Chapter 1. The Beginning to the End

Chapter 1. The beginning to the End

“Bye Cat”- I cut myself off not letting the words come all the way out. I pause just for a second. I think over it.

“Bye mom,” I say.

“Bye dad,” I say. My foster parents look at me and they see if I am upset. I am pretty upset actually. I don’t want them to leave because again I will be lonely. My foster mom looks at my face and smiles. So does my foster father. This is the first time I have called anyone of them mom or dad.

“Sweetie it’s only for two days and we promise we will be home by time you get back from your first day of school,” She says. Their business trip starts tomorrow and they will get back on Monday after I start high school. My foster mother starts to tear.

“I’m so sorry,” She says.

“If we don’t go then we could lose clients and then our job,” My foster father says.

“I know,” I say to them. They smile because I am being understanding. I give both of them a hug and they look surprised by this. I think I might have found people that will keep me, and that I will get really close to. I smile.

“Okay sweetie,” She says.

“Remember there’s food in the fridge and set the alarm when you leave and when you’re inside. Oh yeah, and don't forget the safe code okay,” She says. I nod my head. They wait a second.

“Well, we gotta’ get goin’” He says. They both say bye and wave looking upset that they have to leave and they do. I am alone again in a home that is starting to get familiar to me. Well, it’s not the first.

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I wake up suddenly from my sleep. Something is bothering me. I feel severely uncomfortable. I feel like something just isn't right with the world today. I twist my neck in a full circle cracking it with every gradual movement I make. I twist my back popping it a few times. I crack every single one of my knuckles, and then every single one of my toes. I guess it is just a habit that I have. I turn to my right to look at my alarm clock. It reads: 4:45 A.M. I roll my eyes. Oh Great I think to myself. Whatever it's too late for me to go back to bed. I get out of bed and look out the window. I guess it feels peaceful enough even though I feel not at peace. Maybe it is because I am alone. My foster parents have gone on vacation. Without me. Well they are both advertising agents and they said it was a business trip. Still sounds like a vacation as they soak up the sun in Maui, Hawaii. But I am four-teen. I am mature enough to handle this. I look at my turtle shell as he hangs out in his bowl. I go up to him,

"Well Shell, today is my first day of highschool. The beginning to the best time of my life. Living here has been great and you have been with me the whole time," I have had shell since I was six. He is an old little turtle. He ofcourse says nothing back but it helps me feel less lonely.

I flick the light switch adding light to my room. I do not like darkness very much. Darkness makes me feel lonely again. Although I am usually not lonely; I have made a ton of new friends here. I am actually starting to enjoy it here. I enter the hallway and I flip that light switch as well. I walk down the hall and into the living room. After I flip the living room light switch I turn on the T.V. Could be nice to get in some entertainment before I go to school. Although I do not feel as if I am actually going to go to school today. Just a hunch. Maybe I'll get sick. Or randomly chug some lemon lime soda and then eat a banana. Yep, that would do it.

I hear a rumble in my stomach. I feel kind of hungry. I head to the kitchen and open the fridge. I decide to have some leftover chicken from the other night. I can hear the television in the background. The news is on. I guess I don't really feel like changing it because if I did I would have. I guess some news never hurt anyone. I put the chicken on a paper plate and put it in the microwave for one minute. I shut the door to it and hit start. I see my reflection in the microwave door. My name is Emmett. Emmett Jaredson.

BEEP. The chicken is done. I pull it out and I walk to the living room. I plop on the sofa with my chicken and a glass of chocolate milk.

"Breaking news. Last night at about midnight a mass category 6 earthquake was felt in certain areas of Asia," the newscaster says. Wow, I think to myself. I was right about there not being right with the world. How sad. I think of all the lost lives. I think of the orphaned children. I continue eating.

"Tsunamis were also felt at the same time on the island of Hawaii." I look up. Observing. Remembering my new foster parents are there. I feel worried. I am terrified. "As you can see here The city of Maui, Hawaii has been completely destroyed, and all the large hotels as you can see here on the beach were downed, and any visitors staying in any of the hotels on the beach are most likely dead." I do not hear anything after the word dead. My hands shake. I drop my glass of chocolate milk on the wooden floor and it smashes and sends milk flying everywhere. My chicken sits on the coffee table unfinished. I hear ringing, and blurred talking. My breathing becomes unstable and my eyes redden. I look unto the television and I see the images of the beach where they were staying. I lose balance and I fall to the floor bawling. Tears begin dripping from my eyes unto the floor. The old house seems to lose its light. It happens so quickly that I feel as if I am blinded by the horror

I guess I am leaving again. The pain of that thought is horrible.

