literature

Sunny Side Down Chapter 1

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Literature Text

It started with the darkness. Well, more like an endless hole into which no light has ever managed to enter. The same thing happened to noise, the all-consuming silence blotting out any sound I could make. I couldn't see myself, I couldn't ever hear myself speaking, no matter how loud I shouted, not even the quietest whisper would reach my ears.

I'm pretty sure the walls were stone; they were smooth and icy cold. The dark and the silence exuded a feeling of terrible malevolence and seemed to have the ability to suck the very happiness from your soul.

All I could do was wander around until I reached the wall. It felt like I walked for at least a hundred yards before I reached one, a giant barrier that felt like it stretched to the ends of eternity, although I knew that it was impossible for a wall that size to exist. Even though I couldn't hear or see anything, I got the impression that the ceiling was very far away, and that I was in a cavern with myself as the only thing inside.

I felt like I spent an eternity trapped in there, leaving me to wander in search of something, anything other than the cold walls and the feeling of despair that permeated the entire room.

Suddenly, a terrible wailing began, a sound that would put a banshee convention to shame. I could feel the scream penetrate my very being, a feeling akin to thousands of needles grinding against my bones.

When the screaming started, a feeling of utter terror gripped my body, leaving me wondering what horrendous creature had somehow made its way into this place.

As the wailing slowly grew louder, I could sense it getting closer as well, leaving me paralyzed as my body shook like a leaf in a storm. And as suddenly as it had started, it too seemed to be swallowed up by the silence of the room, leaving me curled up in a ball on the floor. It left me almost deaf, with ears ringing like the bells of a million churches ringing out their last farewell to the world.

But the worst part was yet to come, and the feeling of that icy first impact on my side felt like the jaws of a terrible beast had descended around me. The wall pushed my limp body along the floor towards the eventual end, wherever or whenever that might be. Eventually the second wall hit me, so I was pushed along in the corner made by three pitch-black surfaces.

At this point gravity seemed to fail, and instead of sliding along a floor, I was now just being pushed through space by a corner. Even though there was no relative movement to another object, I somehow knew that I was moving. Towards what? That was the question spiraling through my mind. The three other surfaces hit me at the same time, and as soon as they did, all movement suddenly stopped, leaving me curled up in a cube with sides of about half a meter in length and width.

My heart started to pound, struggling to break free of my chest as I ran out of the small amount of oxygen left. My lungs started to burn and eventually collapsed as I tried to breath air that was no longer there. Instead of blacking out a couple of minutes after running out of oxygen, I stayed like this for hours, terrified that at any moment it would all come to an end and that I would die alone, where no one would ever know what happened to me.

Eventually my mind could no longer take the fear and the pain, and I let the rising darkness in my mind consume me. Suddenly, there was a burst of light, sound, and most importantly, the taste of sweet, fresh air.

Gasping, I sat up in my bed, my heart pounding as adrenaline pumped through me. Soaked in a cold sweat, I jumped out of my sheets, dashed over to the window, and threw it open, allowing the cool night air to rush over me, finally jolting me out of the panic that had filled me both in the nightmare and in real life. My heart slowly calmed down and I glanced over at the digital clock, seeing that it was about five in the morning.

I could never go back to sleep after that dream, and considering that I had to go to class in about three hours, I decided to make some hot tea to help calm me down, which was my usual response to such stress. It probably would have helped if not for the jerk was blasting rock music in the room next to mine.

I banged on the wall and yelled, "SHUT UP!", and suddenly it doubled in volume.

Idiot… why can't I get any peace and quiet?

As I looked around the apartment, I realized that I still needed to unpack the boxes stacked up on the wall next to the door. I had just moved in the day before, and it was my first night sleeping in the dorms. My dad and I had made the drive from Chattanooga the other day. I didn't have much, because I had wanted to start all over again.

I looked around the room again, the first place I'd ever lived with a lock on the door.  It was a relatively small room, with beige walls and a small ceiling fan. As I thought about my new life, I realized that going away had given me the thing I wanted most, although I never told it to anyone.

