This is just a journal. So if you’ve found this, I know she’s dead. It’s just easier for me to write my thoughts down if I imagine having someone to tell them to.
So. Dear Mom I guess.
I'm...lonely. Like the really awful kind of lonely. Not the kind that I was before, where it was never that bad because it's not like I had anything to compare to. I just knew loneliness. It's the way things always were. No friends, no...special friends. But it seems like, over the course of a little over half a year, I experienced a lot. Like, I connected with people. Did things that friends do and felt natural doing it. Like I'd finally reached that point my dad said I would where I didn't feel like I was doing something wrong, life-wise.
Then it all came to a halt. It was almost unsettling. Like maybe I was under a trance for several months and it broke. Like a cruel trick from a really powerful witch. Not that it makes any sense that one would pay so much attention to me. Any explanation would be better than what I come to on my own. It's always bad. Always results in me hating myself.
Milo disappearing was the catalyst. Which makes sense. He was the most unreal. Guy I immediately became friends with (that never happens, I don't click with anyone right away. I trip over myself and ruin it with a bad joke), who then develops some sort of...attraction to me (I mean really. It makes the cruel witch theory more plausible), and then...yeah, the other stuff. I don't wanna write it, because I'll think about it more, and it'll feel worse. And then I'll realize how pathetic I am. So we'll skip it.
I guess the worst part is going to his place, opening the door (you know, the one that never locked, that he wouldn't fix it because he's ridiculous and living in a town full of vampires wasn't enough reason) and seeing...nothing. No food, no laptop, empty drawers and cabinets. Nothing was forced, so it looked like he just left. Part of me wants to know why, part of me doesn't. But all of me wants to forget the way my stomach dropped, holding DVDs in my hand and the earth shattering...embarrassment I felt. Wherever he went, I wasn't worth telling, and like, why would I be? That was my first mistake. Assuming I was important enough to think about in situations like this. "Friends who do stuff" are just that. Silly stupid pasttimes. Thanks Fiona Apple.
Nia took off, and I wouldn't be surprised if Johnny did. I've learned my lesson when it comes to checking in on people. I can't really take that happening again.
The problem is, I started to think I was a little more important to people than I was. I'm just...well, I'm an idiot. So many firsts, and I forgot to tell myself that things are fleeting, you know? That's basic life stuff that everyone knows. I guess I was just so happy at one point, I didn't think about it. Yet I didn't want to talk about my happiness in case I jinxed it. Doesn't matter either way.
I feel like crap unless I'm stoned, which means I'm becoming a cliche. But the stuff I got with Gunnar...it's just the kind of shit I need to fade away completely. Cause I can't take being too present anymore. I'm a nervous wreck.
I'm not high now, and I'm kind of afraid of myself when I'm not. I think too much. And phrases like "Today is he first day of the rest of your life" make me nauseous. I don't want this. I have to look forward to more of it? I'm 23, that's not even a third of an average human lifespan.
I hate this. I hate Sangren. I hate that I'll probably never leave. I hate that I'm basically living Groundhog's Day. I hate my job, because it just reminds me of people I never see anymore.
I'm filled with hate, THC and 0 will. There's no hopeful happy endnote, Mom. Oh, and you're dead. That's the best part.
The Triumph purred noisily on the otherwise quiet street. He liked empty spaces and the ruckus he caused that surely interrupted some sleeping townie's quest for a good night's rest. He wasn't tired; far from it. Restless, always restless. That meant looking for something to get into was in order. Dragging Andy along wasn't part of the plan, but he figured it was his way of being a friend. Getting her out of that funk, a maybe into a little trouble. Shifting a bit, the blond twisted in his seat, enough to crack the muscles in his lower back while he waited for his companion for the evening to appear.
Tagging: Javin Kapoor, Nina Armstrong & Kierra.
Location: Heavenly Ski Resort. South Lake Tahoe, CA
Time Frame: Afternoon, April 2008
General Notes: Part II of this para. Hella lengthy. Enjoy.
“Ready?”
He’d been deep in thought—thick dark brows slanted over dark copper eyes—but the familiar voice made him look up. Standing before him in all purple, black and white snow gear was his girlfriend, Nina. Her dark lips were spread in a soft smile and from behind her wide goggles, her eyes were wide with happiness and anticipation.
“Hm?”
Nina lightly nudged him, “I asked if you’re ready. Or are you too busy flashing some skin to the people coming up the lift?”