"I thought. I thought that this could have been the place that I could have called home and lived and just been happy. And felt loved." I cry. Tears stream from my eyes and the pain is horrific. The social worker will be here any time. NO! I think to myself. I am not going back into government custody. I would rather die. Still crying. I pick myself up off the floor. A new emotion rushes over me, and this time it is not sadness but rage. Why does this always happen to me. I storm across the living room with the most furious look on my face. I fling the door open and it crashes into the wall. I stand in my room. I shake my head in my last thing of despair. These people were the best for me. I look around and me and lost shot at happiness before me. I have never been so outraged. I turn around behind me and I open my closet. I pull out my suitcase that sits in the back. Without looking or caring I shove about half of my shirts into the case. I throw in some pants and underwear. A heaping load of socks and some extra shoes. I shove on my converse with a pair of ragged old white socks.

I take my suitcase and I enter my dead foster parent's room. I go up to their safe which is locked. It is curious how they gave me the code the day before they left. It is as if they knew they were going to die. Maybe they are alive and I can be hopeful. But no, good things don't happen to people like me. I twist in the combo and it opens. It is full of emergency money which I am now going to make my own personal survival money. I take huge chucks of packaged one hundred dollar bills and stuff them inside of my suitcase. This will buy me food, clothes, and a car to live in. I will have to find a cheap used car. Somewhere in the city. After I take my money I walk out into the living room. I take a minute to soak this in. I Emmett Jaredson am an orphan. I was put into foster care. I was once happy but now I am not. I am orphaned a second time and it seems like my world is falling apart. I pull myself together and quickly decide what I must do.

I must buy a cheap used car. I must buy tons of canned and dried foods. I must drive away and live alone in the wilderness and not get caught. Especially by a social worker.

I feel brave with this like it could work, but I know deep down it is hopeless and I am hopeless now. I am going to turn out as some evil lunatic that takes lives and hates his own. I have heard that is what happens to people that aren't loved, and since my last foster parents died I do not feel much loved at all.

Tears and frustration run through my mind. I begin to tear and scream at the same time. With all my might and force I run with my suitcase hoisted on my back. I slam all my anger and despair against the door with my body hurtling into it. The front door breaks and plummets to the ground with my body lingering on top of it. Glass breaks and there is a large crash. I pick myself up and storm angrily onward.

It doesn't matter I think to myself that the lights are on. There is no one to pay the bills anyway. I storm forward with the suitcase acting like a backpack with the straps around my shoulders. I storm down my little perfect coul de sac. With all the little houses around me quietly still asleep, oblivious to the world around them.

I continue onward trudging with tears in my eyes and rage in my heart down into the busy urban city that is in the middle of the area. The area I am seeking for is downtown Providence, Rhode Island. I ought to find some used car dealerships there. Although I know deep in my mind that they would refuse service to someone my age. This is just a way to get rid of my rage of loss. I know that a social worker is going to find me and I am going to end up back in the cycle of foster care again. Seeking happiness but never finding it. I feel extremely depressed and horribly lonely.

This is exactly how I felt after the last pair of my foster parents sent me away. They did not have the money or the means to take care of me supposedly. But I know it is because they did not want me. If they did not have the "means" they would not have signed up for care of a child in the first place. This adding unto the list. I do not even remember many of my care givers from when I was just an infant. That time in my life is long, long forgotten and a place that I hope I will not have to revisit any time soon. I am sure it was just as lonely as about half of my life now. I will have to make new friends. Have new teachers, and be warden of the government. I guess I already am being in foster care and all. It is a government based system

And just to think today was supposed to be the first day of school. The first day of high school. High school has officially been cancelled for me today. I guess now I am complaining about not being able to go to school. All my friends. I was going to have a great year. I guess fate has decided me a different course. Or maybe I am just a loser who has been cursed with bad luck. I am not sure whether or not luck is real but if it is I am sure I am on the bad side.

