Through Aarav's eyes

Through Aarav's eyes

TW* This story has violence and substance.

It’s a mixed kinda fun. Some of you may like the chaos, some may not.

But if you want to join the fraternity—you gotta do the damn dare.

1983 October 30th: 2:30 Am—

“A-Are we really doing this?” Aarav whispers under his breath. The cool wind twisted through his hair like a pale hand grabbing at each individual strand. Through every crevasse in his ears, and the dry pits of his lips.

The wind whispers like a hollow vice to be reckoned with. And because of that vice… both of the men were shivering now.

Of course, it’s a cold day. As if it could get colder. The sun was well low and gone for some hours now and the sandy beach is still whispering to them.

“Come on MIT, you bet your ass,” Roger says. “We have to.

Don’t you wanna live that life? That experience… the brotherhood is worth it.” His brows twist with grandiose. “And don’t get me started on the frat sweetheart, they’ll loveee ya sexy dope.” He pauses, smirking, then his face drops. “It’s just acid.” Roger and Aarav have been close friends since their junior year of school.

“Just acid!? Right, Solid.” He says sarcastically. “Dude, last time I took this shit I ended up in the back of a police cruiser.” Aarav snickered. A night truly worth remembering.

“Whatever. That’s why we’re here and not West Key.” Roger waves his hand in the air, illuminating the vast oasis of the dark and sandy beach. Only light coming from the fire pit and a few tiki torches lining the area. “No cops here Bozo. Now.” Roger peeled a tiny square of blotter paper from its foil and held it between two fingers. “Eat. It.” He bumps Aarav's shoulder playfully. Aarav might have been feeling a bit suspicious of Roger. Why would he drag him into this knowing

Aarav didn’t care about Frat that much. His motives were blurry, but at the end of it all, he was down for a good time. Nothing bad would happen…

“Okay, fine.” Aarav rolled his eyes, then took the tab, and rested it on his tongue. “But if I end up in handcuffs again, I'm blaming you.” Roger grinned widely, It was slightly unsettling. But perfectly, dismissible.

“That's the spirit.” He muttered. “Beautiful!!”

October 30th: 4:30 Am—

Aarav’s feet pounded against the sand as he ran across the shoreline, each stomp collecting water around his ankles.

His chest heaved too, two hours vanished like nothing, and the drug was now taking half effect. It felt a bit heavy, especially for the dosage he took. Perhaps…too much?

“Roger!” He called out. “The fuck did you go?” He whispered more to himself than a person. He looked down at his own hands briefly, flexing his fingers as though fascinated they move on his common. And there's the Tingling sensation all throughout his body. “Fascinating.” He muttered. Just then he glanced up slowly, and his whole body freezes at the sight beholding him: There, a woman stood, far out…but clearly there. Slender and…Pulchritudinous. She has long green hair down to her hips. A natural shade, not some neon imitation. Her face is littered with freckles and a soft blush that seemed so vibrant despite the dark absence of light. And likely most importantly. On. The. Water. Standing there, as though defining gravity

He took a step closer without thinking. “H-hi.” He says softly. She just stands there, not smiling, but not indifferent…more uncanny, yet somehow, still alluring all the same. “Hey, um…are you…are you real?” He asked. Then immediately felt dumb for asking.

“Don’t…trust him.” She only said three words, yet they landed cadenced and hypnotic.

“I think… I need to sleep, or something, y-you…green. Your hair is green—” his words were cut off as the woman simply flashed a quick smirk and turned around walking as composed as possible under the dark and more importantly freezing waters.

Aarav blinked for a second in awa. “What the heck did Roger give me?” He suddenly became more aware, more lucid. Everything has a face. Everything has a voice. He just wasn't listening well enough. “I’m tripping balls right now—”

“Who are you talking too!?” Aarav spun around gripping at his chest that was now cageing a heart beating too fast for comfortability. “You fucking—” he exhaled a deep breath as his eyes met Roger. He was smiling deeply: Peculiar, but not alarming.

“I um… I don’t know…h-how much LSD did I take…?”

He paused thinking. “Just a tab,brother. I don’t know the dosage. Maybe…you took something else before we got here?” he posited.

“Right.” He muttered. He knew he didn’t. But whatever.

Roger hadn’t been thinking about dosage, just having fun. Which was proving hard what with the unsettling noises he’d been hearing.

“Hey, I-I keep hearing shit…you wouldn’t happen to be fucking with me right?”

Aarav scratched the back of his neck for a second before meeting his eyes.. “No.”

“...Good… because that would be so fucked.”

“I didn’t”

“Didn’t say you did.”

“Ok.”

