100 Days of Writing (2010)

Where I tortured myself by writing 500+ words for 100 days

[100dow2010]

100 Days of Writing (2013)

Just a reminder to anyone who sees/likes this that I'm doing it again! Just click the above!

[100dow2010]

100. Relaxation

             The sound of music blares from the speakers in front of him, either hard rock or alternative depending on what mood he finds himself in every other minute. The chair he’s sitting on (the back to his left so he can lean against it) creaks every time he moves even a little bit. His fingers skillfully clack against the keys of the keyboard in front of them, or, if they’re not doing that, they’re snapping along to the beat of the music.

             Open on his internet browser are two tabs: youtube and facebook (he takes a moment to wonder how such popular websites aren’t in the dictionary yet). iTunes is open, but it’s pretty much always open, even if he’s not using it. The last song to have been played was the themesong from a television he’s currently watching. A notepad document that stays constantly open holds the things he has thought of so far that have made his day.

             But the most important program he has open is Microsoft Word. Currently open is a document that has become quite familiar to him over the pass one-hundred days. He’s writing on the 126th page, but it would have been more of them if he hadn’t done what he could to make shorter stories fit on one page (while not being in painfully small text). He’s currently writing about relaxing, something he’s doing at that very moment.

             ‘Only 163 words to go,’ he thinks to himself.

             100, 50, 25, 10, 0 words left. Slumping back in his chair (or, rather, slumping to his left), he breathes a sigh of relief. He’s done. After 100 days of writing 500 words a day—or what actually turned into writing about 650 words a day—he’s finally done. After pushing through to stay on task each day, even despite philosophy papers, public speeches, and houseguests, he’s finally done. His thoughts drift to what it will be like now. For the past three months he’s had writing to look forward to: a new theme, a new challenge, each day. He’ll still be writing, of course, but it will be different. For one, he probably won’t be nearly as prolific anymore. 500 words a day wasn’t difficult, but that was with somebody else telling him what to write. But now that’s all over.

             ‘It’s all over,’ he reminds himself one more time. ‘…Woah. I’m done. Now what?’

[100dow2010]

099. Solitude

             As the memory surfaced, my breath caught and I flew into a fit of coughing. My throat was dry and scratchy; it hurt even just to breathe in and out.

             I staggered weakly to my feet and, barely able to even stand properly, somehow found the concentration to shift back home. At first I thought something had gone wrong, but I slowly became aware that it wasn’t wrong, I had made it: it was just night time. I stumbled around town, incredibly thankful that there was nobody around to take pity on me or crowd me with questions about ‘What happened?’ or ‘Do you want me to take you to the hospital?’ I didn’t need any of that crap right now. All I needed was solitude.

             And that’s what I found in the chill of night’s embrace. The cold air felt soothing against my skin.

             I managed to make my way to the park and find a bench to sit down on. Finally taking the time to just breathe, slowly and exhaustedly, I stared up at the sky. Everything was dark, there was no moon or stars or anything, just utter darkness everywhere.

             I think I may have drifted off into unconsciousness more than a few times. When I forced myself to get up, the sun was already beginning to rise. I trudged toward my old apartment for a few minutes before I remembered just how long I had been trapped with Angel. My old room was probably long inhabited by someone else now. The only money I had to my name was the money I had stuffed in my pockets, hardly enough for lodging at any respectable establishment. And there was no way I would ask Rayan or Shelle for help. There was no way I could after all that had happened.

             So, not even clinging to the small shred of hope that there might be some place I could stay, I hollowly marched off toward the city, particularly the lower class section. It took me more than an hour of agony before I even stepped onto a well-paved street, and even then any hope I might have claimed was very small. On every street corner there was some old geezer with half his teeth missing huddled under a month-old newspaper, but there was no way I was going to allow myself to stoop that low.

             Instead, I searched through every apartment complex I could find, no matter how filthy and horrible they were. Most of them were thick with the smell of cigarette smoke; all of them were stained and dirty. Even so, even the cheapest rooms I found I wouldn’t have been able to afford for more than a day.

             Finally, after what must have been at least ten ugly, abominable apartment buildings, I found one that I could afford. For good reason, too: it was the filthiest one I had seen yet. But, still, it would be able to house me for a week on the money I had while I looked for a job or just gave up on life.

             The fat, sweaty, hairy man behind the desk looked at my fistful of money casually, and then, without a word, stood up and led me through a dark hallway with a flickering light that buzzed obnoxiously. He stopped at a door and handed me a rusty key, then left still without saying a word.

             Ignoring him, I entered my new room. It was empty, dark, and dirty, but that was all I could expect. At least it was a place to call home for now.

[100dow2010]

098. Puzzle

             I have three friends that sometimes accompany me on my journeys. Sometimes, though, when nothing important is going on, I can hardly tell that they’re there. They’re practically invisible. The first of my companions is Reina, the kind one. Her hair is long and naturally blue, and she seems to heal me without any sort of potion or medical equipment. It’s almost like magic. Then there’s Hama. I’m still not sure what gender he is, but he’s smart, and seems to be able to control the elements with his mind. Lastly, there is Bob, the stupid, pigheaded one. His hair is fire-red and magically defies gravity. His sword is bigger than mine, but I feel he’s compensating.

             Our parents agreed to let us run off together when we weren’t even ten years old yet, and now we live together in a flying boat propelled by a single, really big fan. It allows us to traverse over water and cities with great ease, yet it somehow is unable to fly over mountains.

