Young Writers Society

July 17, 2018

It was hard not to write a small novel yesterday. I had so much to say--so many thoughts about you to write down. It's easier to write my thoughts, because in my head they come out jumbled, but on paper they are quite clear.

But I only have a small pencil, and a few ratty scripts of paper to write on. One of my friends, Philip, gave them to me. He sat in the small "Converse Room", pencil and paper clasped in his hands, staring at the wall. When I sat down next to him, the items fell from his fingers and thumped onto the floor.

I figured he wanted me to have them.

I snap awake when morning comes, shaking and feverish from a nightmare I can't remember. When my eyes blink open, the world is blurry and my head is pounding.

"Holy shit," I growl, massaging my temples in attempt to rid myself of the pounding headache. It feels like my mind is in a storm cloud. It feels like I dipped my skin in a fire pit, still full of hot coals from a blazing fire moments before. It feels like a toolbox emptied itself inside my skull, pounding away and reconstructing the brain inside.

I burry myself back inside the fluffy covers of my bed, knowing that my mother hasn't given a shit about me for years. I don't have to worry about her barging in and demanding that I go to school.

The pounding fades into a dull tapping.

And then I'm asleep.

I wake up in a daze a few hours later, the headache from before still clawing at my temples. I brush knotted pieces of hair away from my face and untangle myself out from under my white bedsheets. The clock on the nightstand reads 1:23. I swing my legs off the bed to rest on the wood floor, debating wether or not I really should get up or not.

The floor is cold on my feet, and light streams through my window. I finally get up, deciding not to waste a perfectly good day over a headache.

My feet make a soft padding sound as I step down the hallway and into the kitchen. My mother has already left for work, but not before leaving a mess from the night before. I pick up the bottles of whiskey and vodka, taking a swig of the amber liquid before putting them in their respectable places in the refrigerator.

The liquid burns my throat as it slides down, but it's the kind of burn that I'm used to. The kind of burn that makes you forget to notice that there's more alcohol in the fridge than there is food. Which is to say that it's all alcohol and there is no food.

I sigh and close the metal door, looking at the ground beneath my feet. Food.

I turn from the kitchen and get a pair of tennis shoes from the closet. I kneel to put them on.

Who needs food, anyway.

The laces tie under my fingertips, strings dancing until my feet are encased firmly inside the soft material. There's a hole in the toe of one of the shoes, the soles worn down and covered in dirt, old from years of use. I stand up.

Food.

No, it'll ruin the raw feeling in my stomach. It'll ruin the swig of whiskey. It'll ruin the liquid feeling of my body. It will ruin the emptiness.

I will run instead.

I walk to the sliding glass door, unlocking the clasp and sliding the door open. It makes a whooshing sound that matches the sound the wind is making as it rushes through the crisp orange leaves on the trees. The whole world is whooshing. If I had gone to school, I wouldn't be witnessing the whooshing. If I had eaten, I wouldn't have noticed it.

The deck is wet from the rain we had yesterday, soggy leaves laying in soaking piles. The patio set is dirty, an unrecognizable reddish color, cushions dripping. I step across the wood and onto the patchy grass, drops of leftover rain seeping through my shoes. The forgotten raindrops cling to me, begging to move again. I make my way down the yard, passing the old shed with the cracked window.

My house is one of the oldest in the town, creaky and crumbling. It was the house everyone was scared to visit on Halloween. As a tall Victorian, it stands above most houses and is painted a dark vampiric color, paint chipping around the pointed windows. It's the one house shoved in the middle of nowhere, save for the farmers, long driveway snaking down connected to a road connected to a highway connected to a road connected to the town. It takes ages to get anywhere.

The only plus is we didn't have many visitors, so no one knew how bad my mom really got after my father died/was murdered/died/killed himself/died/isn't here anymore. And the trees.

The trees are another plus. They're tall and sturdy and dark and full of secrets.

My stomach rumbles, reminding me that there's no food in the house.

I stare at the darkness of the forest.

I will run instead. My legs begin to move.

I watch my feet. I watch my arms. I watch the trees. I cannot think. I am not thinking.

I ignore the pounding in my skull.

The leaves fall slowly - as if in slow motion - fearing the moment they have to touch the ground, parting with the tree forever. My head is steady. My shoulders connected to arms connected to hands connected to fingers are pumping at my sides. My legs connected to feet connected to toes are meeting the ground with an urgent necessity.

I refuse to be the leaves. The leaves connected to stems connected to twigs connected to branches connected to trees connected to the ground. I will not be disconnected or abandoned on the ground, alone to be stepped on by the next person that runs by.

I will not be red and yellow and crumbling and tiny tiny tiny pieces mixing in with the mud. I will not be alone. I will not be the leaves.

Anger. Anger. I'm angry for some reason, but I can't remember why. I'm running. I'm running fast. My legs are moving connected to feet that are slamming slamming slamming against the ground, crushing the leaves into pieces of orange powder.

The trees race behind me, too ignorant to realized they're being chased.

I don't have to be fast, I just have to be faster than the other guy, and the trees aren't trying to run very fast.

But that's not true, because no one's chasing the trees. The trees are covered with bark and armor. Their branches are swords that will fight off the danger.

I have no sword and no armor. I'm alone and I don't have to be faster than the other guy, I have to be faster than myself.

There's black all around. Black shapes running in front of me and around me and behind me. Whoever said ghosts only come out at night was a big fat liar.

I can't remember where my wings are so I can't fly away.

I run. I run faster. I run until my lungs are just empty bags in my chest. I run until my head is a weight atop my head, pulling me down down down until my knees are on the ground, crushing the leaves, and my arms connected to hands connected to fingers are reaching out to catch me. I run until I'm on the ground and have no idea how I got there or where I am or how I got this far without being caught.

I laugh. I laugh and stare at my fingers connected to hands connected to arms connected to my body. I'm covered in cuts, dirt painted onto my bare legs, covering the goosebumps. Blood trickles down my arm from a scrape on my elbow. I laugh, because I'm not being chased anymore. The black ghosts are gone.

I won.

And then I see another pair of feet connected to legs connected to a body connected to a head. A head that holds a nose and a mouth and a pair of piercing green-gold eyes that are staring directly at me.

My brain slams into the front of my skull. My eyes close in agony. The world stops for seconds minutes years until my eyelids flutter open again, remembering the other pair of feet.

There are trees and a sky and the ground but I can't tell what's up and what's down and what's left and what's right. There's a boy standing in front of me but he's a blur - a solid blur - a sturdy blur - a blur that's moving, walking, stopping right in front of me.

And he's gone. There was a boy, and now there's not. And I'm shuddering, frozen to the ground. My sweat lies in frozen droplets on my skin and I can't I can't I can't shake away the feeling that I know this boy.

There was a boy and now there's not. I blink so many times that the lids feel pinched, and my eyes roll around to every direction and every inch of space. There's no more boy. There was a boy and now there's not.

My brain pulses and works like a brain is supposed to and suddenly I remember.

The figure next to the light pole. Yesterday. I was staring out the window, staring at the rain, and there was a figure. He was dark dark dark and big and wide, but strong and sharp and sturdy. And now he's gone.

Everything's fuzzy and everything hurts.

I blink and there's a voice in my head.

"You lose."