Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Our Heaven ❯ The News ( Chapter 1 )

Feet worked their way down the cool wooden hallway of his small apartment, sighing in displeasure. He couldn't ever really figure out why anyone in his or her right mind would ever want to get up this early in the morning. He certainly couldn't stand it.

 

Mumbling a few curses, Duke slipped into his small bathroom and looked at his appearance in the mirror.

 

Messy short black hair and bright green eyes greeted him as he ran his hand through his hair. His muscles were quite a sight to look at in his white wife-beater, or at least, that was what all of the girls would say. His gray sweatpants hug loosely on his hips.

 

Grabbing a toothbrush and toothpaste, Duke began to brush his teeth, while grinning at the person in the mirror. Even though he had to go to school today, he knew everything was going to be great.

 

Because he woke up with her in his arms.

 

A soft blush hit his cheeks as he spat into the sink and watered his toothbrush. It wasn't exactly something new between him and his best friend. They had had tons of sleepovers together since they were young and every single one of them they had shared a bed together.

 

But something had been changing between them for the past couple of years, or at least it had for him. His parents and hers were best friends since high school and they just so happened to live next door to each other. Pagan and him grew up together; seventeen years together and nothing could never change that.

 

Duke would gladly take a bullet for Pagan; she was his savior and he couldn't ever repay her. He only wished she could understand how much she meant to him. But he couldn't image her doing that; she actually was quite dense.

 

Said dense girl came up and wrapped her arms around his waist and giggled.

 

“If you continue to brush your teeth like that, you're teeth will fall out before mine!” Pagan laughed as she moved in front of him and grabbed a brush.

 

Duke turned a soft pink color before spitting and cleaning off his brush. “Har Har Harr. Very funny,” He raised an eyebrow at her before smirking.

 

“Well I thought it was.” Came her simple reply as she pulled her shoulder length brown hair up into a ponytail. Personally, he wished she kept it down. She was so much prettier with it down.

 

And she was beyond gorgeous with her sparkling blue eyes. And how she couldn't hide her emotions and how she was bluntly honest and how she was the best thing out there. And how she had all the right curves and how sexy she looked in his black wife-beater and short-shorts. And how she inspired him and saved him and how she was -

 

“Duke! Earth to Duke!” Snapping out of his thoughts, he blinked stupidly at his best friend and noticed she was pointing at the toilet. “I have to go pee!”

 

“Ew, gross, Pagan! Keep it to yourself!” He yelled as he raced out of the bathroom and slammed the door. His cheeks were stained pink as he raced down the hallway and into his bedroom that smelt more like Pagan than it did himself. Not that he minded that, anyway.

 

Pulling off his shirt, he grabbed a random red shirt off of his bed and put it on. Pagan probably had placed it out for him. He pulled on simple jeans that hug low on his hips before slipping on some vans. Duke ruffled his hair a bit before he heard the toilet flush.

 

Grabbing his backpack, he walked out of his room and sat down at the couch, waiting for Ms. Slow-poke. She arrived shortly after, grinning at him as she twirled slightly, showing off her new sundress that she had bought with him yesterday.

 

Duke felt his breath hitch, as he looked her over. The dress was a pale blue color with a few white stripes running down it. It went down to her knee and had about two inch straps on her shoulders. It hugged against her breasts and hips before slowly expanding.

 

“So, what do you think?” She asked, pulling on strap of her blue backpack over her shoulder.

 

“I think, that a pretty lady like you shouldn't have to carry a big heavy backpack like that.” Duke replied as he walked over to her and grabbed her backpack away from her. Pagan pouted up at him before she grinned and thanked him.

 

They walked out of the house and both of them automatically went to a simple maple tree in the corner of his yard. The tree was very tall and had red leaves. It stood as the marker of where his yard ended and hers began.

 

Pagan ran up to the tree and hugged it, giggling. “Good morning, Arce!”

 

Duke simply rolled his eyes as he watched her. When she looked back at him and glared, he sighed. “Morning, Arce.” She grinned at him before she went back to telling the tree that they would be coming back later that evening.

 

After saying goodbye to the tree, Pagan and Duke hopped into Duke's car and sped off to school. Parking in the parking lot, Duke and Pagan walked out and went off to find their friends.

 

Duke and Pagan weren't exactly the type of people to branch out of their small group of friends. In fact, they really only had two other friends beside themselves. Heather and Thane had only known Pagan and Duke since the beginning of high school.

 

All knew that Thane liked Pagan beside Pagan herself. As stated before, she was quite dense.

 

“Heav! Thane!” Pagan squealed as she ran up and hugged both of them at the same time.

 

“Gee, Pag, it was only one weekend!” Heather exclaimed, laughing as she returned the hug.

 

“I know, I know, but stupid head behind me kidnapped me so I didn't get to see or talk to either of you guys! I missed you…” Pagan pouted as all of three of them rolled their eyes.

 

After a few more jokes and a lot more pouts and squeals out of Pagan, school started and the group split up to go to their classes. At the end of the day, they all ran out of school and Pagan yelled out in pure happiness.

 

“Yes yes, no more classes today!”

 

“Yeah, but what about tomorrow, didn't think about that now did you Pag?” Thane joked, poking her in the side. Pagan pouted and ran over to Duke, clinging to his arm.

 

“Thane is ruining my day! Make him stop,” Pagan whined softly, looking up at Duke. Duke blushed and laughed as he pulled Pagan off of his arm.

 

“Nah, you're a big girl, do it yourself.”

 

 

 

Pagan walked out of her house, humming softly to herself. Her mom had just asked her to go out and get some milk from the store down the street. Of course, her mom meant for Pagan to go ask Duke to drive her, since it was night, but Pagan didn't want to impose on Duke. He was, after all, always doing stuff for them.