             It is on our current journey that I have a tale I wish to tell you. After meeting the king for the first time, he put his trust in the four of us and let us loot the castle, then commanded that we go to the Dungeons of Undead right next to the city and vanquish the Evil Being within. We agreed, but then he told us that in order to get in, we had to meet with the Old Hag-Witch that lived across the world. We did, but, when we got to the Witch, she said she would only help us if we brought her the hides of five Purple Kangaroos that lived in a cave in the far northern continent. We made hast to find the Kangaroos, only to find that the cave had a magic barrier that could only be broken by the gnomes of the Southern Desert, who would only see us if we brought them the Sacred Orb from the Underground Shrine of the Southern Desert Gnomes.

             It is in the Underground Shrine of the Southern Desert Gnomes that my story truly begins. We had just traversed to the third floor down of the magnificently-empty-yet-surprisingly-sturdy caves, and were now trying to solve a puzzle where we had to arrange stone pillars in a certain position on a strange picture on the floor.

             “Have you ever really wondered about the puzzles we find in these dungeons?” Hama asked.

             “What do you mean?”  Reina responded.

             “I mean, who built them? And has nobody ever come down this far before, or is there someone who lives down here to reset them or something? And have you ever noticed that, whenever we leave the room and come back in, the pillars have moved back to where they were originally? And why the heck didn’t the gnomes just get their sacred orb themselves? Why is it even down here in the first place? If it’s their orb, and it’s so sacred, shouldn’t they have it above ground with them, or at least be able to get it for themselves? And why did gnomes in a desert even put a seal on a kangaroo cave halfway around the world? It just doesn’t make sense!”

             “That’s because you ask too many questions,” I snap. “It’s an adventurer’s job to do menial tasks and steal things from people’s houses without asking, not to ask questions. If you can’t handle that, maybe you’re not cut out for this life.”

             “You want me to hit him?” Bob asked eagerly. “I can hit him if you want! I have a really big sword!”

             “No, I don’t want you to hit him.”

             Hama had stopped paying attention awhile ago, and had instead completed the puzzle. The floor shook and there was a loud noise, but nothing noticeable happened.

             “You know, I’m not really surprised,” Hama said. “This place is so old, I’d be surprised if any of the contraptions in here did work.”

             “Maybe I just have to hit something! Can I hit something?”

             “No, you can not hit anything,” I command. “This probably just affected something on a different floor. Come on, let’s take a look around.”

             We did. The only thing that changed in the cave was that the entrance was now a pile of rubble. Oh, and the bottom floor was quickly filling with water. Soon, the whole cave was filled with water, and we drowned shortly after.

               And so the Desert gnomes stole the adventurers’ equipment and sold it on the black market.

[100dow2010]

097. Safety First

    “What are you doing?”

     Not wanting to put strain on the relationship between him and the only person in the base he allowed himself to call ‘friend,’ James stood up, walked quietly out into the hallway, and closed the door behind him.

     “I require further information as to the origins and purpose of this military base.”

     “Yeah, I’m not falling for that one again,” she said moodily, tapping her fingers impatiently. “Last time you needed information I had to bail you out for not having correct access to the library--I can deal with that--but isn’t sneaking into the base’s private records a bit much?”

     “The information I require is not available in the public resources,” James replied, as deadpan as possible so as to hide the lie. It was still a new feeling to be telling a lie, and he hoped that Alyssa would not be able to see through it.

     His hopes were not fulfilled.

     “I’ve read every book in the library about this place, and there can’t possibly be anything you don’t know. Now talk.”

     James remained silent for two seconds, formulating an appropriate response. He attempted to employ another one of the diversionary techniques he had been able to pick up:

     “You have read all of the books about this military base? I recall that you do not find nonfiction books interesting.”

     “James, you better cut the crap right now,” she commanded, pointing a finger dangerously close to the android’s face. “I know you, and I know you’re up to something. If you don’t tell me what that is, maybe you’ll tell the colonel.”

     Seeing that his attempts were proving useless, James consented.

     “I believe that the books within the library do not tell the truth. I have come to the private records to try to confirm my suspicions.”

     “Oh,” Alyssa said and relented. “Why didn’t you just say so? Anyways, you never would have gotten in like that.”

     James’ head tilted slightly to the right as he tried to process her sudden change in behavior, as well as her last sentence.

     “I do not understand.”

     “The way I see it, there’s obviously a reason these records are kept private, and some door isn’t going to do much for that. They’ve probably got booby traps and stuff in there.”

     “Booby traps?”

     “Yeah, you know: pressure sensors on the floors, video cameras, maybe even infrared scanners. Stuff like that.”

     “For what purpose did you formulate such a theory?”

     “Why do you think I’m here?” she asked, giving him a malicious smile. She turned to the wall and began to press various commands into the hand scanner. “See, they’ve got all of this stuff guarding it, but it’s all electronic, hooked up to some large computer at the center of the base, just like the hand scanners, the computers in the library, and pretty much everything we’ve got here. It’s taken awhile, but I think I’ve found a way to access the main computer from anywhere I want.”

     “You have been planning on looking in the private records as well,” James deduced.

     “Shh, not so loud!” she hissed. “I figure, even if they’re crazy enough not to have some sort of security system surrounding this place, it would be a good idea to look for one to disable. You know, safety first and all that.”

     “And have you found anything?” James asked, looking over his shoulder at the hand scanner. Instead of the outline of a hand that was usually on the screen, there was now a large stream of text, none of which he could recognize. Alyssa seemed to know what she was doing, however, and expertly maneuvered through it all.

     “Yup, and... now it’s offline,” she told him, pressing one last time against the screen.

