Young Writers Society

well Azila critiqued my prologue so i fixed some errors and now the whole chapter is up for grabs. to be honest, I'm very nervous about posting some of my writing. i dont know why. oh also, it is very long. it was about 7 pages on Microsoft Word, .5 spacing. Beware the long chapter...

Chapter 1

The unrelenting rain pounded my skin but I hardly felt it anymore. I wasn’t sure if my fingers were still alive. The wind gusted through me, taking with it my determination, wearing me down like waves on a rock. I couldn’t see where I was going through the swirling columns of rain and the strands of my hair. I couldn’t tell whether it was tears or drops of rain that were clinging to my eyelashes. My cheeks stung every time a raindrop landed. My breath was shallow and shaky as I watched each gasping exhale go in a puff of ice-like vapor, afraid the next one would be my last.

I don’t know when or where I collapsed onto my knees. I was desperate, there was no where left to run. I couldn’t go back to where I had come, I had nowhere to go. My breathing became slower with each gust of wind.

Death would have been so welcome.

I took another shaky breath. No, I told myself, Don’t go yet, you need to live.

I didn’t know why I needed to live, it was probably just because I was so used to living that I didn’t want to let go. I thought about it a while, struggling to remember my life without this kind of pain. It seemed so far away, so dreamlike…

I wanted it back.

As I struggled to drag in another mangled breath, I noticed that as I breathed I didn’t feel it anymore. I wasn’t sure if I really was breathing. My mouth felt strangely metallic and my vision was beginning to fail me. No! No, not… now…

The only thing I could really feel was the headache that consumed reason along with thought.

Behind my eyes, someone flushed the toilet. At least, I think they did because my vision spiraled inward and then blacked out. I was conscious for a few more minutes, but all I remember thinking is, hurry up.

* * *

The first thing I noticed was that it was warm. The second thing I noticed was that I was alive.

How disorienting, I had been sure I was dying. Strange…

Now that I was warm, the memory of so much cold and pain was oddly far off. I felt like smiling for the first time in days.

This strange happiness was interrupted by pain. It wasn’t near as bad as before, I noticed, more of an afterimage. I slowly categorized them: dull headache, feverish, phlegm in my lungs, multiple bruises along my arms and legs, a throbbing ache centered around my temple… over all, not too bad.

It was then I realized two things. One, the bed beneath me was swaying rhythmically. Two, there was an annoying buzzing sound in the background. I dismissed the swaying as another after effect of nearly dying and listened instead to the background noise and noticed that it was growing louder, clearer. At first the noise was dull, unfocused (or was it my senses?) but it began growing steadily louder. I felt like someone had stuffed cotton balls in my ears.

Then, all at once, the voices broke out, as suddenly as if someone had simply removed the cotton balls. I listened intently for some clue of where I was.

“…street and Maple Blvd. She was knocked out.” A man’s voice, calm and kind.

“Poor thing.” A woman’s voice, soft and sympathetic.

They seemed to echo around in my head as my mind struggled to process information. Where am I?

“Mommy?” A small child’s voice, probably female.

“Yes dear,” replied the woman.

“Is she dead?” the child whispered, sounding half-horrified, half-intrigued.

The woman laughed shortly, “No dear.”

“Oh,” half-relieved, half-disappointed.

“She was pretty near frozen when I found her,” the man commented softly.

“She looks pretty bad,” the woman answered in agreement.

A door creaked open.

“Hey guys, when’s she gonna’ wake up?” A girl’s voice, maybe ten or eleven years old.

“She was nearly frozen, it may take her a while,” the woman said, slightly sarcastic.

The girl groaned dramatically.

Footsteps clacked in the silence and a young boy’s voice entered the conversation, “Impatient, Kaylen?”

“You know I am, Haylen,” the girl retorted, a smile in her voice.

“Kaylen!” the boy teased accusingly.

“Haylen!” the girl teased back.

“Kaylen!”

“Haylen!”

“Be quiet you two!” the woman, who I assumed was their mother, ordered.

