Captive in My Own Thoughts: Pt.1

This is a book that I am currently writing. I hope that you enjoy it! ^-^ *NOTE: there are some curse words in this book.*

Humble Beginnings

I stumbled on my shoe lace and tripped. There was a loud smack as hit the concrete. I immediately knew that there would be blood. I started to taste copper.

Then I fell again. But this time, it wasn't an accident.

I was pushed.

I eventually got up. I had to get dressed to go to school. My alarm clock had gone back to sleep with me at least five times, and it was getting really late. I shuffled out of my pajamas and put on a t-shirt. I didn't know what pants to wear though. I have too many multicolored pants. Pink pants, green pants, even pants with little cats on them.

I should wear something...dark. I'm not really up for wearing pretty pink pants today. They'll just make me look even more childish than I already do.

I put on the darkest jeans that I had-- deep blue jeans with tiny smiling elephants all over them.

Close enough.

I went into the kitchen to start some water for tea. I knew that I wouldn't have any time to finish making the tea, but what the hell.

After I had started boiling the water, I went into my bathroom and closed the door.

Time to make myself look at least a little bit less tired.

I picked up my toothbrush and started scrubbing. I wondered whether or not robots can feel pain, and if cats take s***s in shoes just to annoy the crap out of their owners.

Spitting out my toothpaste gunk, I reached for my mouth wash. I didn't bother to pour the mouthwash into the cap they give you, I just tilted back my head and inhaled some of the painfully blue liquid.

See, the thing is, when you are tired and incoherent, you don't always do tasks correctly. As I filled my mouth with the mouthwash, I lost the grip I had on the container and the contents of the bottle spilled out onto my bathmat.

I sighed and picked up the empty bottle, leaving the blue stuff everywhere. I looked at my phone and it was already 8:05. I was supposed to have been at school five minutes ago.

I abandoned all hope of getting dressed, and ran out the door. Who cares if I still had drool cracked onto my face?

*

Teachers need more vacations. It's was only two weeks into the new school year, and they already slumped in their seats like children who hadn't gotten ice cream. Morning announcements had already started, so I had no chance of getting into the cafeteria. If I had I would be “distracting students from retaining important information”. The most important information that has ever come out of morning announcements was that the school was getting a coffee machine. I don't even like coffee.

I don't like a lot of things that other people like. Here is a list of things that I am supposed to like, but do not.

1. Chocolate. I have eaten it so much that it has gotten bland.

2. Baby monkeys. Just babies in general. I don't have a reason for this. I guess because they get to be talked to in that dumb, cutesy voice that anyone and everyone puts on in front of a baby.

3. Shorts. I don't like to shave and even if I did, I hate summer, thus leading me to stay inside for months.

4. Drama movies. Yes, I am a chick but drama movies set high standards for both sexes that are just impossible to meet.

5. Antz. That movie was weird and I did not enjoy it.

6. On the topic of movies, I think that The Nightmare Before Christmas is overrated. I like the animation but the story...nope.

I looked up and saw smiling faces filling out of the cafeteria, talking about drama class this, new crushes that, blah blah blah. I got up and walked to my first class. It wasn’t anything special; it was math.

I rose my hand whenever my teacher asked a question. I'm not amazing at math, but I'm not bad at it either. I actually like it a lot. It's one of the only subjects that really makes you think. History and science are all just facts, and English is reasoning.

We're required, by law apparently, to take notes. When my teacher wrote something on the board, I wrote it in my note book. Flawless note-taking.

After we were done with our lesson, our teacher shooed us away with an assignment on linear functions. I quickly scratched some numbers onto the page and handed it in.

My teacher looked at me disapprovingly, telling me that I really should take more time on assignments like these. They do count as 20% of my grade. But as she looked at my paper, she saw that I got all of the questions right.

“Umm...can I read my book now?” I asked my teacher this in the least “you just got owned” way possible, but it still sounded rude.

My teacher buried her head in her computer and nodded towards a table in the corner.

“Go read over there. I don't want you distracting other students.”

I said a polite farewell and tossed my bag onto the table. I started to read, but found that the din in the room was making reading impossible. I felt like I had see-through vision, and my eyes were gliding through the paper like glass. I gave up and took out my sketchbook.