     James opened the door and walked in. Nothing happened. Quickly, he made his way to the file cabinet that, according to the filing system, should hold information about the base’s current and past experiments, and retrieved the information he wanted.

[100dow2010]

096. In the Storm

             This was the landscape that painted itself in David’s mind. In actuality, it was a sunny day. The sky was blue with not a cloud in sight. The grass was green, and everything had the fresh fragrance of spring. Birds chirped across tree branches to each other, filling the air with the sound of their song.

             David was leaning against a rock, hardly noticing any of this around him. In his hand he held a book, a mystery book, which completely commanded his attention. This was the cause of the dark imagine in his head, and the reason for ignoring the bright image around him. Because ‘it was always a dark and stormy night.’ No good mystery was ever conducted unless it was nighttime, dark, and stormy. So, even if he was outside on a warm and sunny day, that’s not what he would be seeing: he’d be seeing a dark, stormy night.

             A screen door screeched noisily behind him, but he didn’t pay it any bother until one of his siblings pushed his shoulder and woke him back to reality.

             “Mom wants us inside (We’re all wanted in the drawing room).”

             Mechanically, he set aside his book, physically at least, and followed into the house. Everyone was sitting down at the kitchen table, their mom standing over them and watching the entryway for the last two to arrive.

             “(I’m sure you’re all wondering why I called you here,)” David can almost hear in the stifling silence. Because when there’s a murder, nobody ever knows why they’re being called together for such a large meeting.

             He steals a strange look at his mother to remind himself where he is before he takes his place next to the others around the kitchen table. They all exchange glances until their attention is pulled back to their mother when she starts to speak:

             “(I’ve determined the murderer.” There are collective gasps throughout the many people scattered around the room. Accusatory whispers erupt from everywhere at once, each person forcing his own opinions and grievances out into the open even though nobody is paying attention to the others and, thus, nobody is being heard. A loud thunder crack outside causes each of them to jump and shortly fall into silence.

             “That’s right, I’ve figured out who the culprit is. As you may recall, I had previously spoken to each of you privately in order to determine what possible opportunity and motive you all may have had. I shall now proceed to tell you what I have learned—”

             “David!”

             An elbow is sharply jabbed into his side and he wakes up from his daydream. Hazily looking around, he recognizes the drab kitchen he’s sitting in, as well as the people sitting around him giving him impatient, almost angry looks.

             “Huh? What?”

             “I asked if you could go to the grocery store. I need some tomato sauce for the spaghetti.”

             “Oh, yeah,” he replies dumbly, casting a quick glance downwards at his mystery novel. Maybe it’s time to put it away for awhile.

[100dow2010]

095. Advertisement

             Anyways, back to the main point: This place was normal beyond all reason. There were tables to eat at, a pop machine to get drinks at, a register to order at, an open area where you could see them make your food (because we all know that if you can’t see them making it, they’re putting poison or human meat or something in it. Or, at least, if you can’t see them making it, people will say they’re putting that sort of stuff in it), and probably a bunch of sinks for washing pots behind the wall (why don’t people nag about that?). There aren’t any windows, but it’s in the middle of a mall; that’s to be expected.

             The girl behind the counter smiles pleasantly at me (maybe a bit too pleasantly to be considered real at all) and asks me what I would like.

             “Um, yeah,” I say as I ruffle through my pockets to find which one I put that stupid piece of paper in. I find it and thrust it stupidly at her. “I saw your ad… that you were hiring. I talked to Blake on the phone and he said I could have an interview?”

             She stops smiling. She watches me, almost looking angry, and then seems to decide that I’m not worth wasting her time studying. “He’s in back.”

             “So I can just… go in, then?” I ask, surprised by both her sudden change in her expression and the lack of caring who’s in back.

             “Yeah, go ahead. I said he’s in back, didn’t I?”

             “Okay, okay, sorry,” I respond and rush off to the back.

             Okay, weird, but still not criminal-mastermind-like. I walk through the astonishingly long hallway and finally come to a door that’s addressed ‘manager.’ I knock on it, hear a voice from inside telling me to enter, and obey.

             This room is even darker than the hallway. The person at the desk, though, sees me and immediately turns on as many lights as he can. He doesn’t smile or say anything or even acknowledge my existence at all after that.

             Creepy, but still not evil. Right?

             I fumble with the paper still in my hands before quickly walking forward, placing it on his desk, and walking back. “I, uh, saw your ad, and I want a job. I talked to you on the phone and you said I could get an interview, and so, uh…”

             He looks at me very intently, and that look alone is enough to shut me up. After quite a few seconds of him staring at me, he leans back casually.

             “You’re hired.”

             The words don’t register for a moment, but when they do I take the time to babble a bit more before blurting out, “Wait, what?”

             “I said ‘you’re hired.’”

             “But… don’t you want to interview me or something?” I couldn’t imagine the impression I’ve made so far was anything that would convince him this easily.

             “I said you’re hired. How many time do I have to say it? Do you not want to be hired?”

             “No, I mean, um, thank you!” I exclaim like an idiot as I back away toward the door.

             He goes back to his work, so I take the chance to slip out of his office before I can do any more harm. As I turn back towards the front of the store, I notice the lights in his office turn immediately off.

             So, yeah. Weird—definitely weird—but not evil. And, hey, I got a job out of it, so who cares if they’re evil or not?  