The opportunity to start a new life had always appealed to me. The ability to get out and recreate myself as I saw fit was the best gift I had ever received. The life I had lived before had been, well, less than perfect to say the least. But all that was different now. I had to stop thinking like the old me. I wanted to be a positive person this time, someone that people actually want to be around.

When 8:00 rolled around, I had some pop tarts and sweet tea for breakfast, put on my red Coca-Cola baseball cap and headed out to class. I had calculus first, then a free period, and lunch. At noon, I walked all the way across campus to listen to a lecture on some book that I was supposed to read before the semester started. I had heard that there was a fencing club, and since I had been the leader of my high school fencing club, I decided to see if any of them were any good. But, like any freshman, I didn't know where anything was, and I walked around for an hour before I gave up and went back to the dorms.

As I was walking up the stairs, I almost ran into some guy with black hair and lots of freckles. He was a big guy; not fat, just big. He looked about six and a half feet tall, and if I had to guess, I would say he weighed about 250 pounds. But the hints about him that drew my eyes were his pitch-black hair, his surprisingly bright blue eyes, and his gigantic hands, which were easily twice the size of mine.

"Hey, watch where you’re going, you…” the guy started to say, with a bit of a Russian accent. "Wait, I’ve seen you before."

“Me?” I asked, confused. “I don’t think so…”

“Yeah, I know I have. You’re that kid in 5A, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Ah, okay. I’m over in 5B, myself.”

"So you're the guy who was blasting that music at 5 in the morning," I said, slightly annoyed.

"Oh yeah, sorry about that," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck with one of his oversized hands. “I didn't realize my alarm was set to go off that early."

“Then why’d you turn it up?”

“I said I’m sorry, okay?”

As a particularly nasty comeback wormed its way into my head, I remembered my new life, and instead replied with, “No problem, man, just try to keep it down in there."

As I turned to go into my room, the guy said, "By the way, the name’s Avery Yasha. What's yours? I didn't get it."

"Lynn."

"Got a last name?"

Man this guy was starting to get on my nerves…

"Nope," I said, "Not anymore." I could see him trying to figure that one out, but he decided to drop it.
"Well, I'll see you tomorrow then," I said with a rapidly decaying smile, and turned and walked into my room.
What a weird guy. But I guess this IS college after all.

I shut the door and took off my cap, throwing it on the nightstand next to my bed. I then proceeded to heat up some pizza leftover from the drive up and got ready to take a shower.

Once I had gotten in, I suddenly realized that my nice summer tan had vanished. Not only that, but my lower torso was so pale that it looked like they had been coated in white paint.

Ok, that's a little odd…

Even stranger, my arms and legs looked slightly pinker than normal, but I credited that to the scratchy loofa I used. And, like the teen I was, I paid no more attention to it that day.

After I woke up, my neck felt a little stiff, but then again, whose neck isn't stiff right after waking up? As I walked to class, I passed a giggling group of girls sitting on the ground under a tree. Or a giggle of girls, you know, like a flock of sheep, or a herd of cows.

I could only make out a few words: "guy...brown hair...hat...blushing...like crazy.... looking... you..." Then one of the girls in the middle of the group looked straight at me and smiled. I waved and went on my merry way, trying my best to ignore the explosion of gasps and giggles behind me.

It finally seemed as if things were looking up for once. After another day of lectures, and a wasted hour of searching and asking random people, I found out that the fencing club meets only once a week.

When I woke up the next day, my neck wasn't just stiff; it was aching, as if I'd been punched. I tried to roll it around, only to find that I couldn't move it at all. I reached up to see if it hurt to the touch, but it all felt numb. As I ran my hands over it, I noticed something strange: there didn’t seem to be a curve where my neck was. I ran my hand up what felt like my neck, only to find that there was no bump where my chin used to be. There was only smooth skin.

