Lukewarm, that was all he could feel. The sensation was similar to your whole body being submerged under water. He knew this feeling; it was the same dream he had been having for months now. Whenever he opened his eyes in the dream, he would wake up in real life. He never understood the meaning of this dream, and when he eventually woke up from this dream, he would forget all about it.

Lying in the lukewarm water with his eyes closed, he feels a presence. The presence feels comforting, like it was a part of himself or like they come from the same branch of a tree. Wanting to see whatever it was that felt so mystifying, the boy opens his eyes to get a better look at it, and then, just like that, he wakes up.

                                                                         +++

“That same dream again,” The boy muttered. He had been having the same dream for months now. He knew enough to know it was the same dream, but he could never quite remember the contents. He stretched languidly, using his right arm to support his left. 

A quick glance around his room revealed that it belonged to a bookworm with over a thousand books about all sorts of various topics, whatever piqued his interest at the time. A good portion of the books in his room were fantasy, but the majority of them were books about how economies work and general basic info. Why was he reading these? Well, mainly because he was bored; he spent all of his time reading books.

“Huh, I woke up before my alarm again.” Feeling triumphant, he looked at the alarm that was about a minute from going off, and he quickly turned it off. Putting his clothes on, he headed towards the bathroom, yawning on his way there.

As he entered the bathroom, he looked at himself in the mirror. The first thing anyone would notice about his appearance is his eyes. They are a deep violet color and sparkle similar to gems in sunlight. His eyes are so eye-catching that he has to put on contacts to not get weird looks from strangers or people assuming he's a weirdo. It's a real pain having people stare at him, and he hates it; it's one of the things he self concessions of.

After finishing up his daily routine, all that was left was putting on his contacts and heading out the door. But no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find his contacts anywhere. After ten minutes of frantic searching, he eventually gave up on trying to locate his contacts and decided it would be better to go without contacts than to be late to school.

Leaving the bathroom already in a sour mood due to losing his contacts, the violet-eyed boy passed by his father sleeping on the couch; surrounding the couch were empty bottles of hard liquor, each half-drunk or fully gone.

Looking down at the mess his father had made, all the violet-eyed boy could feel was disgust. He was disgusted at his father for going down the path that led him to where he is now, and he was disgusted at himself for not helping guide him into another direction. All those emotions are mixed into what he is feeling now.

He hated his father, and they barely talked; his father was the only family member that the violet-eyed boy had, but still the boy wished every time he saw him, wished he didn't have this man as a father.

As he cleaned the empty bottle of liquor, the disgust the violet-eyed boy was feeling vanished and in it sted was pity. Looking at the entrance to the house, there were two urns, one containing the ashes of his twin brother and the other containing the ashes of his mother.

Both of them had died around the same time but for totally different reasons. After cleaning and putting away the liquor bottles, it was now time to wake up his father for work. Hesitating, the violet-eyed boy stood still, regaining his resolve to wake his father up. Whenever he woke up his father to go to work, the usual response was him getting yelled at.

Wanting to get this part of his day over with as soon as possible, the violet-eyed boy tapped his father on the shoulder to wake him up. When he still didn't get up, it was time to speak to try and wake him. For some reason, his father would always wake up by someone speaking.

“Hey, it's time to wake up. You don't want to be late to your new job again.” As he said this, the man on the couch started to wake up, but it seemed like he was still drunk from the night before. 

“Shut up, you worthless piece of shit. I got fired from that job. It was a piece of shit job anyway. Now leave me alone and let me get some rest!” As his father yelled at him, all the violet-eyed boy did was turn it out. Rolling back over, the drunk man fell back to sleep.

Leaving the living room, all the boy could do was stay silent. As he walked past the front door, he saw the two urns. Both of them were someone special to him. “Bye, mother, bye brother, see you when I get back home.” Saying these words to the urns, the boy headed out the door and walked to school.

                                                           +++

Walking to school in the freezing weather, the violet-eyed boy's hands were shaking, and his teeth were chattering. It was cold outside, so cold in fact that it would make the tip of your fingertips go numb. Walking to school, he stopped by his best friend's house. Waiting for his best friend outside his house, he saw snowflakes falling. Looking up at the sky, he saw snow falling. He was so unprepared for this type of weather that he sighed. His outfit consisted of jeans and a sweater that was hoodless. 

“I should have checked the weather,” complaining to no one and shivered by himself. He waited outside his friend's house for what seemed like a decade, then finally his friend came out from his house.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, oh you look like a drenched cat.” Making a joke at his unprepared friend, they headed out towards school. Walking in the crisp morning air, all that the violet-eyed boy could think about was how cold it was.