“Oh, yeah. But I don’t wanna cause any accidents. So let’s go,” Javin replied with a laugh, stretching his own goggles from the back of his beanie to the bridge of his nose.
Using his body, Javin maneuvered his board to the peak of the mountain slope. As per their tradition, Nina started down first and Javin followed shortly thereafter. They’d gone up to the Milky Way Bowl—few trees and plenty of powder to zig zag down as they’d been doing the entire day. A couple of times, they raced, and on other occasions, Javin took to the jumps for some trick practice.
As they neared the bottom of the bowl, Javin sped toward one of the last jumps, keeping his balance strong when got close. He gained enough momentum to throw his body back for a full corkscrew, and brushed the snow with his gloved hands upon the landing. Slowing at the base was Nina, iPhone out and recording Javin.
“That was a pretty tame finish,” Nina teased, tapping her screen.
Javin shrugged, pulling his helmet off, “It’s getting late. I’ll probably just coast the next trip down.”
Nina nodded, “You’re going again, Javin?”
“Yeah, just one more I think.”
His girlfriend pursed her lips in thought, “Alright, well I’m packing it in for today.” She pocketed her phone and bent forward to loosen the bindings around her boots. “Don’t forget, my parents aren’t coming back until tomorrow morning so…”
Javin gave a knowing smirked, “So..?”
Stepping out of the board bindings, Nina righted herself and came directly to him, “So, don’t take long so we can pick up from this morning.”
It only took Javin a small pucker of his lips to catch Nina’s, and after she started off, she told him, “I’ll meet you inside the shuttle stop when you’re finished.”
He watched her backside retreat toward the shuttle stop for a moment, before undoing one of his bindings enough for him to step out and slide his board and still-bound foot in the opposite direction. On his way to the nearly empty lifts however, he caught sight of a girl approaching him. She had dark, wild tresses of hair, held back only by the band on a pair of earmuffs. Javin’s brows furrowed as the rest of her appeared a little underdressed for the conditions but she certainly acted impervious to the dry cold.
“That was pretty good,” she told him, meeting him on his trek to the lift.
He nodded to her, casting a cordial smile, “Thanks.”
When he got closer, he could see faint, raised scars marred violently along her jaw and exposed neck. Javin did his best not to stare, especially after she asked to ride the lift with him. He shifted to one side and anticipated the bench’s scoop before they were hoisting to a higher altitude. His thoughts began to drift back to Nina and a small smile played at his lips until he was jolted out of his reverie.
“What’s the smile for?” she rasped.
He jumped a little and looked to the stranger, “Oh. Nothing. Just thinking is all.”
“Was that your girlfriend?”
His smile grew a fraction, “Yeah. We came up for the weekend.” Some silence stretched between them before he felt compelled to end it. “Are you here with anyone?”
She spoke nothing but shook her head; for the remainder of the ride, neither said anything but her eyes were bearing into the side of Javin’s face. She knew he’d felt it by his unnecessary shift on the bench and the way he purposely looked down and away from her. She seemed amused by him while randomly muttering about his features. “Tall”, “Handsome”, “Alluring”, “Slender…that could serve him well though…Clearly agile…”
Javin chanced a few wary glances at her through his goggles, still finding her big brown eyes staring boldly at him. His heart was beating faster, telling the rest of his body that something did not feel right. Thankfully they had reached the end of the lift and he was able to expertly slide off with his free foot falling back into the board bindings. He slowly guided himself away and bent forward with the intent to strap himself back in but the girl was directly beside him again. It wasn’t until he was staring at her own footwear beside his board that he realized she had ridden the lift with nothing to descend the mountain on.
Feeling a little foolish, Javin asked, “Where’s your board?”
She gave him a small peal of laughs and replied, “I came up here to show you something, but you won’t be able to see it with your feet strapped to your board.”
At that, she began to walk toward the thick piney brush just a dozen or so yards away. Javin’s unease settled further within, but greater than that was his conscience. Whatever her thinking was, he knew he wouldn’t feel right about going ahead down the mountain and leaving her up there alone. The lift monitor was at the bottom—perhaps he ought to go down and let them know she was up here?
Against his better judgment, he unstrapped from his board, and marched through the deepening snow after her.
