Young Writers Society

The car ride was pure chaos thanks to Kern and Jason. The two blasted the radio and sang to every song they recognized. Despite the fact that my ear drums wanted to kill themselves, I was strangely at ease. I sat in the backseat and just stared out the window. The lines on the road past me by so dizzingly quick that moments later I forgot one had even went.

We stopped at a house which could possibly be a gateway to the stars, with its three billion floors. It was of epic scale and anytime I saw it I was starstruck. Jason beeped his horn twice and a girl came out.

“Get in loser we’re going shopping!” screamed Kern as he leaned over to the driver’s window.

The girl was Emmy. The ‘gangs’ little ditz. The blonde hair, murky green eyes, and large…chest balls, didn’t help her. Her looks made everyone class her as a dumb girl and at times she lived up to that lable. She had trouble understanding with school work, boys gushed over her, girls burned with hate for her.

When I first met her I hated her too. We shared the same history class and I was forced to sit next to her. At just one glance I thought I could figure out her entire personality. When I sat down she offered me a hello but I ignored her. After that she made as much small talk as she could, every time I merely answered in rude grunts and ignorant sighs.

“So you’re from Scotland, no?” she asked, when the bell rang.

I nodded.

“My dad comes from there too,” she said, with a bright smile. “He comes from a small town just off of Glasgow I think.”

My eyes flashed open wide. I knew that town. That was the town I grew up in.

“So you do have an emotion other than stone,” she giggled.

At that phrase my previous perception of Emmy vanished. Dumb she may be but she wasn’t an idiot.

“Oh, hey Alison!” she exclaimed jumping into the backseat with me.

Her arms went right around my neck as she pulled me into a one sided hug. Keeping the smile off my face was like trying to lick your own elbow.

“Hey, Emmy,” I murmmered.

“So,” she leaned forward and put her hand on Jason’s seat. “What are the plans for today? I’m thinkin’ movies.”

“We still need to wait for Cole and Thorn to show up.”

At the mention of ‘Thorn’ my ears pricked up. If I could just be even a bit of the women she was I’d be the happiest girl alive. Thorn was my idol. If someone at school picked on me Thorn would come rushing to my side, she listened to my problems and gave sound advice. Thorn was astonishing, and I truly wanted to be like her.

“Then let’s go!” yelled Emmy, clipping herself in.

Jason drove off and the chaos continued.

We entered a parking lot which was directly across a massive mall. When I first came to Arizona the size of the Malls were what struck me the most. Where I come from, our ‘malls’ are tragic in comparison. I made Mum go to the mall around a dozen times on our first day.

The four of us strolled our way to the entrance of the mall. Two people stood and when they spotted us they waved happily. The boy was Cole. A dark hair, green eyed boy who looked like he was straight out of a summer block-buster. He carried himself with an aura of coolness. Of course we all saw through him and on multiple occasions call him a ‘douche’.

Then there was Thorn. She was a delicate figure which seemed to need protecting. Her eyes were a deep, sparkling, sapphire blue and her hair was never the same colour for more than a month – I didn’t even know what her natural hair colour was back then. On that day she was sporting amethyst dyed locks.

I stood behind Kern while everyone hugged and chatted for a few minutes.

“So when’s your mom leaving, Ally?” asked Thorn.

Her question caught me off guard; I was busy counting the petite rocks which lay beside my shoes.

“Uh, s-she,” my tongue struggled to form words. “She leaves tonight.”

“Where does she work at anyway?” asked Cole, walking ahead of everyone into the mall. We all followed him with me in the centre.

“I don’t actually know, it’s some big business. That’s all I really know,” I stampeded, edging closer to Kern for some type of protection.

“Hey!” Emmy came up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. “Since your mom’s outta town why don’t we keep you company and stay over tomorrow?”

“Uh, hubada?” I made an alien noise.

“That actually doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” said Kern, elbowing me slightly. “None of us have actually been to your house.”

Hey! You’re finally gonna have a freakin’ party! Little Alison was giddy.

“I don’t think so,” I murmured, my face turning a thousand shades of rose with all the attention. “I don’t know if Mum’ll let me.”

