She’s lying there on the pavement, painted in that same eerie black and white, the way he always does his murals. The only color on the lady is the crimson oozing out of her chest, pooling out all around her. I walk closer, curiosity getting the better of me. Her chest is all marred up, raw and red. She’s slashed right through, over and over. She has long dark hair that sprawls out everywhere in a mess. Her face would be nice if it wasn’t for that messed up looking scar on her left cheek sticking out. She’s got on a zebra print short top with a short leather skirt, like she’s at some kind of party. I walk around her head, and for the first time, notice the toys scattered around her. There’s a big Buzz Lightyear figure with some different toy cars and robots all around. They all have some crimson dripped on them.

“Yo Ezra, you in my shot,” I hear someone say.

“Huh?” I look over and its blondie Asher with his shadow Mike, but we all call him Mickey cause he’s so little, he’s even shorter than most girls in our class. Mickey always following Asher around like a good little lackey. We’ve all been in the same school since 1st grade and we tried to save Mickey but he doesn’t want to be saved.

Asher swaggers over with his shadow following behind to where I’m at, his baseball bat in his hand. I swear he’s always carrying that dumb bat everywhere he goes. 

“Ya think it’s real?” he asks, looking over my way. 

“No way,” Mickey chimes in.

I look dead at him. “Wanna bet a hundred on it?” 

Mickey stays mute, as Asher taps on his iPhone and holds it over the painting. On the screen, the painting is gone; there’s nothing but pavement. I look back and forth from the phone screen to real life, and it’s still trippy as hell. But that’s how he got his name: Blek le Phantom. He paints these weird ass murals around the city that you can’t ever see with a camera. You gotta see it with your own eyes, and after a couple of days, they end up vanishing. Murals of who’s next up on his list, and how he’s going to kill them.

“It’s legit,” Asher announces out loud to everyone, like he some expert and we need his stamp of approval. 

I head back to where Chef and Quinn are at standing with the rest of the crowd. Everyone is talking about the first time they saw a phantom mural. For most of us, it goes back to 2011, when a painting of a room with dead bodies stacked on top of each other showed us all we live in an upside-down town.

The first time I saw that room, it hit me like a truck. It was a sunny ass day, the type that makes you feel all pumped and high on energy. Chef, Quinn, and I were cutting through an alley to get to their place when we stumbled across the mural. It stopped us in our tracks. It was something straight out of a Saw movie. The room was small and cramped, the walls closing in like they were about to squeeze you in. Walls all stained with red and peeling, and lying sprawled on the floor, a family, their bodies carelessly tossed on top of each other, bones protruding out of their skin. Their faces all stuck in that similar frozen look of pain and fear: a dad, mom, and little daughter.

I remember feeling a cold sweat break out on my forehead, my heart pounding in my chest like it was trying to break free. I wanted to run, to escape the nightmare in my face, but my legs wouldn’t move.

That was six years ago, we were little kids. All the adults told us the same thing about the Phantom. “Get in the house before dark.” “Don’t go out by yourself, or the Phantom will get you.” It worked so well; they started using it on everything, and we believed it too, like if the Phantom comes, you could be like, “I’ve been a good little boy, you can’t get me.” We used to be so scared to say Blek, like it would summon him to you. But now, look at everyone here. The effect is not the same anymore. Now it’s just something to talk about. You see anything enough times, and it loses some or all of its effect on you, even if it shouldn’t. It becomes ordinary, and maybe that’s a good thing. The dead family mural—I kept seeing it so many times in my head, all those nightmares every night until all the sudden they stopped, cause I got use to it.

sounds great
would love to continue reading
xx

I would!