My sketchbook had all sorts of drawings in it. Happy drawings, sad drawings, even rebellious drawings for when I go into full “f**k the police” mode. My drawing style isn't really age appropriate. When I draw people, I draw them with huge, deep-set eyes. I fill them in with as much charcoal that I can manage, and put wrinkles under the eyes to show sleep deprivation. My people always have tense, even shoulders. They are all as awkward as me.

The bell rang in my ears and a mass of people stampeded outside. I gathered my things and walked casually out the door. There are two things that are fun to do at my school on break: go on the swings, and hang out with friends. One of those options was off of the table, so I sprinted towards the swings, dropping my bag on the sidewalk as I went.

I got there in the nick of time; there was only one swing left. I thought that I could finally read in peace, so I once again tried to read. I ended up eavesdropping on a conversation between two 11th graders.

“Are you kidding me?!” Girl #1 threw her hands up in frustration.

“What's wrong?” Girl #2 pouted in a sarcastic manner.

“Shut up this is serious! I just broke one of my nails!” Girl #1 waved hand in front of Girl #2's face.

I saw the nail, but it looked like only one fourth of the nail was gone. I chronically bite my nails, so as long as it isn't bleeding, you're fine.

“Stupid swings. These things suck. Let's go somewhere else.” Girl #1 jumped off the swings in the least graceful way possible, and Girl #2 followed on her coattails.

Two things. #1: Girl #1, swings are amazing. They, in fact, do not suck. #2: Why do people waste time talking about dumb things like nails? It doesn't advance friendships, conversations, or man kind by any length. People have a limited amount of time on this block of rock that we live on, so why waste it on trivial things like nails. I guess it makes our futile existence a little less dreary.

Either that or I've been stuck inside too long.



I Forgot How to Breathe

I lived in a relatively small house. Me, my cat, and my mom made the house even smaller. My room was the smallest of the two bedrooms, since in the last house we lived in I got the master bedroom. It was littered with posters, all shattered remains of fandom past. Minecraft, Naruto, and Pokemon screamed for my attention. I didn't have anytime for them then.

Mrs. Iwishiwasanywherebuthererightnow, with the middle name “worst English teacher ever” had given the class an assignment. An essay, you say? Nope. I had to draw a poster for the book that we were reading. I think that my teacher gave us that assignment so that she didn't have to read 20 class essays on what people did that summer. Easier to not give a s**t that way.

I had no idea what the book is. English class had just started, due to introductions and howdy dos. We hadn't even gotten to read the title of the book; our teacher just plopped the book in our laps as class got out. I searched my backpack for the book and found it eventually. I gagged.

The book was Eat, Pray, Love.

I am assuming that you have gagged as well. I do not feel like creating a summary of this book, and if you have thoroughly researched the topic, you will not blame me.

I ended up just copying the movie poster. I don't understand why there is a movie for Eat, Pray, Love, but it does exist for some reason.

Two hours later, I had a fully colored poster. I got over the fact that I had just made a movie poster for Eat, Pray, Love and walked to the kitchen. My cat was sitting on the counter, waiting for food.

“I told you not to come up here! You're going to get gross cat germs all over the counter.” I picked my cat up, along with a lot of protest.

I opened the cabinet and I saw that we didn't have anything good to eat. I threw the fridge door open and saw a can of half-empty olives.

Beggars can't be choosers.

I grabbed a spoon from the silverware drawer and started to eat the olives. It was then that I realized that the olives were dried out from days of being open without a top.

I put the olives in the trash and decided to order a pizza. I had twenty bucks from my grandma, remnants of my birthday money. I looked up the number for a local pizza joint, and ordered a large pepperoni pie with green peppers. When the lady asked if I wanted anything else, I asked for a root beer. The total was $18.23, including the delivery fee and the tax.

I'll still have some money left over. I'll just give it to the lady as a tip.

The lady said the usual: “It'll take 30-45 minutes for the pizza to be done. Thank you for your business!”

I said thank you back and hung up the phone. 30-45 minutes seemed like a long time to wait, but the pizza got to my house in 24 minutes. I took the pizza inside and started to eat it. My mom wasn't home; she had to go to a business meeting. So I had a large pepperoni pizza all to myself.