“Really?” chirped Jason. “Daphne? She lets me and Kern come over whenever we want.”

I bit my bottom lip. I didn’t want them at my house. Hosting was far from my comfort zone. I had no hobbies other than playing video games, and not everyone would want to play for a weekend.

“B-but, there’s nothing fun to do at my house,” I stuttered for excuses.

“Nothing fun!” exclaimed Kern. “You have like five different gaming consoles, that’s fun in my eyes.”

“Actually, playing games sounds fun,” chuckled Thorn.

“As long as she has COD I’m game,” smirked Cole.

“My dad recently bought a Wii and I’ve had so much fun with it,” exclaimed Emmy, still with her hands on my shoulders.

“Looks like its five against one Ally,” smiled Jason, so warmly that it could melt steel.

With that amazing smile I caved. “A-alright.”

The rest of that day is a hazey blur to me. Mainly due to my heart sitting in my mouth.

Oh, lighten up. Said Little Alison. Mum’ll be fine about you having friends over.

It wasn’t Mum I was worried about. I knew perfectly well that she’d embrace the idea of me having friends over. It would actually put her mind at ease knowing I had some form of company outside of Mr. and Mrs. Dot. Nevertheless, that didn’t necessary mean I wanted them. Sure many Kern and Jason, but not everyone at the same time. The thought of them all coming to my house put me on the verge of a panic attack.

You’re so dramatic, I vented out my frustration by mentally kicking Little Alison. Okay, stop that, even if I’m a figment; that still hurts.

The mall was rather busy that day so we crossed of the movies from our list of things to do. Instead we went for something to eat. I vaguely remember buy a new video game but which one is a mystery. Everyone discussed plans about that weekend with me just casually agreeing to anything they suggested. We moved away from the small café and headed for an arcade – if memory serves me right. I walked at the back of the ‘gang’. With Kern right by my side.

“Don’t be so nervous about it,” he said playfully elbowing me.

“I can’t help it,” I admitted. “Group gatherings scare me, when you guys suggested this I almost freaked out I was so nervous.”

He put his arm around my shoulder. “Me and Jason are pretty much at you house five times a week; so we’ll help you make this thing go off without a hitch. How about that?”

I smiled and nodded pretending that he was reassuring me. He actually put even more stress on my mind as I remembered the letter in my bag.

You’re still worried about that, look, he wasn’t ever gonna use it so it’s going to a good home. I agreed with Little Alison as spoke. Now, for the rest of the day just try to forget everything and enjoy yourself. My god, you so uptight.

I tried what Little Alison told me. The arcade was more my comfort zone. I ended up actually having some fun. Emmy told me afterwards that I had the cutest giggle she’d ever heard. I didn’t even remember giggling.

Towards the end of the day when we were all ready to go home Thorn spoke up.

“I love days like this, where we can all just relax. It’s scary to think these day will soon be over, huh?” she said, with a strange look on her face.

It was scary how true her prediction would be.

We all said our goodbyes and split off. As soon as the four of us got into the car Jason and Kern blasted on the radio. Not wanting the fun to end I ng to end I joined in with them.

Despite the terrible thing I had done that day, it was most likely the best day of my life since then. At times, Little Alison does give good advice.

“I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” I exclaimed, getting out of Jason’s car.

Quickly, I opened the front door yelling, “Mum! Mum! Mum!”

I was greeted by two sets of paws jumping on me and lathering me with their tongues. The two brutes were our dogs. Joy was a border collie and was the eldest of the two. She was actually my Mum’s dog. The other was mine. Lady was a little black whippet we rescued from the streets.

“Yeah, I see you, I see you.”

I heared Mum giggling ahead of me. I looked up and saw her standing by the living room door way.

“So the guys came, huh?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “They gave me a refund and my deposit back so I really can’t complain. Anyway, how was your day? You look pretty cheery actually. Now that look suits you better.”

I grinned and pushed away the dogs to get into the living room. Mum sat on the couch, a newspaper and mug were sitting on the table. She picked them both up while I sat on the shag carpet facing the television.

“I had a lotta fun actually.”