“Hey!” he called out when she had vanished amongst the cluster of trees. Speaking to, seemingly, no one he loudly stated, “Look, I have to go. They’re closing soon. You should probably get back on the lift so you can get going…too…” He hadn’t realized that the volume in his voice had dropped, or that everything had gone eerily quiet, save his heavy breathing from stomping through calf-deep snow.
The girl was standing on the opposite side of a small clearing—saying nothing, and doing nothing beyond beaming a full teeth-bearing smile at Javin.
“Javin’s your name, isn’t it? It’s what she called you.” He did not answer but she wasn’t deterred from speaking on. “Oh, I’ve never done this before!” she trilled. “If you survive this—and I hope that you do. Come find me sometime. Kierra. You can thank me then.”
He immediately thought her certifiably insane until she began to step toward him, tearing her shirt apart as easy as crepe paper. Her eyes went from brown to bright blue while her face contorted to that of a muzzle. Bare breasts disappeared behind white and cinnamon fur; she dropped to all fours but advanced him still, lithe footsteps shifting into heavy paws crunching through the loosely packed snow. Javin was rooted in shock from all he was witnessing but her sharp, sudden growl jolted him enough for him to sensibly take off. Under normal circumstances he’d be considered a fairly fast runner, but his boarding boots coupled with the deep snow retarded him greatly, and she was fast. He didn’t make a sport of watching wolves run but her speed was as unbelievable as her changing into the beast.
She caught him in no time, head-butting his back hard. He gasped before falling face first into the snow. Despite the sting in his back, his adrenaline propelled him onto all fours and eventually to his feet again but he was taken down again, simultaneously whipped around on his back. Javin took in a sharp breath with the intent to yell—louder than he ever had—but the large canine dropped a heavy paw high on his chest and drove it up his neck. The blunt curl of her claws burrowed into the thin flesh under his chin while the weight of the paw pinched his windpipe.
Javin’s already terrified eyes grew impossibly wider as he struggled for air. His fingers disappeared in the wolf’s chest fur as he pushed at her for relief, but she did not budge. He continued to fight at her but to no avail, even after gripping something hard by chance and swinging it up at her face. It only made her growl bend with ferocity as she moved the paw from beneath his jaw, giving one swift swipe at his clothes. He coughed through his limb’s struggles against her but a bloodcurdling scream ripped through him when her massive head began darting up and down over him. Each time her vicious muzzle dipped down, he was jostled as she sank her sharp canines into him, piercing his already torn clothes and breaking through his olive skin with ease.
His vision was teetering in and out of focus as something warm and wet began to spread across his right shoulder. The last few times it had come into focus, he saw her white muzzle stained bright red. He had lost his voice and was fearfully—and physically—paralyzed in the snow. The great wolf, Kierra, loomed over him his eyes repeatedly rolled back, lids fluttered shut, and then popped open again. He stared beyond her massive head, up at the pinkish sky while the pain in his body gave way to numbness—from the blood loss, the pure shock or the snowy casket, he wasn’t sure. The only thing he could seem to feel was a new wet warmth as Kierra lowered her head a final time and began licking at the wounds her bottom canines inflicted.
Javin could not form words with the shallow breaths he’d been taking. Somewhere in the back of his mind he felt he was sure to die. He thought of his family—safe, warm and unaware. He thought of his girlfriend, waiting for him; his job he would not return to and his friends he would not see again. The thoughts overwhelmed him while his eyes flutter shut one last time.
In light of an upcoming event and a lack of activity from quite a few characters, whatever their given reasons may be, the main blog will be undergoing a bit of a revamp. Some of the things this involves is a new navigation, more new characters, new ads and a new look entirely.
We'll go under construction midday tomorrow, but the askbox will remain open. The changes will in no way effect the established plot lines or the setting.
Instead of posting a list for activity checks and hunting certain people down, we'd like you to either like this post as an indication that you'd like to be included in the updated character list, or message us to let us know, even if you need an extended hiatus. Please don't hesitate to do this; if your activity has been nonexistent, there's a 100% chance we'll work with you.
We will post once the main is finished and everything's in order. Hope anyone reading this is having a great week!
This is just a journal. So if you’ve found this, I know she’s dead. It’s just easier for me to write my thoughts down if I imagine having someone to tell them to.
So.
Dear Mom.
I am okay. But that's where it stops. Not that I don't like it, because there are times where I would have given anything to feel just "okay." Not on edge, not paranoid, not depressed. Okay is a great middle ground.