I ate three slices and then gave up. There was just too much pizza. I went into my room to take a nap. Pizza can really take it out of you.

I climbed into my bunk bed and covered myself with my comforter. I shrouded myself in stuffed animals to try to help me sleep. But I couldn't.

Darkness started to creep in around me. Thoughts that had haunted me for ages sneaked into my room and whispered into my ears. I remembered embarrassing moments from childhood, and movies that were too scary to forget. Sadness from the past filled my emotions as I looked back on what once was. Going to amusement parks with friends, eating ice cream on the pier, and laughing uncontrollably at a fart joke.

And then I started to cry. I wasn't sobbing, I was just crying. I was crying for my past self. I was crying for the darkness that had been there all along.

I felt like an elephant was on top of me. I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't breathe because I had forgotten how to a long time ago.



Smiling Elephants

I woke up in a florescent pink room. There were lights all over the floor, making the room sparkle like a diamond. I felt like I was in a giant cube. I looked around but I didn't see any doors. There weren't any windows either. I looked up and saw a skylight. There was a ladder that led up to the skylight, so I climbed the ladder. As I got higher and higher, I doubted that the ladder would ever end. I kept climbing for what seemed like forever.

I finally saw it. The ladder ended abruptly in a small room covered in lace and various fabric. A door at the far end of the room called my name. I opened the door and walked into the unknown. It was pitch black, and there was no sign of it getting any lighter.

The door slammed shut behind me. I spun around, but I didn't sense anything there. I started walking straight. I couldn't tell my right from my left, but I did feel like I was going somewhere. All of a sudden, I heard music coming from below me. I looked down, and saw a face carved into the wall. It looked like an elephant. The elephant looked at me for less than a second, smiled, and slid in the opposite direction.

I didn't know where it was going, but I had no idea where I was going, so I ran after the elephant. It was getting farther and farther away. I couldn't run any faster, so I gave up. I collapsed onto the floor and landed on something hard. I felt around and found a remote control. I felt the remote front to back, and found that it had two buttons. One seemed to be shaped like a cross, and the other was shaped like a heart. I pressed the one that was shaped like a heart.

The floor opened and I fell.

*

I jolted out of bed and hit my head on the ceiling. I cursed and rubbed my forehead. I had only been dreaming. I had fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion from crying.

I ripped the covers off of me and got up to go to the bathroom. I checked my phone on my way. It was 12:03. I had gone to sleep six hours ago.

When I got into the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked horrible-- baggy eyes, runny nose, crusty flecks of tear from my meltdown, and red skin from crying decorated my face. I washed my face with cold water and dried it off with a towel.

I made a mental note to get my s**t together, and wandered back to my room. Something brushed up against my leg, making me jump back. I looked down and saw my cat.

I started to scold her for scaring me but remembered that she was a cat, not a young child. I picked her up and sat on the floor. She purred as a pet her head, and settled down on my lap. I stared at her for a long time, and felt guilty for keeping her in the house all day. When I stopped petting her, she looked up at me and meowed.

I didn't want to keep petting her, so I set her down next to me and got up. I continued my journey to my bedroom and sat down on my reading chair. I sat in that chair for at least 30 minutes, until I realized that I had school the next day. I jumped up and got into bed.

*

My alarm clock did it's job. It woke me up at 7, giving me enough time to make breakfast. I put two blueberry waffles into the oven and set the timer for 5 minutes. I went back into my room to get dressed.

That day, I felt better. I decided to go with a pair of pants that had orange stripes running down the length of the leg. I put on a shirt with two cats giving thumbs up, with the caption “Purfect” on it. I didn't like the shirt that much, but all of my other shirts were in the dryer.

I heard the timer go off, and went to go get my waffles. As I ate them, I watched a video of a guy making a pizza. He didn't know how to spin the pizza dough, and ended up dropping what seemed like five pounds of it on the ground.

I finished my waffles and got up to brush my teeth. I did everything that people do in the morning to get dressed. I washed my face, brushed my teeth and my hair, and put on deodorant. My clock said that it was 7:40, so I grabbed my backpack and dashed out the door.

