For some reason, more than nerves, more than the anxiety of being new and being surrounded by new, that hollow space has an ache to it. It doesn't exactly seem like he's the one who's meant to fill it. That's the thing about this emptiness, Jonas thinks. He feels as if he is reflexively looking for someone to just tell him the answers. He doesn't know who he's supposed to be yet - barely knows who Ren is yet. It's in every moment when Jonas isn't sure if he should be playing along or playing the straight-man, or if he's too annoyed for either. It rests in every beat of silence after one of Ren's awful jokes or stories. Like - maybe there is some sort of hollow spot. That thought has been rattling in his head ever since he found out he was moving and switching schools, but tonight Jonas suddenly thinks he could be wrong. This late in the school year, this small of a city, Jonas is sure that everyone's social groups are well established. It isn't like there's an empty silhouette just waiting for him to step into it. It's going to be hard to find his place in Camena. It's one thing to be The New Kid With A Bad Reputation around one person, it will be a whole other beast in a crowd. Despite the uneven pulse of his heart, trying to match the click-click-click of Ren idly twisting that radio dial, and despite the way the night has been draping over him like a cold, wet towel, he's glad to have some time alone before the party. He wills himself to just be patient for their guest of honor.Īllison, apparently. A spotlight feels like an apt metaphor for his anxiety tonight, but it's fine. Jonas kicks his beat-up shoes against the parking curb. It's all so heavy, in a way that neither light or dark should be. It's like sitting in a spotlight with the world falling away at its edges. Maybe it's just the neon-bright of the convenience store lights making the contrast too stark as it glows against their backs. The shadows creeping up on them are pitch black. His mind wants to hold onto the details of it because of the color. He's just hyper-focusing on something random. He's the new kid, it's a new town, and an overnight party on the beach is a pretty big deal. Something about it is just viscerally wrong. He lost track of what Ren was saying, because something inside him wants to turn inside out at the sight of that radio. Jonas has been watching it so intently that it was probably his fault they are sitting in silence. The dial sticks and it makes a cracking sort of click when it moves, as if it has to break itself apart to function. It's just a little handheld thing - teal and scuffed up like it's been kicked under the bed, lost and found one too many times. He feels unnerved, watching Ren fiddle with a radio. Sets his skin on fire just beneath the surface and makes it itch. He must have seen it on a tv show or something, somewhere innocuous, but now it's like the whole idea tickles something. Jonas doesn't know why this concept sticks in his brain. Their power over reality is limited, and so they tug and pull at whatever they can grasp, until they can speak through stolen seconds. In the garbled mess of white-noise, in the mix of static and snippets of channels, in those split-second fractions of words, there are ghosts. Just a radio, quickly scanning for any signal it can find and then moving on to the next just as quick. The idea behind a spirit box is that ghosts can speak through radio waves.
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