I had to do one of those things where I sit, and relax, and see where I am now, compared to before. And it's good. I have friends still. I think. I'm not entirely sure how it works. Do people just stay your friends? Is there a way to keep up with that kinda thing? Javin and I are still cool, I'd imagine. Leigh, I'm never sure about. At most, I'd say she tolerates me. Milo's in school again. Called him once, and I feel more than once is annoying. I don't wanna be annoying to anyone. Same with Johnny, kind of. I don't see him as much, but he seems to be the person I easily admit things to. That's kind of refreshing I guess. It's a full time job, holding back, and worrying about what you're holding back. Oh, and there's Gunnar. Who is...kind of an unexpected friend...which I use loosely, because I don't really know. When we talked before, he made me nervous, and always responded with weird looks or "Aye." But after learning some self defense stuff from him, and talking to him, like actual conversations, I think he's actually nice. The nervousness was weirdly replaced with feeling safe. So I've got friends, I think. Still.
You probably had loads of friends. Dad says you were this intoxicating extrovert. Who birthed me. The total opposite. It's kinda funny when you think about it.
He also said you were good. Like, your heart was good. I don't think I'm that good. Like, when I think about it, I'm not really. Anxiety and fear of confrontation doesn't make you good. It just makes you...cautious and...unconfrontational. I've watched people die, Mom. And I only felt bad about it the first time, because it was so shocking. Every other time, my only thoughts were about my life. Could I get away unseen. Never worried about the corpse, just didn't wanna become one.
And why am I focused on living so long in Sangren anyway? For more sort-of-friendships? More paranoid rides home and weekends spent by myself in my studio? Because...there are things I wanna stay on this earth for. Like my Dad, or the way Susan sounds when I start her up, or...being able to paint something that reaches the ceiling, or I don't know, maybe I'd fall in love one day. I've felt that happiness, even though it was artificial, and maybe I wanna stick around to see if it ever happens for real. With anyone. I don't know.
But yeah. I'm not morally all right. I kinda care about self-preservation more than I do helping people. I don't want to be around people a lot of the time, let alone help them. I'm a runner. When things get dicey or scary, I run. And when I'm safe again, the unsettling feeling stays until I can convince myself that I am.
I think that'd make me a bad friend in a lot of hypothetical situations. But none of them have happened, so I'll stick to being Andy until I lose them all.
Javin: Erm...Javin? [waits, anticipating he might know something]
C.R.: Javin? The hell kind of a name is that?
Javin: [mumbles] 'Dunno. [clears his throat] I had a message
C.R.: So? What's that got to do with me? How'd you get my number?
Javin: That's what I'm tryin' to tell ya. I had a message on my phone from this number about a bike? You were giving it to me?
C.R.: A bike? ...Ehh, I've got one out back. Yamaha. Black...I'm giving it to you?
Javin: [stills as he realizes it's a motorbike] Yeah. According to my message. [massages the bridge of his nose] This is going to sound rather odd, but...was I to pay you for this?
C.R.: Uh..well I don't know.
Javin: O..kay..
C.R.: Tell you what...Javin? Come by.
Javin: Your address?
C.R.: 789 Cliff--wait a second. How'd you find out about my bike if you
Javin: [thinks quickly] I would've had to know about it from you, so...
C.R.: Eh...guess so. 789 Eagle Cliff Drive. If you're not here in the next hour, I don't wanna hear from you again, y'hear?
Javin: [cracks a smile] Loud and clear. Thank you, sir.
'Dunno who I am or if anybody's around with answers, an' I'd do more to find out but what ever happened to me has me feelin' too done in to do much. I keep smelling things--peroxide on me hands, feet 'n chest. Flowers, but there's none in the room. There's dirty and bloody bandages in a waste bin, an' I swear I can smell the blood. My blood.
I hear shit outside too. Birds singin', something or someone runnin' by. Cars passing. There were two people havin' a row. It was far away and I don't know how I could hear 'em go at it over one of 'em livin' or not livin' at a place, but I do hope I'm awake enough to get some answers from somebody, soon.
Automated Voicemail: You have reached the voicemail box of: XXX-XXX-XXXX. To leave a message, press 1 now, or just wait for the tone...[beep]
C.R.: Yeah, Javin it's me. I thought you were coming by on Saturday to get the bike. It's still yours if you want it but I do have someone else interested, so...call me back when you get this. Bye.