The second I was outside, I felt cold. The wind was howling, the trees were bending, and the clouds looked like they had been holding in rain for decades. I remembered that it hadn’t rained in seven months.

Isn’t global warming just the best?

I jogged down the sidewalk to the corner. There was a really good deli on the corner, and I had some left-over allowance. Hot air greeted me as I opened the door to the deli. I slipped inside of the store and went to the front counter.

“What’ll it be?” A gruff man with an equally gruff looking face stared at me with a pad of paper and a pen.

“I guess I’ll have a...umm,” I paused to look at the menu, “I’ll have a cheese sandwich with extra pickles. Oh, and can I have some mustard on the side?”

The man looked at me like I had just asked him for a horse sandwich sans the hooves.

“Uh yeah, sure. You want a drink with that?”

“I’ll have an iced tea.” He was about to walk away when I remembered something. “Can I have two straws please?”

He pretended not to hear me and started cutting some bread.

*

Damn it.

The second I bit into my sandwich, I realized that Gruff-boy McGruffkins had forgotten to put pickles on my sandwich. I paid forty extra cents for those pickles. Not like that’s a lot but...still. I had wanted pickles on that sandwich.

I sipped my iced tea (without an extra straw) as I looked up at the sky. The sky was covered in a blanket of soft, fluffy clouds. They looked so innocent, yet so menacing. Something pelted me in the eye and I reeled back.

All of a sudden it was raining. One raindrop turned into ten, then twenty, and so forth. I ducked under an awning to hide from the rain. I was already late for school, so I figured that a couple more minutes of lateness wouldn’t kill my record.

I munched on my sandwich, taking little bites at a time. The rain was coming down in buckets. There was no way that I was going to be able to leave the safety of my awning for a long time, so I relaxed and sat down. My sandwich was gone and I was running low on tea.

I closed my eyes and thought about childlike things. Why penguins can’t fly, or why dogs like to stick their heads out of windows. I thought about why clouds are so far away, yet they feel like they’re so close.

I heard a screeching noise; the sound of tires giving up. I ripped open my eyes, and lept up. A truck had spun out of control and was heading in my direction. I froze, like a deer stuck in headlights, and then I sprung out of the way at the last second. I heard the sound of crunching metal as the car slammed into the building that I had just been leaning against seconds before. The car sputtered as the engine gave one final goodbye.



The Girl

I blinked. My heart was pounding and my breath was clawing its way up my throat. There was silence. Too much silence. I got up and looked at the car in more detail. The front of the car was demolished. It looked like an old candy wrapper that was thrown in the trash. Then it came to me--the driver. Did I really want to look? There was no way that anyone could have survived that...right?

I hesitated. My fears all came to me at once: blood, bone, and tissue. I hated to think about stuff like that. I couldn’t even look at a steak without gagging. But if there was someone in there that needed help, I needed to help them. If I just walked away, the driver could die. If they weren’t dead already.

My phone was at home, and I didn’t see anyone in sight. I couldn’t run to the deli; it was over a mile away. I exhaled and looked in the car window. I was not expecting what I saw.

In the passenger seat, there was a girl. She wasn’t any older than me. She couldn’t have been. I tried to open the door to get her out, but it wouldn’t budge. I tried all of the other doors and came to the same conclusion. I peeked into the passenger side window and saw that all of the doors were locked. I needed to do something, fast. I could tell she was losing blood.

I whipped around, scanning for anything that could break a car window. There wasn’t anything. Then I saw a building that had brick stairs leading up to the front door. I ran over to it and tried to get a brick out. No luck.

I was starting to panic. There was nothing in sight that could break one of the windows in the car. I frantically looked across the street. Still nothing. A memory of a BuzzFeed video sprang into my head. Spark plugs. If you throw some of the ceramic pieces of a spark plug at a car window, it will break. My heart fluttered and I ran back to the car.

*

Guess what? Spark plugs are located in the front of the car. As I said, the front of the car was mangled. So, the only way that I can free a dying girl from a car is to get to the spark plugs, which are located in the front of said crumpled car.

I had no other option. I had to get to at least one of the spark plugs. I was faced with sharp pieces of metal that would not move. I put my hand on what was once the hood and pulled.

S**t!

