“Sara, come on! We got to go.”
Her mother came into her room while she was starting the eleventh chapter. She sighed, her friends had gotten her mother to join the fight of getting her to go to the party. She looked up from her book glancing at her mother. She was a strong Mexican woman, she had jet black hair and piercing brown eyes, she wasn’t a woman you wanted to mess with. Her mother had grown up in the ghost town of Real de Catorce.
“Mama you know I have to study for my history finals coming up. And I need my grades high to get into Rice.”
Since she was a little girl she wanted to go to Rice university in Houston. Her mother wanted her to reach her dream, she just wished that she would relax some too.
“You’ve done enough for the week, it’s Saturday and your friend only turns eighteen once. This is important. Get up and get ready.”
“Ma?”
Her mother walked away without another word. Years ago she would have fought back, argued, done something, but not since her father died. Her mother stopped fighting and she stopped caring about anything other then getting a degree. She shook her head as she closed her book and got out of her bed. Standing in front of her mirror she looked into her own eyes, she did this often, she was looking for her father. She was always told she had his eyes, but every time she looked all she found was emptiness. He died when she was young, almost too young for her to remember. Bits and pieces of him fading over the years.
She closed her eyes and could see Christmas morning. Her father was there singing next to her mother, they were happy. He was being deployed the next day, but he knew how to make the most of his time. He had done four tours already. She could hear him laughing as she played with a box more than the toy that came in it. This was a happy day, but in two months time he would be stolen from them. A prisoner of war turned into a martyr. Tears began to roll down her cheeks as she recalled the officers standing outside the front door.
She remembers their words, the way they stood, the color of their uniforms, she even remembered how their voices sounded. She grew angry at the fact her father was fading from her memory but that moment was set in stone. That horrible moment changed everything. No one understood that moment, none of her friends could comprehend that moment, her counselors wanted her to relive that moment, but no one could help her move past that moment. She screamed at her reflection her anger peaking.
Her mother’s footsteps came running back into her room to find kneeling in front of her mirror crying. She went over to her sat beside her as she wrapped her right arm around her daughter.
“Shhh mi amor…”
The tears began to gather in her mother’s eyes. Neither said what was wrong, yet, they both understood for who else could understand their pain? They both understood that moment.
This little bundle of energy barreled into the living room with excitement as she tried to tell me something. I watched as her arms and legs moved as her speech came out pushed together with gibberish. Confusion clearly written on my face while she continued on with passion.
“I’m sorry baby, I just don’t know.”
I spoke through laughter as she tried. Her frustration grew more and more as she repeated the same sentence. I knew she was trying to say, to convey what she wanted, but her toddler speech was so hard to understand sometimes.
“Sweetie, just slow down… mommy is trying to hear you.”
The tears welled up in her little eyes as I still was not receiving what she was laying down. She started patting her leg, so I thought maybe she hurt it, but when I went to check she screamed in frustration.
“Why don’t you show mommy?”
She calmed down and took my hand pulling me into the bathroom, now I was even more confused. What could she want in here. She pointed up at the shelf that had a million things on it. I went to grab each item and each time she protested loudly. My brain becoming more scattered as I desperately tried to understand this little human.
Finally my hand grabbed the hair brush and she started jumping with joy, a large smile spread across her face. I went to hand it too her and she practically snatched out of my hand and ran back to the living-room where the grunting started again.
“What now love?”
I asked as I walked in. She was patting the floor beside her with new found fervor. I stood there and she grunted, then I sat. These new forms of communication were really difficult to figure out at first, but once I sat she rejoiced! She stood and immediately started “brushing” my hair.
I could feel more knots with each stroke, but the joy in her little voice was worth every cringe of pain. She is my everything after all. When she finished I understood one word
“Utiful mommy.”
Beautiful, I loved this little girl. My head ached for more than one reason, but to see her light up as she sees her “masterpiece” is more than enough. That being said I got up and went to find Tylenol. Toddler smiles, coffee, and Tylenol is every mother’s tools to get through the day.
Her frustration grew more and more as she repeated the same sentence. I knew she was trying to say, to convey what she wanted, but her toddler speech was so hard to understand sometimes.
“Sweetie, just slow down… mommy is trying to hear you.”
The tears welled up in her little eyes as I still was not receiving what she was laying down. She started patting her leg, so I thought maybe she hurt it, but when I went to check she screamed in frustration.
“Why don’t you show mommy?”