[100dow2010]

094. Last Hope

             But have you ever really thought about that? God is your last hope? Really? Shouldn’t God be your first hope? He’s told us we don’t have to worry, because He will provide for us. But still we run around every day scared that we don’t have everything just the way we want it. As soon as something is just a little bit out of place, we lose our cool, and lose sight of what he wants for us, and go our own way to try to fix everything.

             And we all know where that gets us: frustrated, tired, exhausted, ready to pull out our hair. In our times of trouble, the times when we need God the most, we blame God for everything that’s going on, or at best forget that He’s there and tell ourselves that we have to do everything on our own.

             The truth is God’s not our last hope; He’s our only hope. There’s nothing we would be able to do without him, nothing we would be able to have without him. Those keys that you’ve misplaced? Sure, God can show you where to find them when you ask Him. But the truth is, without God, you wouldn’t have those keys. Or your car. Or the job that you’re about to go to. The truth is that the only reason you’re still alive and taking that breath is because God allows it.

             So, just think of what you’ve done. The God of the universe, who spoke everything into existence and who maintains your very existence, reduced to a last resort, to a ‘last hope.’

             What do you think would happen if, next time you find yourself in a pinch, you immediately cry out to God, “Help me! You’re my first hope, my only hope!” Do you think that God would rather grant that request, or the one where you call in him as a last ditch effort?

             It’s not being selfish—how can I best get God to serve my needs—it’s being respectful—how can I best put God first in my life? Maybe if we did that, maybe if we held God higher than anything in our lives, we would see God move in ways we never imagined.

[100dow2010]

093. Give Up

             This is the world that Rachel Wolfe lived in. She grew her up with her parents and her sister, Janice, in a house just the right size for the four of them. They all loved each other dearly, especially Rachel and Janice. Every day they would play together, pretending they were parents or doctors or taxi drivers or whatever they could think of.

             When it came time for Janice to go to school, Rachel spent all day moping around or just lying in her bed. Her mom, seeing her daughter’s sadness, formulated an idea. Going up to the attic, she came back down and entered Rachel’s room, a dusty old book in hand.

             “Rachel? I have something for you.”

             The mention of a gift drew Rachel from her stupor, at least for the moment. “Really? What is it?”

             Happily, her mom held out the book. The pages were yellowed and the leather was cracking, but she held it out with incredible gusto, as if it were the most amazing treasure she could ever give someone.

             Rachel just looked at it, confused. “What is it?” she asked again.

             “It’s a book!”

             “What’s a book?”

             Rachel’s mom smiled and sat down next to her daughter. “Before we discovered how to connect our brains directly to computers and download or upload information mentally, we had books. They were… these. Pages bound together that we could read to gather information, just like computers. And you could buy blank books, so that we could write in them ourselves, to remind us later what happened that day. We called it journaling.”

             “So, they’re like computers for old people like you?” Rachel laughed.

             Eventually, Rachel began to understand. She still wasn’t very impressed with the idea, but her mother asked her to at least try it, and so she did.

             As the week went by, Rachel found that she enjoyed writing down in the book. She asked her mom for more books, and soon she was writing more than journals: she was writing whole stories down on paper. Pages were filled with her chicken scratch, telling of various characters and their adventures together.

             Of course, whenever Janice arrived home, Rachel would drop everything and play with her. Years went by and nothing ever changed between them. When it came time for Rachel, they both went to the same school. Whenever Rachel was made fun of by her classmates for ‘being weird and writing like an old person,’ Janice was always there to protect her. Everyday after school, they would help each other with their homework and play together.

             Then Janice’s birthday came, and she turned fourteen. She wasn’t at school that day, and when Rachel got home, she still was nowhere to be seen. She tried to stay up and wait for her sister, but nighttime came and Rachel hesitantly drifted off to sleep.

             The next day, Rachel woke up and Janice was in her bed as usual. On the way to school, Rachel asked what had happened. Janice told her: it was her fourteenth birthday; she had come of age.

             Rachel didn’t think anything of it and went through her day as usual. After school, Janice worked on her homework in her room, finishing long before Janice. Without a word to her sister, Janice left the house and went off with her friends. Still lovingly trusting, Rachel didn’t pay it any mind.

             But then the next day the same thing happened, and the day after that, and the day after that. By the end of the week, Rachel realized what had really happened, and accepted that she was alone. That was the day that she promised to herself that, when she came of age, she would never change her personality. She would never subject somebody else to the pain of loneliness that she now had to go through.

             It only got worse the next week during school. Like kids always do, her classmates continued to pick on her. They stole her notebooks, announced her journal entries to the rest of the class, and even occasionally physically harmed her. This time, though, her sister no longer stopped them. She just averted her eyes and pretended that she didn’t see anything.

             Rachel tried to ignore everything they said and did, but it was hard. Physical bruises made her hurt all day, and mental scars kept her awake for hours as she tried to fall asleep.

             One day she forgot her notebook at home. The insults didn’t stop, but they slowed. The next day she intentionally left her book at home, and noticed the insults were even less frequent. She continued on like this for a few weeks, and it seemed that everything was going better.

             But one day it all started up again, even without her carrying her book around. People continued to tease her, and over the months the torment grew even more intense. It lasted all throughout middle school, until finally she turned fourteen.

             She grabbed her notebook and her mother drove her to the hospital, where she sat in a cold waiting room and fidgeted anxiously. It took what seemed like forever for the doctor to get there. To pass the time, she stared at her notebook. She never opened it. She moved to a few times, but every time she did somebody else in the waiting room looked at her, and she withdrew her hand.

             When the doctor finally arrived, he led her into a bright room with a cheap, overstuffed chair in the middle and a large, blinking machine on the far wall. He smiled at her in a way that was obviously fake and motioned for her to take a seat. She did, and sat her notebook on the floor next to her.

