Spiritual Sanity - Chapter 1 (Andley)

Ashley Purdy sat up quickly in bed, his heart thumping madly in chest, battering uncomfortably against his ribs. His thin t-shirt clung to his sweat covered chest, which was rising and falling quickly with each sharp gasp. Tears welled up in his dark chocolate coloured eyes, before they spilled out and dripped down his tanned cheeks. Each son that wracked his body, got louder with each slow agonizing minute that passed by, as realization kicked in.

The pain hadn't gone away. Andy was still dead, and Ashley, was still stuck here, fully living and alone. The guilt still tugged on his heart strings, and sat in his gut, slowly picking away at him. "If I had gone out sooner, I could have saved him. Andy would still be alive...". He choked on his last few words, hunching up his legs to his chest, buring his face in his knee's. He covered his mouth with one of his hands, but it was too late. 

Jake came running in, wrapping his arms around Ashely quickly, rubbing his back in slow gentle circles. "Shhhh.... its okay... I'm here now..." he whispered soothingly into Ashley's ear. Ashley slowly de-stiffened, hugging his arms around Jake and resting his head against Jake's chest. 

As Ashley began to calm down, he began to feel almost drowsy once more. But he didn't want to sleep. He knew that he would just go back to seeing Andy's face once more, reliving the terrifying moment where it all happened. 

Andy, was murdered, in front of Ashley's very own eyes. He watched the man that he was in love with, who turned out to actually love him back, slip away in his arms. 

Every night, Ashley was haunted with nightmares, as he once more watched his dearest friend and lover, die over and over again. It was playing with the fringes of his mind, taunting him, filling him with guilt. It was tearing his heart apart. 

"Jake... It happened again..." he croaked out, His grip on Jake, tightened, as he felt more tears flooding down his face. "I miss him so much..." Jake nodded slowly, running his fingers through Ashley's long matted hair. "Just go back to sleep Ashley...".

Ashley suddenly stiffined, his muscles getting tense, like he was a cat, preparing to pounce on it's prey. He then began shaking his head violently, screaming out like a small child that didn't get it's candy.

"No, no no no no no no, you can't make me go to sleep, please no! I don't want to watch him die again, or watch me try to kill myself again.." he trailed off. Pain to himself suddenly sounded so much better. A way to try and forget about Andy's death, if only for a little while. "He surely wouldn't mind would he? No.. of course he wouldn't. He's dead.." he thought to himself. 

"You're right" Ashley spoke quickly, letting go of Jake. "Sleep should help me, don't want to turn delusional. Goodnight Jake... and thanks..". 

He sat waiting until Jake had left the room and closed the door gently, leaving him shrouded in darkness. The moonlight faintly shone through the curtains, illuminating a small spot on the silky bedsheets. Ashley could hear Jake bounding down the stairs, returning to bed, and waited until it had gone utterly and completely still and quiet again. 

He reached out, and turned on the small lamp, that sat on the little oak stand, beside his bed. The room lit up brightly, and he squinted his eyes until they adjusted to the light. 

Ashley's room was quite large. It stretched over an entire attic floor, and lining the walls, were long shelves that went from the floor right to the cieling. They were filled with several different CD's and albums, many hustler magazines, and a varied selection of different novels. 

On one lot of shelves, next to the large window, sat different notebooks, tubes of paint, little packets of fabric dye, and a selection of pencils, markers, and paintbrushes, as well as a few blank canvases sitting piled up on the floor beside the shelves. Ashley had always been interested in art. Andy had always been coming over to look at his old pieces of artwork, or to mess around with the paints. 

Ashley took a shakey breath in, as he slowly got out of bed, hoping that the floor would not creak from each step he took. He reached the shelf, and pulled a small, leather case, from the back of a pile of paint tubes. Inside, sat an assortment of scissors, a tiny bottle of dark ink, and underneath, a razor blade, that Ashley often used to cut pieces of fabric, when the scissors didn't cut finely enough. He remember occasionally cutting his palm, and how much Andy would give out to him for hurting himself. 

"He's not here anymore" he reminded himself firmly. "He's gone, so now he can't say anything what you do". Ashley took the blade and closed the leather case again, before sitting it on the floor. He then sat with it, cross legged on the wooden floor, holding a sharp and very dangerous blade in one hand, bringing it closer to his bare wrist. Had it really come to this? 

Just as Ashley was about to make the first cut, he felt the room get suddenly much colder, almost like Jack Frost was hugging him from behind. The bedsheets rustled, as if it were windy, and Ashley found it hard to concentrate on what he was doing. 

But he wasn't fully distracted until, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a misty white figure appear beside his bed. It was tall, rather lanky actually, and he could almost see that it was completely clad in leather, as he turned his head to the figure. As the figure became clearer, and easiar to see, Ashley gasped. 

Standing, just a few feet away from him, still wearing what he had worn that horrible night, was Andy.