She calmed down and took my hand pulling me into the bathroom, now I was even more confused. What could she want in here. She pointed up at the shelf that had a million things on it. I went to grab each item and each time she protested loudly. My brain becoming more scattered as I desperately tried to understand this little human.
Finally my hand grabbed the hair brush and she started jumping with joy, a large smile spread across her face. I went to hand it too her and she practically snatched out of my hand and ran back to the living-room where the grunting started again.
“What now love?”
I asked as I walked in. She was patting the floor beside her with new found fervor. I stood there and she grunted, then I sat. These new forms of communication were really difficult to figure out at first, but once I sat she rejoiced! She stood and immediately started “brushing” my hair.
I could feel more knots with each stroke, but the joy in her little voice was worth every cringe of pain. She is my everything after all. When she finished I understood one word
“Utiful mommy.”
Beautiful, I loved this little girl. My head ached for more than one reason, but to see her light up as she sees her “masterpiece” is more than enough. That being said I got up and went to find Tylenol. Toddler smiles, coffee, and Tylenol is every mother’s tools to get through the day.
He missed the days of when she walked beside him. The path always seemed welcoming, inviting, when it was the two of them. The morning air didn’t have as much bite and the ocean didn’t seem as ominous when she held his hand. The days where gone after the doctor said the damage was more than could be fixed.
One car accident, one mistake, that’s all it took to steal her freedom. She was wild, always had been, but her mind was crippled and her will with it. He huffed out a hot breath watching it mix with the cold. He couldn’t help but blame himself, he wasn’t the one drinking, that was the other driver, but had he let her drive their story would be different.
Thirty years of marriage, of working together to make this journey last, now he felt alone. How could you grieve someone still living? How could you mourn if you still kiss them every night? Everyone told him how lucky he was she was alive, but no one saw that something else died.
He looked out onto the icy waves, he lost the woman he married. The woman who would meet you head to head if she knew she was right. He lost the woman who danced barefoot while she wrestled bread dough. He lost the woman who looked at him and made him a hero everyday. That woman died.
That was why he was grieving. He was missing the woman who made him feel alive, the one who made him bend the rules, who made him step out of his comfort zone.
As he stared at the waves one thought made him happy, and that was that that woman did not know what she would become. If she knew what would have happened she would have been heart broken. To lose a life of adventure and know would have wounded her more than for it to just happen.
The fog gathered as the air began to warm and mix with the cold of the sea. He smiled a broken kind of smile, one where he knew his love was not lost, but forever changed. The seagulls began to call to one another as the morning started.
He turned on his heels beginning the trek back to the house to see his beautiful bride and tell her what the walk was like today. If she couldn’t see it, perhaps he could describe it. After all sight is not everything, love is.
One day, while I visited my grandmas old pawn shop, I came across a book with a silver lined cover. The pages shimmered and the writing was bold like it was written to be read in the fading light. I walked around the shop, she said I could pick one thing, but I always found myself standing in-front of this book.
“Do you think I could take this one?”
I said pointing at it, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and also write my college entry book essay on it. It looked ancient. I waited till I saw her nod then snatched it up.
“Thanks grandma!”
I walked out with my prize in hand, a part of me was excited to read it, and the other wondering when I would find the time. As the weeks passed I finally found the time. One evening when we were having power difficulties I decided to pick it up and get started.
I set up my reading station, a couple of highlighters, pencils, and candles to read with should the power drop again. When I opened the book the light danced on the pages, it was brilliant and captivating. I started to devour the words with highlighter in hand when gradually something seemed off.
I shook my head and kept reading chapter by chapter, finally I stopped at chapter eight. Something was off, very off. I yelled for my dad and he came quickly.
“Dad I need you to read this real quick.”
I pointed down at one paragraph, he agreed and started, a look of confusion going across his face.
“This is about your first day at high school.”
He looked at me as he tried to piece it together.
“Every page is like this. It’s like somebody knew my life and wrote it down before I could even live…”
“Where did you get it from? It seems a bit odd.”
“Just Grandmas pawn shop. I was helping out a couple weeks back, she let me pick one thing out like usual.”
He put his left hand grabbing his chin as he tried to think through what was happening.
“The only thing I can think is for you to keep reading, I guess. See what happens.”
I nodded my head and he walked out of the room asking me to let him know what happens. The thing is, I didn’t sleep that night, I read everything I could, but then something happened.
I made it all the way to the night I was reading in the book, every page was blank after, and words appeared as I did things.