             “Well, what am I supposed to do with you today?” the doctor asked her cheerily.

             The word ‘nothing’ she had planned to tell him all her life was on the tip of her tongue, but it didn’t get any further than that before she stopped. Memories of her treatment at school nagged at her, keeping her from saying what she had always told herself she would say. She looked at the notebook beside her, then up at the doctor, and then sank back into thought.

             After five minutes contemplation, she turned to the doctor. She was unsure of herself, but she had made up her mind:

             “Actually, there is something you can do for me.”

[100dow2010]

092. All That I Have

             When I force myself to venture out my door, I head to the cafeteria and stand in line for lunch like I’m some sort of schoolchild. I get my food and sit down and everybody sits and eats quietly until the person that kid assigned to me as a partner comes barging in, disrupting what little peace I’m afforded nowadays.

             My partner is… special. She’s the only person here who actually out-right enjoys their work, except for maybe the girl that tricked me into coming here in the first place. Every day she’s eager for our next assignment, and each day she does it with enough gusto to make even the worst serial killer squirm. That’s just another thing I’ve forced myself to get used to. I keep reminding myself that they’re about to die anyways—that we’re the ones leading them to a peaceful rest, and without us they’d be stuck dying forever—and eventually it becomes strangely easy.

             “Guess what, Machi?” she sings, beaming at me like she just killed a cat or something.

             “Don’t call me that,” I command. “My name is Michael.”

             Per usual, she ignores me. Her grin just widens. “Boss says we’re doing such a good job that we can have the day off. He says the twinkies need a chance to step it up.”

             Strangely, I’ve gotten used to her calling the newer recruits ‘twinkies’ as well. But that’s not what it’s important right now.

             “He said… we have off?”

             “Yup! He said…” I don’t pay attention to the rest.

             Without taking my food or saying goodbye, I stand and hurry to confirm it with Kanzah. Halfway there I realize that’s a stupid idea and instead just shift out of this hellhole.

             It still feels a bit weird, but I’m nowhere near as sick as I was the first time I shifted. Colors soon fade back into reality, and I’m standing in the middle of John’s house. It’s the first time I’ve been here since that day we both died.

             “John!” I call, but there’s no answer. “John!” I repeat, this time looking through his house. I find him sitting at his kitchen table, a newspaper in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. He doesn’t look up.

             “John!” I say again, putting his hand on my shoulder. This time he looks up. “John, I’ve missed you so much—”

             But his face gets this weird expression, and a few seconds later he shrugs and goes back to his paper. Still not sure what’s going on, I pull the paper away from him. Or, at least, I try to. All that I seem to be able to manage is pulling my hand through the paper and rustling it a bit.

             That at least causes John to look up, but once again he ignores me.

             That’s when I finally realize what’s going on.

             “Aah, sh*t,” I grumble, flopping down on a chair next to him. I look up, but I know by now that he’s not going to respond. He doesn’t. “Figures. That little f*cker said I could see you on my day off. He never said you’d be able to see me.”

             He doesn’t say anything. I get the feeling this is going to be a very one-sided conversation.

             I sigh. “When I was alive… you were everything to me. There was nothing else I cared about. You… were all I had.” I pause, not really sure what the point of going on is if he can’t hear me. I figure I might as well let out my feelings, even if it’s to a person who’s deaf to me. “Now what have I got? A gray bed and a psychotic coworker obsessed with twinkies.”

             And that’s… really all it is. That’s all that I have.

             With one last sigh, I resign myself to the idea that John and I are never going to be able to talk again. My one and only link back to humanity is finally severed.

             Letting that depressing thought sink in, I call a corridor and let myself fall back into the gray.

[100dow2010]

091. Drowning

             Ron was a fun loving guy. He could get himself into trouble sometimes, but he always knew where to draw the line. He was nice to everyone, almost to a fault. Pretty much everyone liked him, even those people who you never saw hanging out with other people.

             It was his birthday, so we were all at the beach. He always loved the beach because there was so much to do. We could swim in the lake, or stay on the land and play with the sand or a Frisbee or something. Most of all, though, was that we could swim. He almost seemed more at home in the water than on land. I always used to joke around and call him a mermaid. Then he’d always point out that mermaids were all girls, I’d point out I didn’t care, and we’d both just laugh.

             This particular day, he was out swimming, just splashing around and having fun. I still hadn’t found my sea-legs yet, and was resting on the shore, shading myself from the scorching sun with a strategically placed beach umbrella. I had a book in my hands, but anybody who knew me knew it was just for show. I was actually watching everybody else swim. Sometimes it was just as fun watching other people having fun rather than actually participating.

             It was a good thing I was looking at the people swimming, too. My eyes just passed over Ron when suddenly he disappeared beneath the water. At first I thought he was just playing, seeing how long he could hold his breath or something like that, but after a minute of him being beneath the water I started feeling uneasy. Half a minute later I was ripping off my t-shirt and running in after him.

             Nobody around me thought anything of it. To them, I was just another guy running in the water. They hadn’t seen what I had seen.

             When the water was deep enough, I dove under and tried to pull him up, but he was gone. I looked all around where I had last seen him, but he wasn’t there.

             It took me shouting out his name a dozen times for people to figure out something was wrong. All of his friends—and there were a lot of them there—started calling and looking for him, but it was useless. He was gone. Just like that.