“That’s awesome, sweetheart” she said, sipping at her mug.

I looked across the room and spotted a packed suitcase. Suddenly, I was hit and the realization that Mum would be leaving soon.

“So you’re all packed then?” I said, trying to hide the unsteadiness in my voice.

Mum smiled and nodded, she was holding back too. I could see the glint of sadness misting in her eyes. None of us wanted to cry. We wanted to act strong for each other. Our emotions stayed submerged in our hearts. Eventually the time came when Mum had to leave.

She went over everything one last time. She also gave me extra money just in case. For the longest time we just stood at the door way. A soft hug was wrapped around me. She planted one last kiss on my head before getting into her car.

As she drove away we both yelled, “Love you!”

I stayed outside until I couldn’t see her car lights at all. I closed the door slowly then my emotions couldn’t lay dormant anymore. Tears escaped from my face one-by-one. No amount of sleeve sponging could stop the salty water flowing from my eyes. Joy came up to me whining. Clearly, she missed Mum too.

Trying to take my mind off things I took the two dogs into my room.

Open that letter! Little Alison exclaimed without warning.

“Do I really have to?” I asked the empty room.

Obviously, it’ll take your mind off of things for a little while.

I went into my bag and opened the letter. A USB stick fell out along with a vaguely typed piece of paper. Ignoring the USB, I unfolded the letter. Basically, all it said was congratulations. There were other things about the magazines other contests and articles. All in all, it was really just a shameless plug. I sat in my desk chair and scrunched up the letter. I tossed it and missed the small bin. I loaded up my computer and inserted the stick. Immediately, a folder opened up entitled ‘Mod’. There were a few text files which I didn’t read. At the bottom of the folder was a zip file.

“A zip file?” I questioned to the folder. “Really?”

I clicked the file and unzipped it. There was another folder in the file named ‘GAME’. I rolled my eyes. There were three text files and an application file. The application file had a small icon. I squinted my eyes and noticed what seemed like some kind of symbol. Dove feathers were elegantly painted on a purple backdrop, a cosmic blue bordered the icon and there was a letter in the middle of the feathers: O.

I shook my head in confusion and double clicked the icon. Thrillingly, a loading screen came up. The bar at the bottom of the screen took three minutes just to get to two per cent. A noise half way between a groan and sigh escaped my mouth.

Swivelling out of my chair I grabbed my X-BOX controller. The console happily lit up when I pressed the sliver button on the controller. I continued playing a standard fantasy game. Before I looked back at the computer screen, I did a few fetch quests and one main story quest. By then the game had completely loaded. I paused my game and grabbed the mouse.

The screen only had one button: ‘play’.

Without thinking I clicked on the icon. The screen fades from black into a large desert. The character I control was a hooded figure. The first thing I noticed was how advanced the graphics were. As I moved the character through the desert once or twice I swore the character looked like a real living person – despite the hood.

Just as I was about to head towards a dune the character suddenly stopped. A box of text popped up.

‘I shouldn’t be here,’ the box said. ‘This isn’t my home.’

I read the box confused and clicked it away. I reached the dune and noticed a brown treasure box. Eagerly to have something happen, I made the character open the box. The character bent down and tried to unlock the box.

‘It won’t open,’ said another text box.

The camera zoomed in closer to the hooded character. All I could see of their face was their mouth. It seemed like a girl, she seemed young – perhaps around my own age at the time. She made a motion of worry as she looked behind her. There was a rumbling and something was forming upon the horizon.

‘I’m stuck!’ said the text box. ‘There’s no way to leave…help! Please! Help me!’

There was an ear piercing scream just as the game faded to black. After playing hours and hours of horror games it didn’t faze me. However, it did seem strange to me. The screen finally stopped fading the black.

“Was that it?” I exclaimed as I was brought back to the starting screen.

In an angry rage I switched off the computer and continued playing my fantasy game. Yet, no matter what I did I couldn’t shake a strange feeling. I felt as if I had heard that scream before but from where I couldn’t remember.

With a frustrated feeling lodged in my gut I switched everything off and slumped into bed. With that piercing scream haunting my dreams.