“Okay! Fuck, get off my dick! We have to get back to the fire, we still have to be here until seven a.m. Ace.” Roger says sharply, and Aarav just hesitantly agrees. But there was a special little sensation…pulling at both their chest with undenounced and purely unrefined… distrust…and foreboding confusion.

October 30th: 5:30 Am—

The sun’s rising slowly. It’s almost like the world is breathing again. Both Aarav and Roger sit around the fire pit unusually still. Aarav’s inner self has become tighter and more elusive in the peak of his high. He fiddles with his thumb nail as his eyes bounce around slowly. Fire.

Sand.

Water

Roger.

Again. And again.

“WHAT THE FUCK DUDE!?” Roger shoots up yelling.

Aarav shoots up next.

“What are you doing?”

“You keep, looking at me, I-It’s weird, Ace!”

“Yeah, because…you’re… weird first.”

“Okay, I get it. I know what this is about.” Aarav mutters, stepping closer to Roger. “This is a prank? You are pissed because I got into MIT and you didn’t, look i’m sorry dude, but I—”

Roger’s fist crashed into Aarav’s jaw, sending him flying back. “You’re so selfish. It’s not about you! Or your stupid fucking school. You think because you live like a zealot and act like a nun, anyone who doesn't is beneath you. I’m trying to be nice, but you’re such a dick, you don’t see it.

Aarav grabs his face, taking a second to process what just happened. His body didn’t feel like his own, he knew it wasn't rational, yet it felt impossible to resist the compelling sensation forcing him to persevere.

He’s lying Aaran.

He dosed you.

He wants to hurt you.

Because he jealous of you, and everything you have.

Aarav swallows hard, feeling a sudden immersiveness of vindictiveness.

“You…” he starts to stand. “You did this, you…” Suddenly he stops in his tracks as he looks over to the water. There the woman was again. Smiling this time.

“What the fuck—” Aarav faulered slightly, blinking profusely. Roger’s eyes follows Aarav’s, then his stomach drops.

“You…you see her too?” He mutters.

“Too?” As in ALSO? “What—yeah I-I do. What the fuck is she?”

“I don’t know….it’s following me man.” Their eyes meet for a fraction of a second. Before they look back to the woman. “So…I’m not crazy.”

“Maybe…she’s… a crazie?”

Aarav shakes his head as he rushes to his feet. His breathing is fast now, his head spinning. And his vision… like gazing through a kaleidoscope.

“What’s happening?” He whispers as he stumbles back suddenly, falling until he hits the ground on his back with a thud. He could no longer stand. No longer speaking as he fell into…an unconscious state. Voices whispered. But there was no light. Cool air coddled his body like a blanket.

And one thing twiddles in his mind. “Where am I?”

October 30th: 6:30 Am—

Aarav’s eyes oscillate open slowly. Water grazes his fingers and the apricity kisses his skin. He uses his elbows to push himself up from the wet sand.

His vision is blurry as he looks around, stopping in his tracks to see the woman. Again. This time, not alone, but standing next to Roger, who was unusually still.

“What… Roger, you—”

“Shut up.” His voice echoes. “Do not address her without permission.”

“What? Who? I-I She’s—” Aarav’s eyes land on the woman next to him. She smiles while staring at him as nothing more than a bug. That’s when it all clicks.

Everything.

Roger acting weird. The woman not speaking. Showing up, disappearing like nothing. There’s a myth, sure. But myths are just stories. Dumb campfire tales. Internet nonsense. They don’t show up on beaches at sunrise. She couldn’t… really be one: Half‑bird, half‑woman creatures… wings… claws… human faces… voices that drag sailors to their deaths—No

No, that’s the cartoon version, that’s not what he saw. That’s not what this was. He shakes his head hard. A siren? The thought hits Aarav's head like a brick to the temple before he rejects it instantly. “No,” he mutters. “No, that’s not… that’s not real. That’s crazy. Roger… Stop fucking with me, Buddy!!”

The woman speaks. “You need to die.”

“What?! Die? No…no that’s not, I-I don’t need to die.”

Aarav’s thoughts start racing: sirens. They’re real? That means Roger is under her control. And then? He might really kill him? Just then the woman turns and releases an eerie rattle. It sounds so visceral and…inexplicable. She points directly to a rock and smiles.

“Kill him…and you will be with me forever.”

She’s talking about killing Aarav and still, it sounds entrancing.

Roger turned away to grab the weapon no doubt soon leading to his demise if he did nothing. So Aarav didn't waste a second. He shot up and ran towards Roger tackling him to the soft sand. Aarav growls as he fights into a pile of limbs.

