Kill the Lights-Chapter 1.2

Ch. 1 Part 2

***

At the similar time in a house in LA.

An expensive house looked pretty gloomy probably because the lights were turned off, or it is probably because the house is in a secluded place maybe because of the white moon. The house was so quiet that it seemed like no one was living there.

But deep inside the house in the basement. A small storage down the stairs. Inside the wooden door, the sound of a small machine and water never stopped. But suddenly stopped a while later.

The wooden door opened and a man with a tired face came out. Something probably happened in there. The man was sweating cold sweat and came out of that basement. He opened the basement door little and stared at the wall outside with his blood shot eyes. There were many shiny camera lenses pointing at him.

Those damn paparazzi… He could see those people over the wall trying to take a picture. He pressed a button, and all the blinds in the house covered the windows. The living room was filled with cold atmosphere. He accidentally kicked a pile of newspapers on the floor.

His manager Tony Bridget brought these in the morning. Those newspapers were filled with provocative headlines.

‘….Haley, confessed to Raynoah?!’

‘Did Hollywood’s scapegrace Haley Lusk actually confessed to American sanctuary Raynoah?? – Last night there was a shocking news that Haley Lusk confessed his feeling to Raynoah.’

And on the paper full of ridicule and criticism there were some crappy picture of the man.

‘Oh my god. Haley! Proposes to Raynoah. Finally crazy?’ On the provocative headline they used a picture from last year when the man climbing the wall of rehab to run away. On the paper where it says ‘Haley Lusk vs. Noah Raycarlton,’ there was a picture of him falling down holding a cup of coffee after a trial of drunk driving. He hated that picture.

The man turned around stepping on the newspaper.

In the living room, unlike the picture in the newspaper, there were many pictures of a beautiful man. Everything was when he was a child.

He was a child actor. When he was little, he used to be popular actor, but after his parents died, he destroyed himself quickly. Drinking, smoking, doing sex, and getting high was everything he did. Cute lovely face dropped to gloomy and normal face.

His parents’ money and the money that he earned was uncountable, but these gold digger cousins and his extravagance life made his finances nearly to bankrupt. The accountant agency warned if this kind of life continues, he’ll definitely go on bankrupt in one year, but he didn’t care.

Because in his eyes, he still looked cute and lovely like he was when he was a child actor. He thinks that the pictures that paparazzi took are all malicious pictures, and the pictures that he sometimes take for modeling looks bad because the photographers hate him. He still thinks that if he takes care of himself little bit he will definitely come back in a short time. And he will have all the ads and movies to earn a lot of money.

He went to the kitchen and took out an Evian water from the refrigerator and turned on the answering machine.

Beep- soon there were 27 messages pouring out. Out of 27 messages two of them were from his manager Tony. ‘Liz? Liz. Why aren’t you answering? Are you serious? Don’t you know you have schedules tomorrow?’ He skipped his wining messages and deleted. ‘I’m seriously gonna stop being your manager!’ He erased all 25 messages indifferently. ‘Hi, Haley.’ There was a gentle man’s voice. ‘I’m Lauren.’ He always thought he was annoying, but he decided to listen.

‘Haley. I heard that you still collect those weird stuff? Rachel told me you used 300 thousand dollar on those weird stuff. You’re kidding right? Your accountant said you’re nearly on bankrupt…. Do you even have the money to pay your fine that Raynoah sued you for defamation?’ The man was listening quietly and after his ridicule, he said, ‘bitch’ and deleted the message. This guy was an asshole. He got mad and pressed a button to hear another message. This time it was a woman.

‘Hey, lovely Liz~ Honey. I’m Rachel. Did you use the thing that I gave you? How was it?’ He frowned that she called out his nickname. He murmured to the answering machine, ‘I did use it, but I don’t think there is any effect. Honey.’ She answered like she heard him saying, ‘you are not gonna get the effect right away. But hold tight. I do understand that all the other things I sold you didn’t work, but that one is different. I brought only three from Japan. Honey, you know my friend Billy? Next day he used that, Angela came to his house and went straight to his bed. They are getting married next month. –actually, ‘doing that’ is little scary and nasty, but the effects are guaranteed.’ She said with a sweet voice.

‘You just wait. Your wish will come true soon.’

After she said that, he was like of course it’s worth 300 thousand. It needs to work. And he smiled. He was about to drink another slip.

‘Oh yeah, honey. I told you this right?’

He dropped his water bottle. The bottle was rolling and water was spilling everywhere. Instead of looking at the bottle, the man was holding his chest. His eyes were wide opened.

‘After doing that, you need to be careful on everything you do. The wish always come true, but sometimes the spirit enters and something goes wrong. Haha… but it’s probably made up story right? It still creeps me out because doing that is little weird.’

A laughing voice was coming out from the answering machine, and the man was hardly breathing. His big opened eyes looked at the window behind the blind and saw the white moon.

Bang… there was a sound of heart dropping. It wasn’t a mistake. The man frowned and grabbed onto his chest. He felt pain like his heart was going to rip apart. For a second, he saw a desert and a man. He had black hair and eyes and looked normal, but even though he never saw him before, he knew who he was.

The heart, head, and the body was shaking. The voice of Rachael was saying something through the answering machine, but he couldn’t hear anything. Something went wrong, but he couldn’t turn back anymore.

He heard his heart stopping and soon he collapsed on the floor. Cold spilled water was wetting him, and the man had his eyes opened widely and took his last breath.

His world was shaking and collapsing, and it started to build again.

This different world was a desert and there was a man that he saw a second ago. His black hair was like a soldier’s, and he woke up with a tired face. As soon as he woke up, he took his gun and looked around. And he took care of his team members. He looked over his shoulder, and Haley felt like they had an eye contact for a second.

Mason Taylor…

He murmured his name and the two overlapped worlds got completely separated.

Few hours later, Tony Bridget who was mad at the person who didn’t receive the call went inside of Haley Lusk’s house. And saw him on the kitchen floor with his eyes wide opened.

He wasn’t breathing and his heart was stopped. Tony called for the police right away, and the police verified that he was dead. Right when Tony was sobbing and saying ‘What about next week schedule?’ Haley coughed. Everybody stopped working and looked at him. And a young police that was standing closest to him startled little bit and put his ear to his heart.

There wasn’t any sound coming from him.

“….Did I misheard?”

Is there a cat in this house? When he was thinking that.

“---?”

He felt a small breathing. When he thought he heard something wrong, he definitely heard a small heart thump this time.

“Ahhhhhh!”

“What’s wrong?”

The young police screamed and stepped back, and the other police asked. The young police got paled and said,

“He, he, he’s alive…”

He’s alive, this! He shouted and Tony who was standing stupidly ran towards him and checked his heart.

He wasn’t lying. His heart started to beat again.

Like a miracle.

That was the start of changes.