I snatched my hand back and cradled it with my other hand. There was a huge gash on my palm. The blood wouldn’t stop coming. I ripped off one of my sleeves and wrapped it around my hand.

I ducked down to see if there were any parts on the ground. A couple bits of metal, some plastic from the bumper, but nothing that I could use. I sighed. I had no other choice. I had to get the hood off of the car so that I could get to the engine. If I got to the engine, I could get to the spark plugs.

I had to have some padding to protect my hands. Otherwise, by the end of the rescue, I wouldn’t have any. I emptied out the contents of my backpack and slipped my hands into the main pocket. It wouldn’t be a lot in the protection department, but there was no other option.

I gritted my teeth and started to pull on the wrecked hood. For a while (maybe four seconds), my hands were safe. After a while, my backpack glove ripped and my hands were torn to shreds. I winced and kept pulling.

Creaks and groans followed. Slowly, the hood of the car gave and I got enough of it off. I located the engine and removed one of the spark plugs. I threw the spark plug on the ground and crushed it under my foot. With a ceramic piece from the spark plug, I shattered passenger side window.

Finally.

I found the lock on the door and flipped it. The door clicked, signaling that the door was unlocked. I swung it open and crawled into the car. The girl was covered in bruises and had a huge gash on her forehead. Blood redder than cherries flowed out of her wounds. Many a cringe occurred before I finally picked her up and carried her out of the vehicle. I tore my other sleeve off and tied it to her head.

Now what? I don’t have a phone, and she isn’t necessarily a Victoria's Secret model.

There weren’t any cars in sight. Well, other than the truck that was slammed into a building. Even if there was a car that worked, how would I use it? I didn’t know how to drive and I definitely didn’t know how to hotwire a car.

“Are you going to take me to a hospital or are you just going to hold me for a while?”

I gasped and almost dropped the girl. Apparently a car accident and a hit to the head don’t knock you out.

“Jesus Christ! I thought you were unconscious.”

“Well, I’m,” sputter, “Obviously not.”

“I would take you to a hospital if I had a phone or means of transportation, but seeing as I have neither of those, you’re just s**t out of luck.”

“Okay actually forget the hospital. I doubt it’s safe there anyway. There’s f*****g dogs everywhere.” As the girl said this, she looked up to the sky with disgust.

“Are you sure that you’re okay? Do you smell toast or anything? Because if you smell toast, we should definitely get you to a hospital.” I started to check her for signs of head trauma, but she slapped my hand out of the way.

“I’m fine! Just put me down and let me find a doctor or something. I can handle this myself.”

The girl jumped out of my arms and sprinted down the street. I started to run after her, but at the street corner she froze and started to run back to me.

“DUCK!” The girl pounced on me and shoved me to the ground. I hit the ground and felt one of my ribs crack.

“What the s**t is wrong with yo-” Bullets flew past my ear and ricocheted off of a tire from the wrecked car.

Men in heavy coats and wool scarves fired several rounds of bullets at us.  They screamed war cries and threats in our direction all the while. A couple minutes later, they stopped firing at us and paused.

“I think they’re out of bullets.” I whispered after a moment of awkward silence.

One of the men in coats screamed at us. “YOU DON”T KNOW THAT!”

Me and the girl turned to face each other. I had a look of utter confusion on my face, but she was completely serious.

She grabbed my hand and we ran in the opposite direction.

Her Name is Death

We stopped running when we stopped hearing thundering footsteps behind us. I panted like a dog in summer. Somehow, the girl wasn’t, even after the fact that we had ran twelve city blocks.

“Are you going to tell me what that was about?” I had been trying to sound intimidating to get some info, but I ended up sounding like an eighty year old man trying to hit on a twenty five year old. Loud but definitely not proud.

“Do you really want to know? Because if I were you I wouldn’t.” She looked over her shoulder as to make sure that she wasn’t going to be ambushed.

“Judging by the fact that I JUST GOT SHOT AT, I would actually like to know.”

The girl paused and shook her head.

“Trust me. If I told you, you would regret it.”

“Fine.” I sighed and took a step away from her. “Can you at least tell me if I’m in danger?”

She smiled and tilted her head to the side. “Sorry about this.”

She leaned back and clocked me in the face.

