Lost In Another World

We all have that breaking point where we know we have to break free.

Smoke overwhelmed the sky that use to be a shimmering color of blue. The smoke derived from two twin towers that were just hit by two metallic birds that purposely drove themselves into the innocent coffins that encased thousands of people. Screams protruded from the buildings and chaos was created from the fire that gave off a reason for fear. People were frantically running around and asking why them? Why them?

Luke Phillips snapped out of his trance that seemed to consume his spirit and make it seem like he was there again. Rain hit the window and the sound caught Luke’s attention. He was sitting on the window’s ledge and he looked out into the darkness. All he could see was the blackish silhouettes of trees and the drops of water that flickered into his vision for a split second before they came crashing into the glass. The drops slowly rolled down the window and merged in a way that would usually relax him. Yet, after his dream, a moment of tranquility wasn’t going to happen. His heart was pounding and the sound of his breath entangled itself within the presence of the fear and the grief that he felt. Luke slowly trudged back to his bed and collapsed onto the unmade sheets. He worked his way under the sheets and tried to close his eyes, but the sense of loneliness that filled the room grabbed his eyelids and forbade them from closing permanently. He looked at the other inhabitants of the room. They were all asleep as if they had no care in the world. He envied them; he wished he could accept the idea that this was his new home. The idea hammered at him. This would never be his home! His gaze shifted from the carefree sleepers to the ceiling. His eyes stayed transfixed on the one thing that separated the shimmering stars from his field of vision. He felt secluded and incarcerated in this building that sent off an aura of sadness and abandonment. Luke sat up and rubbed his eyes. When he couldn’t sleep, which was often, he would get up and pace the labyrinth of the rooms. His feet hit the cold floor and a chill was sent through his body. He cringed, but continued to the door. He opened the door quietly, trying not to stir the others that stayed confined to their beds. When he walked through the door, a faint light that glistened in the dark hallway caught his eye. Luke, walking on the balls of his feet, slowly found his way to the door that harbored the mysterious light. When he reached the door that was ajar, he looked into the room and saw a man and a woman. The woman he knew, it was Ms. Kantor.  She was the front-runner of this prison. Everybody was afraid of her, even Luke. She was a cruel mistress that mistreated the kids and barked orders that made the unfortunate target’s spine shudder in way that made it seemed like it would never stop. The man on the other hand, was unfamiliar. He looked to be in his mid-thirties. He was tall with a business man haircut, but the thing that caught Luke’s eyes was his face. There was a scar that stretched from the bottom of his cheek to the underlining of his glasses. His glasses, his glasses also grasped Luke’s attention. Well, it was actually the pair of eyes that tried to hide under the lenses that created a haunting memory that embedded itself into Luke’s brain. There was just something that wasn’t right about them, they were black and listless. No emotion was to be found in the lifeless eyes that were entombed behind the glasses. Luke searched his memory to see if there was any recollection of the man, but there wasn’t. They were talking in a hushed tone. Luke tried to decipher the words that purposely fell out of the conversationalists’ mouths in the silent manner. The only thing Luke could hear clearly was… his own name. Luke was now more confused than ever. He started to slowly back away, when his foot hit a loose floor board. The shrieking of the board made Luke tremble with a sense of fear. If Ms. Kantor found him out of bed, there was no telling what she would do to him. Luke felt his breath within his chest cavity. It remained motionless with the sense that if it moved danger would present itself. Luke heard the murmurs stop behind the door. He turned around and steadily started making his way back to the room where his safe haven was. The balls of Luke’s feet met the floor once again as he picked up speed to reach his bed. This time when he reached the door, the sleepers were the last thing on his mind. He flung the door open in a somewhat quiet manner and quickly, yet furiously, shut the door to its supposed natural position at this time of the night. He made an Olympic-like lung to his bed and squirmed until he found himself safely underneath the sheets. He laid on his stomach with his head facing the window that was still covered in the rain drops that merged peacefully. His breath exploded out of his chest cavity like a prisoner escaping prison, trying to cut short his many years of rehabilitation. Each breath hammered its way out of Luke’s mouth. Their hammering increased when Luke heard the door slowly open. It felt like a horror movie, with Ms. Kantor and the mysterious man playing the murderous psychopaths and Luke left with the role of the helpless victim. Luke tried to focus on the rain to help calm his breathing. He heard footsteps create the shrieking sound of loose floor boards close in on his bed. Even with his eyes closed, he could feel their gaze pierce his body. The tension was sending Luke spiraling into a sense of panic. Their continuous gaze ravished any opportunity of his heart returning to its natural rhythm. Luke felt his heart bounce against his protective ribs. He heard them whisper something, but couldn’t make out what it was. He then heard them make their way back to the door which opened with a haunting shriek. They left the room and continued back to the room where Luke originally overheard their conversation. The door now resided with its latch in the crevice that secured it. Luke rolled over and his vision was again transfixed on the ceiling. He laid there with his thoughts and sleep continued to refuse to come. He usually would walk around at this point, but this time he may not be so lucky in escaping Ms. Kantor’s pursuit. He stayed in his bed and listened to the rain. The same sound that caught his attention after his dream, now tried to calm him and wash away his fears. The rain started to pick up and a crash of thunder echoed throughout the room, it’s as if the world itself hated this place. Luke tossed and turned until his eyes carelessly closed.