 

Skipping down the sidewalk, Pagan finally made it to the store. She went in, talked to the cashier for a while before she bought the milk and left, thanking the person.

 

As she left the store, she decided that it was a bit too late out. If she didn't make it home soon, she was going to miss her favorite show and her brother would steal the remote!

 

Smacking her forehead, she laughed at her own stupidity. “I'll just take the short cut home, silly!”

 

Following her plan, she turned down a dirt road where no one lived on. She wasn't exactly sure why it was there, but she didn't care. It went behind her house and she'd be able to get there faster and maybe even scare Kevin, her six year old brother.

 

She was so caught up in her little plan about how she was going to scare Kevin; she failed to notice the footsteps closing in on her.

 

A figure came out in front of Pagan, causing her to stop in her tracks and giggle a bit. Why was he here? Just as she was about to call out to him, a greasy hand clamped over her mouth and her eyes widened in terror. “Why isn't he helping me? Help! Please, just help me…!”

 

 

 

Duke groaned as he rolled out of his bed. Every morning he woke up without Pagan snoring softly next to him, he awoke upset. He couldn't wait until he could wake up next to her every morning.

 

Wait, stop, rewind.

Best friends aren't supposed to have those thoughts. He really needed to keep himself in check or else dense Pagan would actually start catching on. That was something he really couldn't handle.

 

The morning activities went by in a rush, knowing the sooner he got done, the sooner her could see Pagan's smiling face at Arce. He quickly pulled a blue shirt over his head while trying to pull his pants up at the same time.

 

Slipping on his shoes and grabbing his backpack, Duke raced out his apartment without breakfast and almost forgetting his car keys. Looking over at Arce, there was two things he noticed instantly.

 

First; Pagan was nowhere in site. She always beat him to Arce when they didn't sleep over together.

 

Second; there was police cars at Pagan's house.

 

All thoughts raced out of his head as he ran over to Pagan's house and threw open their unlocked door. As soon as he did so, a blonde hair, blue-eyed boy, tackled him.

 

“Kevin, what's going on?”

 

The boy began to sob onto his chest, clinging onto Duke's shirt. “Pa…Pagan…Pagan!” He sobbed brokenly, breaking Duke's heart every second. What was wrong with Pagan?

 

He picked Kevin up and carried him into the living room where Pagan's parents and the police were. His eyebrows lowered as he sat down on the couch and held Kevin close to him.

 

“Anyone want to explain what the hell is going on? Where is Pagan?”

 

At the sound of that name, Pagan's family started crying and Duke couldn't handle it anymore.

 

“Where the fuck is Pagan!?” He snapped, narrowing his eyes.

 

A policeman placed his hand on Duke's shoulder and closed his eyes, sighing softly. “I'm sorry young man, she's gone.”

 

Gone? What did they mean by that? This was just a cruel, cruel joke they were playing on him. Probably Pagan's way to get revenge on him for throwing a bucket of ice cold water on her a couple days ago. Any minute Pagan would jump out and scream `Fooled you!'

 

“Wha…no…wait…what?” He said stupidly, looking at everyone.

 

“I…I asked Pagan to get…Milk last night,” Pagan's mom began, as she tried to quiet her sobbing, “I thought…she'd ask you to…drive her there. S-she didn't. It was late out and…and I think she wanted to get home to watch…her show. S-so she took the short cut…” And that was all she managed to squeeze out before she broken down once more, hiding her face between her knees.

 

Pagan's father took up where she had left off, in a soft, more controlled voice. “We don't know all of the details as of yet, but she was…” He stopped, taking in a shaky breath, “…raped and murdered…”

 

And that was when Duke's world went black.

 

Pagan, gone? No! That couldn't be true.

 

“St-stop lying to me! This isn't funny!” Duke cried out, slamming his eyes shut as they began to burn. “Pa-Pagan this isn't funny anymore, just come out and stop joking around!”

 

Kevin cried helplessly into Duke's chest, Pagan's father came up and placed his hand on Duke's left shoulder while Pagan's mom just cried harder into her knees.

 

“I wish it was a cruel joke, Duke…but Pagan isn't coming back anymore,” Pagan's dad stiffly said. Duke stared at him helplessly before a few tears leaked out of his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

 

Duke placed Kevin on the couch as he raced out of the house, his eyes burning with the tears he wouldn't release. He reached Arce and quickly pulled himself up to Pagan's branch and clung to the branch.

 

Pagan dead? It wasn't true. Duke let a soft sob leave his body, lifting himself so he could stare down at the branch. He could remember her carving into the tree as Duke sat on his own branch, her sticking her tongue out at him.

 

His fingers slowly raced over the craving of `Pagan's Branch, No Dukes Allowed!' A sob ripped itself out of his throat as he placed his head on the branch, his legs hanging on each side of it as his hands gripped tightly to it. It wasn't true.

 

“Pag…Pagan!” He cried helplessly at the loss of his best friend, the only person that ever mattered to him. He cried until his eyes dried out. He cried as Pagan's family tried to talk him out of their tree. He cried as his friends tried to comfort him. He cried as the sun slowly went down.

 

He cried, wishing, hoping, that he'd just wake up from the horrible nightmare and have Pagan back in his arms once more.

 

 

 

A/N: Hello everyone!

This idea actually came to me from a dream. I've been having it a lot lately and it wouldn't go away. So I decided that maybe if I write it down that maybe I'll be able to get some good night sleep. Hopefully!

Arce means maple in Spanish, since well, Pagan is Spanish [yes!] and the tree is a maple tree. Ahaha.

Anyway, read and review please. I would adore it if you gave me some tips about my writing, in a nice manner please.