Then there was darkness.

*

“Are you sure she’s okay? You punched her really hard.”

“She’ll be fine. Worst case scenario, she’ll have a black eye.”

My eyes fluttered open. There were lights everywhere, forcing me to squint. I saw two shadowy figures: one was the girl from earlier, the other was unknown.

“Hey, I think she’s awake!”

I looked over at the unknown figure that had spoken.

“Can you turn those lights off? They’re hurting my eyes.”

“Oh yeah sure. Sorry.”

All at once the lights shut off. I adjusted my eyes to the darkness and glanced around. We were in some sort of cellar. There weren’t any windows, keeping the room void of all light. The room didn’t have any furniture except for the chair I was sitting in. Stairs led up to what seemed like a normal house. There was a computer in the corner that looked like it was from the 90’s. I chuckled a little and searched for the other people in the room.

“Where am I?”

The man in the room nervously shifted from one foot to the other.

“Dee, I...I’m not sure that I’m okay with this. We should just let her go and forget about it.”

“You’ve helped me with more fucked up stuff than this. Man up and just tell her.” The girl, named Dee apparently, shoved the nervous wreck towards me.

I shuffled away a little. I had no idea who these people were, and what they wanted with me. I thought that they were in some sort of cult and that they were going to sacrifice me to Cthulhu.

The guy introduced himself. “Uh... my name’s Ross, and this is Dee. You know Dee from the… incident that happened earlier. You may be wondering why you're here, and who we are. Well, at least not our names because I just told you that…”

“Ross! Hurry it up!” Dee shoved him again, but harder this time. He fell forward and caught himself on my chair.

“Alright! I’ll tell her!” He sighed and looked me in the eyes.

“We want you to help us kill someone.”

My jaw dropped open. There was a long silence, and I eventually started laughing.

“Dee I told you that you hit her too hard! She has brain damage or something!”

Dee rolled her eyes. “You would have reacted exactly the same way.”

Ross stopped and frowned. “Yeah whatever.”

I was laughing so hard that I had to wipe the tears from my eyes. I had no idea why I was laughing, but I couldn’t stop. Eventually Dee stepped in and made me stop.

Dee slapped her hand onto the armrest of my chair. I lurched backwards and ogled at Dee. There was something intensely wrong with her.

“If you don’t want to help us, we’ll let you go. But if you do want to help us, we need to know now.” She released her grip on the chair and I eased up a little.

“Why me? What could I possibly bring to the table?”

Dee thought for a moment and said, “You seem resourceful. You saved me from that car by using your brain. That’s something that neither me or Ross could do.”

I gazed at the floor and blinked. I had a lot of stuff to think about: what it would feel like to kill someone, how we would do it, and most importantly, did I have anything to lose?

I didn’t.

“I’ll help you.”

Dee clapped her hands together and jumped up and down. Ross grimaced at me, as to tell me what a mistake I had made.

“Welcome to the team!” Dee shook my hand, all the while still managing to jump up and down.

I thought of something. “Wait, who are we killing?”

Dee stopped jumping up and down and froze. She looked at Ross and he sighed.

“We want to kill Dee’s parents.”

“Any reason why?” I shifted my view between the two of them.

“They...they ruined my life. They’re just…” Dee shuttered and kept going, “They deserve to die.”

Dee scratched her arm and spun around. She slowly walked up the stairs.

“Ross, go ahead and tell her the rest. I’m going to make some coffee.”

She continued up the stairs and slammed the door shut. Ross kept his glance on the door, and moved towards me.

“We should go check on her. The last time she got angry she broke a window.”

I nodded and followed Ross up the stairs.

Author's Note

It's not completely sound yet. I still don't really know the story, or the characters. I'll get there eventually! (I would love to hear some feedback!)
Summary of the book so far:
A young girl (who is yet to be named) is riddled with depression and struggles to face the truth of growing up. A lack of friends has caused her to be with-drawn and moody. As she is walking to school one day, she witnesses a deadly accident. She looks into the window of the car to find something unexpected: A girl no older than she is. She finds a way to get the girl out of the car, only to be faced with gunfire and screaming. Was this a chance encounter? Or was it planned? DUN DUN DUN!