the Cursed Ones: Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

WELCOME TO XETOK, JENNIFER

6:45 IN THE MORNING

“What is this?” Jennifer asked, rubbing her eyes. “What’s happened to me?” Except, she couldn’t. It was impossible. All she could do was blankly stare at the eyes of the little girl gawking at her, turquoise they were. A very pretty turquoise, almost green; wide, so wide, that Jennifer nearly thought that they would explode. But they didn’t – for some reason. And the very thing gave Jennifer a big, giant, enormous headache.

Jennifer at once knew that she absolutely hated headaches. There was way too many stuff going on in her mind right then. Pictures of former memories she couldn’t recall swimming around, the meanderings of voices that she might have heard before but then again felt so stranger in her ears. Stars flew around her cloudy vision, shapes themselves breaking up into blobs and reattaching themselves. Again and again and again. It’s all so strange she thought. She couldn’t even feel her own legs.

“Jennifer! JENNIFER!!” screamed the girl right in front of her. Well, at least she thought it was a girl. It could as well be a boy; the little child seemed rough and wild enough, though the hair seemed a bit too long. What did the face look like? Why did this naïve voice suddenly sound so familiar?

A piece of Jennifer ached. Nostalgia, she suddenly recalled from some former memory lodged deep in her brain. A weird brand of lotion-stuff that adult people use to make their skin less dry.She also felt something else. But this time, nothing in her brain helped her through it.

“JENNIFER!! Listen to me!” The girl now began shaking her, unaware that Jennifer was already staring. Well, if that was her name. She thought that she was staring. Why did this odd and hyper girl want her to pay attention, anyway? Didn’t she have anything better to do? Distressed, Jennifer began to glare at her.

It’s impossible not to, an automatic voice called from deep inside her head, fizzed and flat from all the time it had not been used. It must have been very long ago, she realized. Dead people are always so irritable.

Dead? Jennifer frowned.

Dead!

But how?

“Who-who-who are you?” Jennifer managed to croak. Ouch, she exclaimed in her mind, a twang of pain itching up her throat. That hurt!

Her throat was parched; parched in the way like one had not drunk for ten years and was in the middle of the Death Valley.

Oh, how she wished she had something to drink!

She reached for the little girl’s face impulsively, like she was going to pour some refreshing water into her open mouth, but caught herself and pulled back. She did not trust this thing. She was afraid. What was she going to do to her?

“It’s me, Melissa!” the girl cried, eyes nearly as wide as her head. She reached for Jennifer’s hand. Jennifer pulled back, even more frightened than before. Anything as clean and as pure as the little child was not to be trusted. Predators always dressed up pretty in order to lure in their prey. Was this it?? Was this a predator?

The girl frowned. Fresh tears escaped the sides of her eyes. “Jennifer! Don’t you remember me?”

A very sensitive one, too. She resisted the urge to start giggling. What was wrong with her? Why did she all of a sudden want to make such a noise? She felt one escape through her mouth unintentionally. The girl’s face was slightly scrunched up; was she upset? What she could possibly have done wrong?

Was this kid angry?

“I…I sorry,” Jennifer croaked again, this time more aware of her voice. She stopped in mid-sentence. It sounded so very foreign she couldn’t believe it had come from her. For some reason, though, she had no choice but to tell the truth. Honesty was the only thing inside her now; she couldn’t afford to infuriate this little carnivore, anyway. “I…don’t know. You.”

It was pain to even talk.

The girl gasped, jumping up and staring at her with far more ferocity than before. Why, oh why was she so mad? “Huh?! Are you sure about that?? Don’t you remember me? Don’t you remember all the times we’ve been together? You’re my sister!”

She was taken aback, that was all Jennifer could say. Or think, that is. Why was she so immobile? She tried to move; rising up slowly from the ground and lifting her left arm. It was so exotic. It was like perfectly maneuvering a tow truck even though you have no idea how to do so. Like some hidden instinct embedded deep inside your bones.

Every breath hurt. It was a pain, she realized, to be alive. Even the very feeling of her skin was like fire over ice. It felt like it could crack and burst…Ah! She twitched, shutting her eyes closed and shivered. Why did it hurt so much? Like she couldn’t even control her own body? Like someone else was doing so –?

The girl was waiting, that much was for sure. Using near all the energy Jennifer seemed to be able to muster, she shook her head. Silent but deadly.

She watched with caution as the Melissa’s face fell. It was like the change of a little cherry into a string of grass.

“Should I?” She asked. But for some reason, she didn’t really need an answer.

Suddenly, though, a distant bell rang, seeming to wake Melissa up. She jumped up again, and twirled her head around so fast that her straight red-brown hair sailed along with it. They were long, when Jennifer took a second glance, and when her unique vision disorder went down a little bit. Longer than her shoulders, but still very shiny. A luminous glow, though, not so polished and glittery that it hurts someone’s eyes. It does hurt someone’s eyes; the memories Jennifer had should let her know.