“You're really shivering; you always forget to check the weather app. It's a weird bad habit of yours.”  Yawning while walking, his best friend has dark circles under his eyes from gaming too much last night. He is wearing a gray hoodie and dark pants all made specifically for cold weather.

“It's a common thing to forget.” Making a weak excuse for himself, the shivering boy cupped his hands together and tried blowing into them to warm himself up.

“Speaking of forgetting things, it seems your forgotten to put on your contacts.” Noticing that his friend was without his contacts, and showing his natural eye color, his friend naturally wondered why.

“For some reason, my contacts went missing. I checked everywhere, but I couldn't find them anywhere.” Feeling like nothing is going his way this morning, the violet-eyed boy sighs to himself.

“Yeah, you're getting weird stares even now, and we're just walking to school; imagine going to class that would be even worse.” As his friend teased him with a hypothetical, they kept on walking to school, talking about this and that, eventaily they made their way to a convenience store. 

Standing in front of the convenience store was a person they were around the same age as the two boys standing near. But something was off; it was as if they were in a different place. The person kept looking at the falling snow. The person, by the shape of their features, was male, but their features looked more fenmen then massculent.

The person standing still and looking up at the sky, watching the snow fall, didn't seem sane; something about him was uncanny. Observing him, the boy with the violet eyes seemed to instantly be on guard. But his friend didn't seem to notice; instead, he was rambling on about what he was thinking about getting at the convenience store.

The person standing still turned his face and looked directly into the eyes of the boy whose eyes were violet, and smiled. But not a normal smile, a smile that made the end of your hair stand up. The smiling boy's eyes where blood shot, and he seemed crazed.

Tapping his friend on the shoulder to shut him up, his friend finally noticed the crazy person looking at them. “Hey, dude, not to say the obvious, but isn't that person making eye contact with you and smiling creepily?” 

“Yeah, and it seems to be about my eyes since he's looking so intently at them.” Sighing, he responds to his friend, then, keeping eye contact with the insane man, he asks him a simple question.

“Do you need something with me?” He asked, annoyed since this person had been staring into his eyes this whole time, and it was creeping him out severely.

“I want them, no, I need them.” The crazed man mumbled just loud enough for the person it was directed at to hear what he said. Slowly walking backwards, the boy with the violet eyes started to back away to get away from the situation, but while he was doing that, his best friend got in front of him to shield him from the crazy person.

“Why do you want my eyes in the first place? That's kinda creepy.” Saying this to the crazy person, the violet-eyed boy is now fully behind his friend.

“No, no, it's not me who wants your eyes; it's punishment for copying, my god gift.”

Saying something strange, the crazy person whips out a knife.

“No worries, I'll dig your eyes out of your skull after killing you.”  Spouting nonsense, the crazed man rushed towards the violet-eyed boy, looking directly into his eyes. The only thing the boy did was stand still in disbelief. He couldn't imagine why this was happening to him or what type of drugs this person was on. But he knew one thing for certain: to run away as fast as he could.

But he couldn't run away; his legs were frozen and trembling, and last but not least, his best friend was right in front of him. But he wasn't going to let his friend take the hit and protect him, so in a rush he shoved his best friend out of the way, taking the knife to the chest.

Stumbling over with a knife lodged in his chest, the violet-eyed boy looked to his best friend, whom he shoved to the street to try and get him out of the way. But what he saw horrified him; his best friend, having been hit by a truck, now lay dead on the concrete with his face smashed in; it looked like he died on the spot.

He was in complete and utter shock; just a second ago, his best friend was right in front of him, and now he was dead, having been hit by an oncoming truck, but before he could process this, he felt somebody pulling something out of his chest.

Looking down, he saw the crazed person holding the knife that was inside his chest.

And a lot of blood was coming out of him; he was dying, but seeing his friend's dead corpse, he wanted to kill the person in front of him, the person who stabbed him and the person who ended up making his friend dead. 

Rushing towards the crazed person, the violet-eyed boy grabbed the knife and yanked it out of the other person's hands. Bleeding out and not long to live, the last thing the boy wanted to do was to kill the person in front of him. Slamming the crazed person to the ground, all that the violet-eyed boy could think about was killing this scum. 

“Any last words?” pinning him to the ground and holding the knife to his head directed at his heart.

“Yeah, die, you violet-eyed scum. I'm going to kill you and yank your eyes from your skull.” Hearing enough of his words, the violet-eyed boy stabbed the crazed person in the heart over and over again, till the screaming stopped and the person was dead.

And just like that, he on top of the person who stab him that he now killed the vilot eyed boy looks up at the sky. Seeing the freshly fallen snow, and feeling a cold form of death mix with the cold of the air. Left him now numb to the cold, and just like that,t falling over face up; the last thing he sees is the freshly fallen snowflakes.