Create and Destroy

This is an intro to my first novel in what I hope can be a series!  Honestly, I just kind of go in blind and write when I do stuff like this, so pick it apart as much as you can!  I pretty much made a story outline and then went for it and this is the first thousand words or so, enjoy :)

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Hello Max.

Dad?

Max, can you hear me?

Dad, I can hear you, I'm here!  Where are you?

Max, I'm scared…  I don’t know what happened, but I need to know you're there...  Let me hear you, call out to me…

Dad! Dad, I'm right here!  I can hear you!  Please tell me where you are!

Max…

Dad!

…

Dad!?

…beep

Dad please don't go!

…beep

Dad…?

…beep

Oh shit.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Smack.

                Great.  It's really incredible how much I haven't missed the sound of that stupid alarm clock.  Two months of freedom and peace and sleep and now, nothing but beeps.  Here I am, forced awake at six in the morning by the beep, and for what?  School.  God-damned, good for nothing school.  I already know what I want to do with my life, and how to get there, and with all due respect to any academics out there, it doesn't involve any classrooms.  I'm going to save up, buy a car, and drive it down to somewhere warm where I'll spend the rest of my days working part time jobs, living in a small house, and playing my music.  I know it doesn't sound like much, but you know what I'll have?  Freedom.  The freedom to do what I want, be who I want, and sleep for as long as I frickin' want to.

                Alright, I guess it's time to stop bagging on the poor alarm clock, at least it took me out of that nightmare/dream thing I always have.  If there's anything I hate more than being woken up by loud noises, it's having to endure the recurring images of my father, who has been gone since I was ten.  Gone where?  I don't know.  All I know is that one night my mother came home crying and said that dad wouldn't be home till later, and she hasn't talked about it since.  I was finally coming to grips with the fact that he was never coming home when he started to visit me in my dreams.  The first couple of times were confusing, but happy.  We never talked much about where he went, just kind of shared the memories we had from before he left, and he often asked how my mother and sister were doing, how I was in school, as if he was a normal dad who was just off working somewhere, calling me on the phone every night.  It wasn't until the fourth or fifth dream that I began to notice something wrong.  It was almost as if he was fading, or getting farther away.  His voice slowly became more strained, and I could hear his effort to force the words out growing more and more painful, as his voice became distant echoes, and harder to understand.  At first I didn't say much, I thought maybe it was like when a phone signal goes bad, but then he'd ask me to repeat what I was saying, as if he didn't hear me, and he began to check if I was still there more and more constantly.  Things kept getting worse and worse until it got to the point where he couldn't hear me at all, and I was left screaming out for him, all the while hearing is now hoarse voice calling me name.  In my most recent dreams, like last night I have hardly been able to hear him at all, and I've been growing more and more terrified of losing him forever.  I want to hear his voice, but I don't want to be forced into another terrifying nightmare, so I stay awake, as long as I can, sometimes going two or three days without sleep.  But of course, I can’t hold out forever, and sometimes, no matter where I am, my eyes grow too heavy to keep open and I'm faced with his cries again.

                Now, I understand I may have contradicted myself a little.  Don’t get me wrong when I say I love sleep, because I really do.  Giving in to my sleepiness is a wonderful feeling, when I can block out the fear of the nightmares I know will come, and sleeping late into the afternoon is one of my favourite ways to spend a day, but I only get to enjoy my sleep once that night's dream has ended.  I've sort of turned into a self destructive insomniac, the way I force myself to stay awake, but want nothing more to just be able to sleep.  To be honest, I'm scared.

                Not just scared of the dreams, but scared of taking this with me into the public.  I'm scared of waking up in the middle of class and screaming, like I sometimes do.  I'm scared of having to explain this to my mother when she finally asks what's wrong, and I'm scared of what will happen if I'm sent to some sort of therapist and all of this is resolved.  Will I find out something I don't want to know, or will he just be gone forever?  I want this to be over, but I'm afraid of what the ending will be, and what it will mean for me.  I'm scared of everything.