“She looked through the mysterious book as her heart pounded inside her chest.”
As I read that line my heart did begin to pound. How was I supposed to be okay right now? I watched Never-Ending Story growing up, but this, this was straight out a movie you don’t survive. A piece of me was expecting to read something about being watched from my bedroom window.
I shivered with the idea of it. This whole book had me squirming in my chair. You could hang hats on the goose bumps it was producing. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breathes. I decided to close the book and call it a night. This could be sorted out in the morning, if morning came… I opened my eyes with a start. Now why did I have to think that. I scrunched up my face and went to the kitchen making a coffee. No way I was sleeping tonight.
Anna looked around their surroundings while she watched her daughter play on the swings. Nothing was the same after the flare, life had gotten increasingly complicated and people kept vanishing. Watchers walked around with riot shields and people were confined indoors.
Her daughter loved the park though, before the flare Anna took her everyday. She looked over to her black haired, blue eyed, beautiful little eight year old. She was smiling, oh Anna would do anything to see her smile like this.
The wind rustled the trees and her attention was broken. Everything was cause for alarm.
“Mom look what I can do!!”
Her daughter ran over to her with a toy car wheel floating between her open hands. Reclaiming Anna’s attention.
“How are you doing that?”
She looked closely as it flipped and turned unattached to anything at all. And her daughter, the smile was undeniably growing.
“I don’t know. My hands feel tingly when I do it.”
Anna looked around again then back at her daughter.
“What else can you lift? Did you try a rock?”
She was filled with concern and excitement, and her questions were without number. She watched as her daughter tried item after item each one bigger and heavier than the last. When the girl focused onto the tree making the branches move Anna noticed her straining. Her face scrunched as she focused on each branch, and she began to grunt as they moved.
“Baby I think that’s enough… you might hurt yourself. “
Worry hinting in her voice.
“No…. I… think… I… can…”
She took a loud breath between each word as she struggled to move the tree.
“Enough, you aren’t listening to me. I said to stop!”
After she yelled fast footsteps could be heard behind them as soldiers came from the forest. Anna looked at her daughter, an expression of panic painted on her face. She jumped off the bench she had been on to wrap her daughter in her arms as they were surrounded.
“Under paragraph J, subsection A5, line seven you are under arrest for the endangerment of others. You will be sentenced post your trail.”
The soldier speaking was reading from a piece of paper, not lifting their gaze until they finished. This one was slightly different than the rest, his helmet was red with a purple strip down the center where the others had plain black.
“Please, just allow us to return home, it’s not far away… we haven’t been gone very long…”
Anna’s eyes were teary as she held tight to her daughter. The soldier with the purple strip made a hand motion and two soldiers stepped forward taking Anna by the arm.
“No… let my mom go…”
Anna tried to shush her, trying to say they’re fine, everything would be fine, but her daughter got louder.
“LET HER GO!!! MOM!!!”
They started to pull the two of them apart when the unthinkable happened. That little body let out a scream so loud and powerful the trees surrounding them buckled and snapped. Splinters went flying through the air and the booming sound of the trees breaking was like a bomb.
Some of the soldiers ended up with large pieces of wood sticking through their bodies. She continued to scream and the riot shields shook with the force, some of the soldiers even knelt because they couldn’t stand it. She didn’t stop until every soldier was on the ground helmets off ears covered.
Her mother had her ears covered before anyone else because they all had helmets and she didn’t. The moment she was free she ran to her daughter standing behind her.
“Okay love we gotta go!”
She yelled to make sure her daughter could hear her. When her baby turned around she gasped, there was blood flowing out of her nose and she collapsed. Anna gently picked her up and ran into the woods towards their home while the soldiers were recovering from the ordeal.
“I’ve got you baby… I’ll keep you safe…”
She whispered as she ran.
I was so excited to be awake this morning. In twenty-three short minutes I will be eight-teen. I watched the clock as my mother set the table with every food she could possibly buy. I looked at it all with great anticipation.
“Now remember son, you can’t eat everything. Just a bite from each, okay?”
She was so worried I would be in pain, whatever that is. I hear it’s miserable, but I’ve never felt pain, or smelled, or tasted!
“I know mom, don’t worry.”
She chuckled never once looking up from the table as she arranged the food. Some of it looked beautiful, while others not so much. There was this one fluffy white bowl, I think she called it whipped cream? I don’t know, just looked weird.
“Mom, do you think I’ll like my senses?”