             Everybody got out for awhile to talk. There was the expected exchange of sympathies, but none of them really seemed too put off by what happened. After half an hour or so, a good deal of them decided that they didn’t want to let Ron’s birthday go to waste—they thought that’s ‘what he would have wanted’—and so they returned to the lake like nothing had happened.

             But I couldn’t go back. I packed up my things and walked home. All around me, people passed by like nothing had happened. Friends called to each other, one man told a joke to another and they both laughed, a mother bought icecream from a street vendor to cool off her squabbling children. All I could think was ‘don’t they know what just happened? A man just died, why don’t they show some respect?’

             But none of them stopped. All around me life went on, pulling me under into its suffocating normality. I was lost in a sea of ignorance, the only man aware of the tragic fate that had just befell a man that everyone in the world would have liked had they had the chance to meet him. But still the tide moved on.

[100dow2010]

090. Triangle

            “I always knew there was something wrong with her. It was totally obvious she was a freak.”

             Ever since we got back to school, it’s been all ‘Sara’s a freak’ and ‘I always knew there was something wrong with her’ and ‘I’m glad she’s gone.’ It’s just so sickening, and I can’t take any more of it. Derron can do whatever he wants to me when I get home late; there’s no way I’m going to stay out there hearing every single person writing her off as some kind of monster.

             After finishing my fuming, I slide my backpack off my shoulder and head over to the storage room that coach never bothers to keep locked. A few minutes later, I’m kicking a soccer ball against the wall.

             It’s just starting to do me some good when Angel walks into the gym. I stop the ball and look at him. He smiles.

             “What’re you doing in here?” he asks, still trying to play the part of my friend.

             “Letting off steam,” I tell him and kick the soccer ball to him. He catches it just in time to stop it from knocking into his stomach, then drops it and kicks it at the wall. It ricochets back at me. Soon, we’re hitting it back and forth to each other.

             “So you’re mad?” he asks casually a minute or two in. “And here I thought I was the only one they were talking all that crap about Sara around.”

             “Yeah, I’m getting it, too,” I respond, kicking the ball with a bit more power than usual. It hits angel just hard enough to leave a bruise. “You knew Sara. What do you think about all this stuff they’re saying?”

             “I don’t really know what to think. One second I’m falling asleep on top of my philosophy book, the next I’m being evacuated from the building, and then the building is gone, and I see Sara in the middle of it.

             “Yeah, but you can’t really think she’s a freak, can you?”

             “Sure she’s a freak,” he admits flippantly. I frown. “But so am I, and who knows, you might be to. The question isn’t whether we’re freaks, it’s whether or not that’s a bad thing.”

             “Well, usually when people call you a freak it’s a bad thing,” I laugh.

             “Yeah, well, I’m not really one for usuals.” We kick the ball around silently a few more times before he asks, “So, are you still looking for her?”

             That question hits me by surprise, just like the soccer ball almost does. I can’t remember if I ever told him that I had been looking for Sara, so I try not to make a big deal out of it. Even if I didn’t tell him, it’s probably all over the school already that I’m chasing after the freak that destroyed the school. Heck, people are probably already calling me a freak, too.

             “Nah,” I tell him, “I’ve pretty much given it up. She obviously doesn’t want to be found.” That’s only partially a lie. There’s no doubt about it that she doesn’t want to be found, and I’m not really looking for her anymore. Right now I’m just trying to see what Angel knows. And I’m sure he knows something.

             “That’s probably for the best.”

             “Why’s that?” I ask, eying him suspiciously, probably a bit too suspiciously to avoid tipping him off that he said something wrong.

             “What?” he suddenly asks as he realizes what he’s done. “Oh, you know, just, because… if she doesn’t want to be found, you’re probably not going to find her. I’m sure that, when she’s ready, you’ll be the first one she’ll come to. I mean, you’re her boyfriend, right?”

             “Yeah, something like that,” I say and stop the ball under my feet. “Listen, I’ve gotta get home now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

             “Yeah,” he says quietly, and I can tell he realizes he’s messed up. All the way home, my mind is working on just how his slip-up actually helps me.

[100dow2010]

089. Through the Fire

             “What was that last night?” Shelle asks, looking me straight in the eye with a look of dejection all over her face.

             “That was me saving a family from a burning building,” I laugh, hoping a little humor will get me out of the onslaught of guilt I know is about to come. “You act like that’s a bad thing.”

             “It is a bad thing, Rayan! When I told you I didn’t think the firemen were going to get there in time, I didn’t mean you should run in and save them yourself! I was expressing worry! I just wanted you to comfort me, to tell me it was going to be okay!”

             “And everything was okay!”

             “You could have been killed, Rayan!”

             “Yeah, but I wasn’t, right?”

              “You ran into a burning building unprotected, Rayan!” she yells. “You came back covered with smoke and grime, and not a single burn on you! That’s not natural!”

             “But… I’m not dead at least, right?” I venture, quickly losing hope that this is going to end anywhere close to well.

             “Rayan,” she says sternly, glaring at me as if she were Sara and not the lighthearted Rashelle I always knew. “I’m okay with you wanting to be a hero, and I’m glad you’re alive, but… what happened last night… that wasn’t natural… was it?”

             I take to studying a patch of brown grass beneath the bench instead of answering or watching her. After I’ve observed every single blade, I reluctantly tell her, “No, it wasn’t.”

             “Then what was it?” she demands.

             “I,” I begin hesitantly, then finish a few seconds later with, “can control fire. Create it, stop it, but the whole fire was too big for me to handle. So… I had to get a little more specific.”

             “And so you ran into a burning building.”

             “And so I ran into a burning building,” I agree.