I got the feeling they did that often; maybe they were twins.

“Yes mom,” Kaylen and Haylen said simultaneously. Then they giggled.

Their mother sighed.

“Still out, is she?” A teenage boy’s voice, calm and cool.

“Can’t blame her,” the man answered, “She had a rough time.”

“Yah,” he agreed dismissively, “Hey dad, we need to go into town soon, we’re nearly out of food.”

There was silence, the man probably nodded.

I shifted my position slightly and felt their eyes on me. I should probably get up; it’s rude to eavesdrop, especially on the people who probably saved your life.

I opened my eyes slowly. I was in a small metallic room with one window to my left and the door across the room, still open. If there was trouble, I could escape through either. The small bed I was on was pushed up against the wall and there was a desk to my right.

The man was tall, blonde, and handsome with a straight nose and piercing blue eyes. He was wearing jeans, a plain blue t-shirt, and standing with his arms relaxed at his side, feet spread. He smiled encouragingly at me.

I was sure my face was still blank. I quickly surveyed the others.

The woman was short, petite, and pretty. She had her hands folded in front of her soft pink shirt and faded blue jeans. Her hair was black and waved gently past her shoulders. She smiled and unfolded one hand to place it reassuringly on the head of a small child that was hugging her leg.

The child was chubby with feathery blonde hair and her father’s eyes, maybe four years old and she waved shyly at me from her position behind her mother. She was wearing pink overalls decorated with hearts and butterflies over a frilly white shirt that had a large purple stain in the middle.

Kaylen and Haylen were standing together, grinning at me. They were definitely twins, they both had medium length blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes that, combined with their small features, made them look like devious angels. They were wearing matching red t-shirts over white long-sleeve shirts and black jeans.

The teenage boy was about my age. He was the only kid to have inherited his mother’s black hair and he wore it messily. He had straight angular features, a tall figure, and a friendly smile. His eyes were strangely bright, like fire. He wore a black shirt with the name of a rock band scrawled across in red and baggy, torn blue jeans.

Sheesh, jeans are taking over the world, I thought and then wondered if I was going crazy. Why was I thinking such crazy thoughts?

I shook my head slightly and pushed myself into a sitting position. My breath caught at the soreness of my body. I narrowly escaped a painful groan.

“Hello,” the man said, “My name is Declan McKinny, I found you and took you in.”

“Th,”-I cleared my sore throat-“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he responded smoothly, “this is my wife, Elana, and my children: Ryder, Hayden, Kayden, and Astrella.”

I smiled slowly, processing the information.

“We live on a boat,” Hayden and Kayden said in unison, grinning their twin smiles.

What? My eyebrows shot up.

Declan smiled, “We were in a financial spot and could keep few possessions. So my wife decided that living on a boat would be less costly. And she was right.” He shrugged his shoulders and smiled at his wife.

I nodded slowly, the only reaction I think of.

There was a brief silence.

“What’s your name dear?” Elana asked politely, smiling in encouragement.

I hated being called ‘dear’ and for a second considered saying that my name was none of her business. Then again, they had taken me in. “Skylar,” I answered simply.

She smiled, “Well Skylar, you had a pretty rough go. You want to talk about it?”

Lady, I’m not five. “Nope,” I answered popping my lips on the ‘p’. I hoped I didn’t sound too rude, I didn’t particularly like living in the streets.

She nodded, smiling yet again. Didn’t it hurt their mouths to smile so much?

“Well Skylar, you should probably rest a little bit but you can explore the ship if you feel like it,” Declan invited breezily, apparently conscious of not constricting me too much.

“We can show her!” Hayden and Kayden shouted, bouncing to my side. How did they talk together like that all the time? ESP?

ESP wouldn’t have surprised me. I’m used to weird stuff like that.

I nodded and threw the thick quilt off. I swung my legs off the bed and stood up a little too fast. My vision was blocked by what looked like millions of colorful, blurry dots. I squeezed my eyes shut, bit my lip, and waited for the all-too-familiar sensation to leave.