Melissa stepped away, slinging the light brown leather sack bag around her shoulder. She cast one more glance at Jennifer and looked away, heading towards the building in the distance. The look on her face was hard.

“W-w-where is the place you are going?” Jennifer stuttered. Why was she stuttering? She reached a hand out towards Melissa, but automatically, her hand flinched away. It was like she was still afraid. Was she? Did she have a good reason? Jennifer wrinkled her forehead and frowned, trying to block out the thoughts. Ouch! They hurt. It made her feel very unclear. She’d rather go out with her instincts any time.

“School,” Melissa replied. It was not as loud as before. “But I doubt you’d really care. I don’t think you even remember me anymore.”

School.

“Melissa, wait!” Jennifer called to her, trying to get up. She tripped over her feet fourteen or fifteen or twelve times, but then fell face-first on the grassy ground. Get up…get up? Why couldn’t she get up?!?!

By the time she looked up again, though, Melissa was long gone.

A fresh wave of sorrow washed through Jennifer. Her arms, a few minutes ago eager to touch the little so called sibling as tried before, now fell limp on the ground. Her legs were leaden, not providing any help with getting up at all.

Ring, ring, ring the bells sounded again. Jennifer groaned, though she didn’t want to. Her face fell on the ground again. Maybe that strange girl Melissa would want to see her again, maybe she won’t. It didn’t really matter to her. She was too tired.

If only she could sleep…

Jennifer wasn’t sure how much time has passed. It could have been hours, or days, or weeks, or even months. No, wait a surprisingly sane voice rang in her head. That can’t be right. School doesn’t last more than several hours. If it has been months, we would have heard the bell ring again. But it didn’t. And Melissa did not come back, either.

But soon enough, Jennifer forgot all about Melissa.

Suddenly, after what felt like a millennia, a new voice called out to her. It was far different, far deeper, more mature than the first. Jennifer nearly had a heart attack hearing it; it scared her, the difference. More than she was capable of. She jumped up, her long light brown hair flipping up, nearly blinding her. Her eyes did not adjust to this. For a few moments she still saw the grass on the ground, as though she was still laying down on it. Then she focused, and distant trees and the wide expanse of the cloudy sky opened before her. Ah! She thought, rubbing her eyes. Did it all have to be so bright?

“Arise, young one,” the voice called out again, this time audible to Jennifer’s ears. She realized she was kneeling down. In an abrupt, swift, and totally inconceivable movement, she stood up, and brushed the dirt off her pants. Strange, She probed, staring at her faded blue jeans that were still adorned with old grass and leaves. I didn’t plan on doing that.

She turned her head and saw a lovely young adult female standing before her – along with six others, similar to her in some ways, very much different to her in others. She thought that they looked faintly and vaguely familiar, just as Melissa had. Were they her siblings, too?

Jennifer gulped. She had not remembered life being so complicated.

“Huh…huh…” Talk, talk, please, talk she grumbled in her head. The oldest one, the lady with the jet black and wavy hair down to the middle of her back and wise white-blue eyes that seemed to know everything on the planet was waiting for her. Along with the six others, that is. The height of her and the authority that seemed to carry in her face all over made Jennifer feel very insignificant.

“Jennifer H.,” the obvious leader said then. Her voice was super alto, but felt like phantom and long gone magical was in the air. Was it Jennifer or was it that her voice also carried the cracked tone and aged stuff that was in Jennifer’s also?

“What…What…Who are…you?” Jennifer stumbled across her words.

The lady with the black hair smiled then – a wry, sly and crooked smile that reminded Jennifer of the Mona Lisa; appearing to know more than she was letting on. “My name is Stephanie H., and here are my sisters.” She gestured grandly towards the rest of them, who were standing as still as stone. Their faces didn’t look very lively at all. Then she turned back towards Jennifer.

“Jenny, you are one of us. We are all of the same kind.”

“What….what is your kind?”

Stephanie smiled her Mona Lisa smile again, but this time with a bit more menace to it. A shiver ran down Jenny’s spine. “The Cursed Ones,” she explained. “We have all had our Accidents, ending our first life, now bringing us to this one. You had yours no more than a day ago, though I doubt you would remember it. You had been in a crash in a school bus; the impact was so hard that you left that world and now here you are.”

Jennifer left her mouth gaping open.

“Now, follow us, sister,” the one next to Stephanie said then. She had short sandy brown hair, all combed neat and tidy, and looked straight into her eyes. She carried nearly the same amount of authority as her oldest sister did. “We have some work to do.”

“L-l-like what?” stuttered Jennifer.

Stephanie merely showed her smile ominously; making her sister dizzy. “Child. You must learn that we are different from the Living Ones; the humans that have not passed from the first world yet, but will, eventually.

Slowly, but without hesitation, Jenny walked towards them. Her steps were measured, robotic, like never before. This time, she wanted to go with them. Never mind that the pull of the words seemed to drag her along, never mind that even if she hadn’t wished her feet would have probably moved her anyway.

They were the Cursed Ones. They belonged with each other. They were sisters – each and every one of them.

Then they disappeared over the hill.