Then his fingers wrap around Aarav's neck. Suddenly, it’s harder to breathe. “Come on man!! Stop, please!!” His eyes tick with tears as sound is stripped from his abilities. But he doesn’t, so Aarav does the same thing. He wraps his fingers around Rogers neck, and squeezes hard.

Roger chokes squirms under Aarav, but he doesn't stop. After all, it’s either Aarav… or Roger.

Soon enough. There’s no more movement at all.

Just silence. Aarav stands up slowly with shaking hands as he looks around. When he does he sees the woman. She’s just standing there smiling. Wide grin. Completely remorseless.

“What now? Do you think you possess the virtue… to fix what you just did?” She starts. “The waters belong to me. And me alone. If you want to be, you must follow my rules. Humans do not hold any seniority here. So will you…leave or… stay?”

Aarav looked back at Roger, who’s laying lifeless on the sand. Then he looks back to the green haired woman. He groans before he shakes his hand in his own hair.

His thoughts are running a marathon. And colors, so many colors clouds his vision. “Y-you killed him. And…me, I-I’m not…” he pauses, taking a deep breath. “It was not my fault. It was you!”

She just smiles. And smiles. And smiles.

“I wish you luck…human.”

October 30th — 7:30 AM

Sirens.

Or maybe Sirens.

The sound is so loud and constant Aarav can’t tell if it's the police or the creatures he swears he saw. The ringing fills his ears until it feels like his skull is vibrating.

Hands grab his shoulders, rough and urgent, lifting him up from the shoreline where he’d been half‑lying, half‑sinking into the wet sand. The water laps at his legs, warm and murky, soaking through his clothes. His hair is damp, plastered to his forehead, sweat mixing with seawater. He’s pale and dizzy. Before he knows it, he’s upright again.

The world tilts sideways. Everything is too bright, flashing red and blue lights breaking through the morning haze. People move around him in frantic blurs. Someone pats him down, hands checking pockets, arms, waist.

Violating to say the least.

“What… happening?” he whispers, voice barely verbal. The words feel heavy, like his tongue isn’t working right.

Eventually, the other voices finally register.

“It’s always kids doing some gruesome bullshit,” a gruff man mutters behind him, but the words echo in Aarav’s ears like they’re underwater. Aarav’s vision clears just enough to see the scene: police everywhere, boots sinking into sand, radios crackling, yellow tape fluttering in the wind.

And like a beauty x chose. The ocean behind them churns like an innocent bystander. Lies. Aarav thought it over, and over again. “What… what’s happening?” he asks again, trying to move, only to feel cold metal latch into his wrists.

“What are you doing?!” He jerks back instinctively, panic rising. But the cuffs just clamp harder.

“AGHh!” He groans, breath coming fast and loud. “Why?” His voice breaks without his permission. “I—I didn’t—”

“Look around, boy!” the officer snaps. “You’re going to jail for a long time.” He starts reciting rights, monotone and bored, like this is routine. Well now he’s just another killer in the system, right? Nothing new here. Nothing wrong. Only…everything is wrong through Aarav’s eyes.

Aarav’s eyes: drag across the sand, then freeze at the sight: Two bodies, covered in plastic. The sheets ripple in the wind.

“No. No… t-that’s not human,” Aarav stammers. “That’s a siren. A…a killer, she—”

“Shut up!” The man yanks him backward. “That’s not a siren. It’s a nineteen‑year‑old girl from your school. And you’re high off your ass. Damn shame.”

“No! I-I just took LSD, it’s not…what I saw was real. She… controlled him.” his voice gets higher. No doubt to anyone he looked like a kid having a psychotic break. Aarav knew this. But it didn’t help the avalanche of words spilling out of him.

“S-She made him… try to kill me. I—I had to do something before he could—” The officer shoves him into the back of the car.

“Sorry, kid, but we know what happened. Better if you don’t talk. We found the packet of psychedelics in your car.”

“Psychedelics… but no… it wasn’t—” Thud. The door slams shut in his face.

He sits there, chest heaving, sweat dripping down his temples. His mind floods backward.

The moment they arrived.

Roger’s face, the screaming, the water, the green hair—

That’s when it hits him. Was it all fake? Was… it… fake?

He stares out the window, lost, the world outside blurring as the car starts moving. The beach grows smaller behind them. He looks back one last time. And out of the corner of his eye, just for a second; he sees her.

The woman with green hair. Standing at the shoreline.

Watching him.

The siren.

His heart starts racing, and he wants to scream out. But the thump is too loud in his ears. It’s like there’s a cold…lifeless hand over his mouth.

Even though he saw it. Right now, he still…can’t know. Is she real? Or are Aarav's eyes full of deception?