Screams resonated throughout the building. Luke was sitting on the ground level at the time. He was there visiting his parents. They had told him to wait there while they finished up their work on the 25^th floor. Luke was standing now, searching through the stampede of people, looking for his parents. He was crying and wondering what to do. He saw people trampling one another and slowly becoming more and more of the narcissists they already were. Luke remembered hearing faint screams that sounded familiar. He heard them again and knew that it was his parents. The screams manifested and walked down the steps straight toward Luke. It studied Luke and then it attacked…

Luke sprang to an upright position. Sweat trickled down his forehead and it blended in nicely with the tears that presented themselves on his cheeks. His heartbeat returned to the previous state that it had been at when he sat on the window’s ledge. Memories of his parents flooded his mind. Nightmares infected these memories and manipulated them until there was no happiness in them at all. Luke felt guilty that he was a survivor. How come he was still alive and his parents weren’t? Luke stood up and walked to the window. The outside world somehow was comforted and the rain lessened to a drizzle. He put his hand against the glass and the felt the cold rush over his fingers and consume his whole hand. He removed his hand from the window and where it had been, was now his handprint. The warmth returned to his hand and it just reminded him that he was alive. He thought about the screams of his parents, the last noise they would ever make, and how he could sense the sorrow intertwined in them. Luke tried to picture his parents and their radiant smiles. “I miss you guys so much” Luke whispered to himself just to hear his own voice. “I love…” A scream powered through the windows and made contact with Luke’s eardrums. Luke studied the others that were in the room and they all were still lying there without any burden resting on their shoulders. He thought he was just imagining it when the same scream, but louder struck his eardrums for a second time. Luke again studied the others and they still were asleep. Luke wondered how they didn’t wake up. It didn’t matter though; there was no mistaking that haunting noise for his own imagination. Luke walked to the door and opened it just wide enough to allow his eyes to survey the hallway. He didn’t see Ms. Kantor or the mysterious man. He opened the door a little more and squeezed through the gap. He continued to the front door and started to reach for the handle. His outstretched arm froze when he thought about Ms. Kantor catching him. Fear was now present within Luke. He started to tread back to his bed when the ear splitting scream caught his attention for the third time. “I’ll have to take a chance” Luke mumbled as his hand made contact with the cold, metallic handle. His other hand twisted the lock to its horizontal position that represented freedom. He flung the door open and stepped through the doorway. The rain openly welcomed Luke as it gently touched his cheek with a somewhat comforting manner. His pace slowed when he had no idea where he was going. Luke stopped completely and stood there with a baffled look on his face. He turned around to face the door that had earlier offered him freedom, but now turned on him and sealed his fate. Ms. Kantor was literally going to kill him. A flash of lightning illuminated the white letters that stood above the building day after day. Luke read the letters with hatred in his eyes. Together the letters spelled out “God’s Little Saints Orphanage.” He couldn’t go back now, no matter how much his brain begged him. Then the trees acted as rebounders as the scream ricocheted off them and sent Luke’s strength running for the hills. Luke fell to his knees and he just wanted to be back home. Not that prison that housed the sadistic women that controlled and manipulated the very bricks on which the orphanage were made from. No, he wanted his home that was filled with his parents carelessly going throughout their day and him carelessly doing homework or playing video games. Luke faded into the rain that encircled him and let him belong to a whole new world for a brief couple of seconds. The rain picked up and another crash of lightning illuminated something that made Luke figure out where the scream had come from. A run down house merged itself with the ground and stood in a peculiar spot. The reason why this spot was so peculiar to Luke was because the very few times that Luke was allowed to leave the orphanage to get some fresh air, that house had never sat in that spot. Luke’s muscles tightened as he rose to both his feet and forced himself to face the abandoned house that had no business being there. One step after another made his breath increase to a rapid state. The warmth of his breath furiously and repeatedly met the cool night air. Luke could see his breath as it kept increasing to a level of pure panic. He reached the house and just as his knuckles were about to meet the mesh door, the haunting, yet familiar scream welcomed him as the mesh door collapsed and the pitch black rooms of the house stood before him. Maybe this house isn’t so abandoned, thought Luke as his brain pleaded him to return to the orphanage. One of his feet crossed the threshold of what more increasingly seemed to be Luke’s coffin. His other foot cowardly stepped forward and resumed its natural place alongside the foot that had already entered the house that contained the unnatural scream. Blackness stretched out its arms and ripped the last ounce of courage out of Luke’s body. Luke inched forward and started to enter further and further into the innards of the house. The room was silent until the scream overpowered it and shattered the vase that had been sitting on a table. The scream seemed to be coming from the door that was closest to Luke. He made himself walk towards the door and he started to reach for the handle when a crash of thunder shook the house and made him jump back. He felt his heartbeat in every vein of his body. He again reached for the handle and this time he made contact with it. The pounding of his own heart echoed in his ears as he twisted the handle and was welcomed by a light that automatically turned on. The thought that abandoned houses don’t have electricity entered Luke’s mind and made him cringe. Behind the door was just a small closet, a mirror was present on the back part of the wall and Luke made contact with his own light blue eyes. He studied himself in the mirror. He had somewhat long hair that he styled in a fashion that made it look like he had just gotten out of bed, which right now, he had just recently gotten out of bed. He was a fit guy that had an average teenager’s face. Most girls would have considered Luke to be handsome. Mainly because of the light blue eyes that usually housed happiness and pleasure, but now they were consumed with fear and sadness. He stepped away from the closet, not closing it so the light would remain flamboyant in the shroud of darkness. He looked around and saw wooden, ravished stairs. He wished he had remembered to grab his shoes as he made his way through the minefield of glass that came from the shattered vase. Each stride he took was welcomed by another step that was splintered by the years that had badly unraveled this house to where it barely even could stand anymore. When Luke reached the top of the stairs, he saw that there was only one door at the end of the hallway. The hallway seemed to be a whole new part of the house. It surrounded Luke and it even seemed to have its own vendetta against him. The darkness mixed with the sheer terror that Luke felt sent him spiraling into a trance.