             She watches me, and I can tell she’s more hurt than surprised. I know that she’s known about it since last night, and that’s why I’ve been dreading this talk. After what happened with Sara when everyone found out, I’m not looking forward to this.

             “When… when were you going to tell me?” she pleads.

             “I… really wasn’t,” I admit quietly.

             “Right,” she says, all of a sudden angrily, “Because now that you’re such good friends with Angel, there’s no reason to tell something this big to me.”

             “Shelle! The only reason I’m even talking to him is because I think he knows something about Sara! I thought I told you that!”

             Her expression doesn’t lift. “Rayan, Sara… Sara was a freak. You saw what she did to the school.”

             And there’s that word again: ‘freak.’ People never held a high opinion of Sara, but once they found out just how different—just how indescribable—she was, they labeled her a freak and moved on with their lives. Because anything they don’t understand is freakish, and that’s that.

             “So, am I a freak, then, Shelle?” I growl, not just as mad as her.

             “What? N- no!”

             “Why not? What makes me so much different from Sara? The fact that I’m popular? That I need the approval of others?”

             “N-no, it’s not that!”

             “Go ahead and tell them what you know, see if I care. Call me a freak all you want.”

             I stand up and almost storm off, but Shelle pulls me back. When I turn around, there are tears in her eyes. She doesn’t say anything, though.

             “Shelle, you and I were the only friends Sara had. If you want to throw that away, that’s your choice, but I’m never going to abandon her.”

             She lets go of me wordlessly, and I walk away.

[100dow2010]

088. Pain

            I never really understood it when people talked about how thick the tension was in a room. Throughout my life I had felt anger and sadness and embarrassment, sure, but I never really understood tension. Life was just what it was, and, even if it wasn’t always happiness all the time, I never felt tension.

             I had given up looking for her after almost a year of constant searching, so, to find her living in his basement, and then to suddenly have her attack me, I didn’t know what to think. I thought I had killed her, but when I went back to check on her she had disappeared. Having seen her only made me even more eager to find her, though. I resumed my search for her, and it was another few months before I found her new apartment. It was darker and dirtier than I ever thought legally possible for an apartment complex, and every hallway smelled like cigarette smoke.

             I must’ve stood in front of her door a dozen different times before I finally mustered up the courage to finally knock on her door. She opened the door and neither of us said anything. We looked at each other wordlessly for what seemed like an eternity, then she motioned me in with her hand and we sat down on the floor of a room with no furniture or decorations or anything you would call ‘customary’ in a house.

             There were so many questions filling my mind, but none of them seemed fit to say. What could you say in a situation like that? It’s awkward enough the first time you talk to a friend you haven’t seen for a long time, but add the fact that we both tried to—and almost did—kill each other and it’s even more of a mess.

             Eventually, the only thing that seemed right to ask was, “What happened?”

             She still didn’t say anything. Even in the dark, I could see the twisted, hurt expression on her face as she was trying just as hard as I was to find the right words to say.

             Just when I thought she was never going to respond, she said, “He told me you hated me. And… the way you looked at me… when I… I believed him. I really thought you hated me.”

             “Sara, I could never hate you!” I insisted. After all that we had gone through, I was hurt that that thought would even come into her mind.

             “I know… I just… I hated myself,” she said weakly. “I didn’t want you to see me; I hid. I couldn’t bear to face you.”

             I could hear her sobbing. I had never seen her cry, and now there she was, more broken than I had ever seen her before. I leaned forward and wrapped her in my arms. She let herself go even more, and for five minutes I just sat there, holding her crying, convulsing form in my arms.

             “I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” I whisper into the top of her head. “I can’t erase whatever he put you through… but I will do my best.”

              She shook a few more times before pulling away and looking at me. “I just… think I need some time alone to adjust.”

             It felt like being stabbed straight through the heart, but I knew she was right. There was nothing I could do that could help her. Having all of this drama suddenly thrust on her… not even three months was enough to settle it out.

             “Okay,” I said softly as I stood up. She didn’t follow. “Just… promise me that… if you leave, you’ll at least say goodbye. Alright?”

             As she looked up at me, I could still see the tears in her eyes. She didn’t disagree with me or tell me how ridiculous the thought of her leaving was, she simply said, “Alright.” And it tore my heart straight out of my chest.

[100dow2010]

087. Food

             Okay, I see that look: You’re looking at me like you do to all these types of stories. “What, you’ve eaten human flesh? Eew!” But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself:

             The trip was only supposed to take four months. We had rations for seven months—plenty of food for such a journey, or so we thought.

             And it would’ve been plenty of supplies, too, if someone hadn’t had a great revelation and shouted out ‘Hey, let’s take this route instead!’ That cost us a few days while we bickered over the new supposed ‘short cut.’

             But ‘hey,’ we thought, ‘we’ve got a few months worth of extra food, what’s spending an extra day or two going to hurt if it means we might be able to get there faster?’

             And eventually we were all convinced that this new route was a great idea, so we set off with high spirits. Then a few weeks later we found out that this miracle path took us straight through a desert. And some hills. And a river. The supposed ‘super short short-cut’ took us right across a river, with no bridge or any way to get across it.

             So somebody else had a positively brilliant idea: ‘Hey, we don’t need to build our own bridge! It looks really shallow over here!’

             And then came another brilliant idea: ‘Let’s believe him! That last impromptu plan was just amazing! I’m sure nothing will go wrong with this one!’