I opened them again, blinked and smiled to reassure the six suddenly worried faces of the McKinneys.

Hayden and Kayden grabbed either of my forearms and launched through the open door.

We entered a narrow hallway with steps leading up at the end and doors on both sides. I shrugged as casually as I could out of their grasp.

“This is the hall,” they informed me, giggling. Then they pointed out each of the doors individually, “Our room, Ryder’s room, Astrella’s room, and mom and dad’s room.”

I glanced at the doors and then followed them up the stairs. The deck was metallic and open. I recognized the model immediately. Having lived by a dock much like this most of my life, I had learned the boats pretty well. It was a J/160, which had been one of my father’s favorites. The familiarity comforted me and I looked across the green-blue water to the dock where the boat was tied and then up at the towering white sails.

“Do you like her?” Hayden and Kayden asked, eyes bright.

I smiled, “She’s great.”

“I know, isn’t she!? Her name is Velocity.”

I nodded and looked over at them, their eyes were shining almost wistfully as they walked over to a rail and leaned way over.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, confused.

They looked up at me with their watery blue eyes and said, “She’s haunted. We used to swim by her but now the fish bite,”-they pulled back their sleeves to reveal several large red marks on their arms-“and at night, the ghosts come.”

Their stereo voices made an eerie effect combined with the context of the words and their frightened faces.

I shivered involuntarily as I watched them race side-by-side back down the stairs. Great, just my luck. I get to stay on a haunted ship; I should have known this was too good to be true.

I looked down into the water and noticed the fish did look unusually hostile. Deadly fangs were just visible under the lips and their fins looked jagged and sharp. But what really worried me were the eyes. They seemed to be staring straight at me and had a red, pearly look to them.

As I watched, the fish began to bob up and down, eyes still watching me, and a strange keening sound filled my ears. It grew gradually louder until I felt like screaming. It was an odd sound, too high, the tune irregular, bouncing up and down. Images streaked through my mind: Nails on a chalkboard, a dog whistle, someone screaming…

I tried to move my hands from the rail to clap them over my ears, anything to stop that sound!

Stop! Please! I winced, my heart pounding. The fish began to bob faster and faster and with the increasing movement came increasing sound. Stop! I tried to find my voice. Help me! Stop it! Please stop! I couldn’t move my eyes from the fish’s. I couldn’t move at all. Every part of me was screaming run but I couldn’t. It was like being stuck inside a nightmare.

The eyes were growing a brighter red every second and I began to panic inside. Run! Run, run, run, run, run! STOP! HELP! HELP! HELP!

Nobody listened. Nobody heard. Oh lord, I swear I will never do anything bad ever again just let it stop, stop, stop!

Beads of sweat were beginning to trickle down my face and into my eyes. I was unable to wipe them away. I couldn’t move!

I was going to die; I could see it in the fish’s eyes.

NO!

Before I had a chance to die, a hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me roughly around.

The pain was gone. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU a hundred times whoever you are.

It was Ryder, the teenager I had seen earlier. His eyes were full of concern, but also a hint of anger.

“Are you ok?” he asked, and his voice trembled as if he wasn’t under control.

I just nodded.

“What the heck were you doing?! Trying to get yourself killed?! Didn’t you do enough of that yesterday?!” He shouted, his strange eyes going wide.

My anger flared up at his tone. Just who did he think he was!?

“Oh I’m sooo sorry I happened to look over at your zombie fish and wonder what the heck was going on. And I’m sorry that you guys didn’t warn me about getting myself killed. Yah I guess it’s totally my fault and I’m obviously suicidal or something. Look pal, I don’t know who you think you are but whoever it is, you better get in touch with them and tell them to leave me the heck alone!”

He looked surprised and then glared at me, “Fine! Now you know. You just scared me, I remember how it feels.”

I remembered it too. My stomach twisted with the memory and the fear probably showed on my face.

“You may want to let go of the rail,” Ryder offered.

I looked first at him and then at my fingers, which were locked on the rail. My knuckles were white and it took me a while to remember how to move them at all.

This was going to be interesting.