I am only about a quarter of the way through my walk to downtown. It does take some time to walk all the way there. The sky is smoggy tonight. Very gloomy. Just makes me feel worse as it adds to grief I am already in right now. My feet become a little sore because on this entire walk I have been storming and stomping my feet the entire time. With a large pound of rage with every footstep. But each step I take there is a wince of pain which represents the deep sadness hidden within.

I throughout my life have been told how precious life is. Is it really? In that earthquake I am guessing at least there were thousands of deaths. In the tsunami there were probably one-thousand deaths give or take few hundred. I don't think anything so precious could be wiped out so quickly. Terminated so easily. Ripped away with complete ease. It is a pretty horrifying thought. But it is the truth.

My journey to the city is now about a little over halfway complete and now I am guessing it is almost five-thirty in the morning guessing by the slight blue hues in the sky. The stars still continue to twinkle in the night. The blue hasn't changed that quite yet. I know it will. Everything changes or undergoes a change at one point or another. It is all part of a natural cycle. So that also means that pain is just another part of a natural cycle that I am somehow included in. That everyone is somehow included in.

A few cars pass me by on the road. I'm sure they look at me, but I am fairly certain they don't care. They have problems of their own. And I have problems of mine own. This might turn out to be the biggest. I get off of the residential streets and unto a major road. Still very slow traffic. With My suitcase/backpack strapped to my back I hit the button on the traffic pole that will give me the walking man. Even though I am upset I really do not feel like getting hit by a car. Well, I actually do not know how bad that sounds at this point. But I am too upset to try and get killed today. Too tired, and far too sluggish. Yes, far too sluggish. I feel like a worm inching its way down the streets. I am exhausted, and just exhausted with the pretense of live itself. i know that this whole thing of buying a car is absolutely futile and there are absolutely no chances of me getting anywhere or even getting service from a person selling cars. I know I will just go to the city, cool off, and then go back home and wait for one of two things to happen. Either my foster parents will come back or a soccial worker will. One of the two.

After I cross the intersection the urban downtown city life is not that far away. It is just up the road. I continue walking as I think to myself what has been lost during this hour. An hour ago I was asleep lying in my bed. Now I am running away from a home with no owner. There appears to be no emotion on my face. Nope, I am to upset for that crap right now. The point of destruction where you literally cannot feel anything. All you can feel is the cold morning air freezing your nose and your soul.

The streets of downtown Providence are filling up with adults going to work on this tragic Monday morning. I am sure most of them do not know what is going on with the world right now. They are too dang busy. I doubt it has even been printed in the papers yet. Although it might have been printed, but I am not quite sure. I am just using these thoughts as a way to clear my mind from all the sadness I am feeling right now.

I take my suitcase and walk to the city center. I look unto the glistening buildings that are losing their glow by the rising sun. They still shine though. They glisten through the early morning air. I stare at them. Maybe it will hypnotize me and put me out of my misery. Or at least distract me until further notice. Or until I am awoken into real life.

After staring for a while I hear a noise. It sounds like a far off boom. I look up to it, and I can see that I am not alone all the people in the street are staring off to see what has just happened. I hear murmuring and chatter. It is all interrupted by a large scream and a gigantic bang. People around me start screaming and I realize a pattern of destruction. What is going on?

Fear is the only emotion I feel as the ground beneath me shakes and starts to crack. I am toppled by the large amount of shaking. The earth is shaking and my pulse rises to extreme amounts and adrenaline kicks in. An earthquake has emerged from the ground and people are dying all around me. The apartment buildings that scratch the sky topple and smash over killing everyone inside. I start to run for my life screaming and crying as one of the tall buildings in the city center starts to fall behind me. I charge forward avoiding my own death when the earth we stand on begins to split. In the middle of the road on which I stand the asphalt cracks and splits as the tectonic plates move and change showing off its deathly burning lava. The tall building behind me smashes the ground and smashes many lives underneath it. The force of the crash and the air displacement sends me flying forward like I have been blown up. Fires emerges everywhere and people die every second. I am blasted into someone, and I topple her down to the ground near the earth split. She shrieks and screams because she begins to fall into the abyss below us. I reach out my arm in effort to save her life. She yanks on my arm continuing to scream and with all my might I pull her out. Her face looks oddly familiar, and in all this commotion I wonder if I am going to join my dead foster parents in death.