…Luke fell back as the screams lunged forward for its attack. It kept coming toward him and refused to let up. He ran towards the stairs to find his parents, but a man’s arms wrapped around him and started dragging him outside. Luke was screaming to be let go, but the man refused as he continued to drag him outside. Once outside, the man let him go and Luke started sprinting towards the building. His movement ceased and he froze when a loud crack erupted from the beams of the building and it started to crumble underneath its own weight. Luke fell to his knees as he watched with pure terror as his parents’ coffins were being formed more and more as glass and metal fell to the ground and created a haunting screeching sound. Luke couldn’t watch this anymore, he rose to his feet and started running. With the massacre behind him, Luke continued running and did not even look back.

Luke snapped out of his trance and looked at the one door that stood right before him. He grasped the handle, but let it go quickly as a wet, sticky substance now laid on his hand. In the very little light that followed him upstairs, Luke could see what was on his hand. Luke saw a faint crimson stain and knew immediately that it was blood. His heart rate again shot through the roof. He knew that he couldn’t just walk away so he flung the door open and his heart just stopped. Laying there on the floor, in this mysterious house, was Ms. Kantor. She was encircled in a puddle of her blood and Luke couldn’t breathe. He started walking towards her and squatted down next to her. There was no mistaking it, she was dead. Luke stood up and turned to the door. He didn’t know what to do and then all of a sudden his eyes made contact with the very eyes that Luke would never forget. They were black and listless and entombed behind a pair of glasses. The mysterious man stood before him and said something that made his spine shudder. “You’re coming with me Luke!” Luke’s heart unfroze and started wondering if it was beating for its last time. 

Author's Note

Need an honest review. I want to be an author when I grow up. Haven't really set up the paragraphs though :/