I was a little nervous about the whole thing, life as I knew it was about to change. I wanted them, sure, but what if I didn’t like them? My older brother walked into the room and smacked my back as hard as he could, I laughed because he always did this.
“Just wait ten minutes, you won’t find that funny anymore.”
He started laughing as he went to help our mom bring stuff out. I looked on curious, but then my eyes returned to the table piled high with food.
The minutes finally ticked down to one, everyone was counting, 50… 45… 32… 21… 13… 5… 3… 2… 1…
“ARGH!!!”
I screamed, my brother had hit me harder than it had sounded, the first sense I felt was pain. Instantly I wanted to go back to nothing. I shot him a look that he would be dead, but he only laughed harder. This is not how I wanted to start things.
She was always told to avoid the water, she had been warned of the fairy folk, yet she went anyway. When she arrived she saw the horse standing next to the water the light shining off it’s black coat. As she approached it the horse was eager to touch her, it began to rub against her.
The horse’s coat began to turn into a sticky, gooey, substance pulling the girl in like a spider web. She began to push against the horse desperately trying to free herself, but then it began pulling her toward the water.
“Kelpie!!! Kelpie!!!”
She was screaming as she realized she was never petting a horse but a man eating kelpie. It pulled her into the water and began tearing her apart, devouring her flesh. Her screams were drowned out by the water filling her mouth.
They never see, they do not know, they can never understand. I watch and wait, I will not hesitate, showing all I know. Their secrets, their lies, everything they try to hide. One day soon it will all be brought to light.
They think they are safe, they think no one sees, but they can’t find me. I hide in plain sight, I hatch my plan, I will make them understand. Every action births a consequence, the words they speak are senseless, they will pay a just recompense.
The dawn begins to break, they don’t know the castle is coming down, how could they know they sealed their fate. How could they see me hiding in the shadows, now the façade has ended, now I will have my revenge when all this has ended.
Lights were flashing throughout the campus which could only mean one thing, this day was gonna be rough. I followed the line of people that were headed for the on campus bomb shelter when I saw her, the girl that had been ghosting me all semester.
“Hey June, looks we are going to the same shelter. Pretty cool, right?”
She was already not impressed.
“Bug off Mike.”
With a roll of her eyes and a flick of her hair I knew I was going to stay with her till they let us out. You see we were neighbors my entire life and I just couldn’t get her out of my mind.
“I’m serious, BUG OFF!”
She was trying to walk a bit faster but I matched her step.
“You know, I was just thinking, it’s better if we stick together, God only knows who else is gonna be down there.”
She was silent then she shot me a look, Ha! I knew I could appeal to her better nature. Took us a few minutes, like ten, but she let me walk all the way with her then everyone was paired off into groups of four. Luckily, we were together.
“Alright, let’s get one thing straight, we are not talking.”
It was weird how she changed, when we were kids we did everything together, now she hates me… or! Loves me!!
“Okay, okay, just let me ask one question?”
She gave me a look that could kill and slowly nodded her head.
“Doritos and tequila or takis and vodka?!”
I whipped them out of my bag as I asked and a small smile formed to her lips.
“Alright, I guess this won’t be so bad.”
Yes!!! One wall down. I had her approval and now to wait.
He was always so persistent I rarely could say no, and those puppy dog eyes, I shook my head June you gotta stay focused! I looked at him again with that goofy grin as he held up the snacks.
“Alright, I guess this won’t be so bad.”
I lied, this was about to be horrible! The night when on and truth or dare was always a go to if you are drinking. I was so glad that the bunker was built uneven, the bottle rarely ended up on me. Then after 10 rounds he finally spun it and it landed on me. Oh great.
“Alright June, Truth or dare?”
I looked about the group, I’m pretty sure I was sweating, then back at him. There was no way I was choosing dare…
“Truth!”
It blurred out so quick I didn’t know what else to do.
“Do you like me?”
Wow, straight forward guy.
“Yes, but not how you think.”
A look of confusion came on everyone’s face including Mike’s.
“What? No! I know you’re lying.”
A small smirk came to his lips as he leaned forward ignoring my saying no and pushing until finally it slipped…
“YOU’RE MY BROTHER!!! STOP IT!”
He froze, everyone was silent, and I opened one eye to see him inches away with a mortified look on his face.
“Wait did I kiss my mother?”
Now it was my turn to be grossed out…
“MIKE WE WERE ADOPTED!! And you kissed my mother?!”