             So, we tried. Not only did we not get across the river, but we lost half of our supplies. So now six months rations for a four month trip was cut down to three months rations for a four month trip which now consisted of taking the time to build a bridge. That alone took us half a month.

             We were barely halfway to California when winter came.

             After a month of struggling to survive, we had the first honestly good idea since we started out and had a few people go ahead to get help.

             Well, they never returned, and all of our food finally ran out. We tried our best to hold on, but it’s a funny thing how people start to die after weeks of starvation.

             And that brings me back to where I started. What did you expect? That we would all go, ‘Oh, well, I guess I’m fine dying. I’d certainly never save myself if it meant doing that.’ No. I, for one, like to survive.

             Yeah, I figured you still wouldn’t change your mind. So how about this: maybe before you start judging me for doing what I had to, you go and starve to death and see how you feel. Maybe then we’ll talk.

[100dow2010]

086. Seeing Red

           It started off as a perfectly normalish day, and then turned into a not-perfect, but still admittedly normal (for me, at least) day.

             Which made it even more surprising when I was suddenly knocked to the ground by some idiot chick not looking where she was going. We both toppled to the ground, and, before I even knew what had happened, she was up on her feet again. I grabbed her arm before she could dash off, though.

             “Please, let me go!” she wailed, thrashing out at me. “He’s going to catch me!”

             “Woah, hold up, who’s going to catch you? What’s wrong?”

             “He scares me! Don’t let him catch me; he’s going to hurt me!”

             Just when it clicked that I wasn’t going to get any details from her when she was like this, a man turned a corner and bolted towards us.

             “Get back here, b*tch!”

             That was all I needed to see and hear to get me sprinting away, dragging the girl along with me. Slowly, we got far enough away to lose sight of the man chasing her. When we did, I pulled her into a side street just to be safe and leaned against the wall to catch my breath.

             After panting for a half a minute, I took my first real look at the person I just saved. Her clothes were extremely old and ragged, almost like she had pulled them out of a dump. Her hole-riddled jeans were a size or two too small, while the black T-shirt hanging off her shoulders was a size or three too big. Her crimson hair looked like it hadn’t been touched by a scissors or a comb in months, and the running we had both just done only helped make it look even messier.

             As I finished studying her, I noticed she was studying me as well. Mostly, though, her eyes stayed fixed on my arm, where thin scratches were now oozing fresh blood.

             “Oh,” I said stupidly, “I must have gotten scratched up when you ran into me. Don’t worry, it’ll heal.”

              Her eyes didn’t move at all. “Your blood…” she said softly. “It smells weird.”

             “Wh- what?”

             “You’re… not human,” she stated and slinked forward.

             “Wh- what? Of course I am!” I lied, pressing myself against the wall uselessly.

             “You’re blood… it smells so… tasty.”

             That’s when I finally realized what was going on. Without giving it a second though, I kicked her in the stomach, sending her reeling backwards, and drew a stake from my side. It was quickly at her heart, and she was staring at me in what she likely expected me to think was terror.

             “I- I’m sorry!” she screamed, actual tears filling her eyes.

             “You’re a vampire,” I growled.

             “I’m sorry!” she repeated. “I- I didn’t mean to! Please, don’t hurt me!”

             If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought she actually had a soul. “Tell me why I shouldn’t just kill you now.”

              My reason came from behind in the form of a punch to the head. I fell to the ground, giving her more than enough time to escape from me.

             “Iscariot!” she sobbed and clung to the man who had just hit me—the same man that she had just been fleeing from.

             The last thing I saw before blacking out was them walking away as if nothing had happened between the two of them and I was the villain. It would serve him right if she ripped his head off right then and there.

[100dow2010]

085. Spiral

             Whether I’m crazy or not doesn’t make a difference, though. Even if they can’t see it, that large staircase is still there. Just sitting there. There’s a door at the top of it. I’ve tried going up there (I suppose people must’ve thought they were crazy when they saw me floating in midair on a staircase they couldn’t see), but the door is always locked.

             At least, it’s always locked when I’m up there. I’ve seen someone go through the door before, though. I never see them go up or down, though: all it is is one moment I see them on the staircase and the next they’re through the door, or one moment they’re exiting the door and then suddenly they’re gone. It’s time’s like those when I want to agree with people that I’m crazy, ‘cause nobody can just disappear or appear out of thin air. But, then again, I’d never tell someone that it was possible to have a staircase and door in the middle of a park leading to nowhere, either.

             Come to think of it, it’s generally just one man I see going up and down those steps. He looks like an old-fashioned preacher man, complete with robe and greying hair and that little white collar thing. I’ve tried calling out to him, but he never responds. No matter what I say or ask, he just keeps walking, and then suddenly disappears. It’s like, to each other, we don’t exist. We’ve never met on the staircase (even when I quick hurry to the stairs when I see him, he’s always gone by the time I reach the bottom).

             I used to not really care about the staircase. ‘It’s a staircase in the middle of the park. So what?’ I would tell myself. But now it’s been slowly eating away at me. My nonchalant attitude has turned to more of a ‘who the crap leaves a giant, spiraling staircase in the middle of a city park? What, did they forget where they left it or something?’ So, even though they think I’m crazy, and I know they think I’m crazy, I keep asking people about it. And I’ve still had no luck. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder whether they’re right.

             Every day now I go up to the door, every day it’s locked; every day I see the preacher man walking along the staircase, every day I try to talk to him or at least make him see me, every day he disappears.

             Some day I’m going to succeed. I’m not sure when, or I’m not sure how, but I know that some day I’m bound to find out something. And so, every day, I’ll keep trying, hoping for that day.