I rushed over to the bathroom and stopped in front of the mirror with my jaw open. I looked on in horror, only to find out that my neck had seemingly disappeared! It looked as if it had just gotten up and walked off in the middle of the night. Not only that, but my shoulders were slightly slanting up toward my head, making a smooth transition from my head to my body.

I tried to stay calm, but my heart was racing, and adrenaline pumped through my body. I snatched up my phone, punched in my dad's number and waited. I impatiently paced around the room, waiting for him the pick up.

"Hello, you have reached the voicemail box of.... dammit…please leave a message and I’ll try to call you back as soon as I can."

After the tone, I said, "Hey Dad, its Lynn. Something has happened, so call me back as soon as you get this.”

Realizing that I still had classes, I frantically scrambled around, looking for anything to cover it. Luckily, I had some scarves lying around. My dad was always concerned that I was going to freeze, being in college in what he called "the far north”. I wrapped the longest one around my neck, put on my heaviest jacket, put the hood up, locked the door, and headed off to class.

About halfway to calculus, I realized that I hadn't had breakfast, and figured that I would stop by the cafeteria to grab an apple or something. I crossed the street, narrowly avoiding almost getting nailed by a large speeding white van with paint covering the windows and no license plate.

Weird…

When calculus was over…stupid derivatives…I was on my way back to the dorms to eat lunch, when I heard a loud bang and a yell from between two other buildings. I figured someone was in trouble, so I ran into the alley, only to promptly be dragged backwards by my scarf.

Before I knew it, some guy had me in a headlock, and another one appeared out of the half-lit alley, carrying what looked like a can of spray paint with the label stripped off. He moved it towards my face, and before he got the chance to spray whatever it was, I remembered what my dad taught me when I was just eight years old.

Just as some kind of purple gas came hurtling towards my face, I threw myself to the left and down toward the ground, catching the guy holding me by surprise. We landed on the ground, and I managed to free myself from my attacker. Without looking back to see who had attacked me, I sprinted out of the alley, into the light, and ran as fast as I could. I figured it was a mugging, even though my instincts told me otherwise.

I ran back to the dorm room and ran up the steps. Seeing the door next to mine, I realized that I hadn’t seen, or more importantly heard Avery since I met him. When I reached my room, I knocked on Avery's door and said, “I haven’t seen you in a while. You okay?”

"Go away!" came the muffled response, but one thing worried me about his voice. It sounded grainy, like it was coming through a speaker.

“You sound funny. Are you sick?" I asked, slightly concerned.

"No, I'm fine," he responded, "Just go AWAY!". The odd sound had almost disappeared, replaced by anger.

Sighing, I went to enter my room, turned the knob, and walked in. I opened the mini fridge, got out a coke, poured it into a glass, turned around to sit on my bed, and promptly dropped the glass onto the floor, where it shattered, spilling the Coke all over the carpet.
"What the fuck?!" I exclaimed.

My apartment had been ripped apart, almost like someone had searched it and not bothered to put everything back.

Wait a minute, my door was unlocked!

At first I thought it was burglars, but I quickly dispelled that notion because nothing was missing. Suddenly, I saw a glint from between two cardboard boxes. I walked over, bent down, and picked up what looked like a drinking straw. As I examined it to find the source of the glint, I realized that it was completely solid, and was capped off at both ends. But what really terrified me was the curvature of one of the caps. It looked almost like a …lens.

"SHIT!"

I realized that no burglar would leave behind a camera, and coupled with the attack in the alley, I guessed that someone was trying to kidnap me. I took no delay in breaking the device in half and throwing it on the floor. I realized that they knew I was home, so I grabbed my hat, phone, and about a hundred bucks in cash, and ran out the door. I practically flew down the stairs, figuring that the elevator was unsafe.

I grabbed my bike from the rack outside and took off. My dad had given it to me for my 16th birthday, saying that I would need it in college. I knew that I could ride out of town, away from the people who wanted to catch me. I just needed to get somewhere safe, away from the dangerous corners and alleys of the college.

I took off out of the city until I got out of the suburbs. At this point I decided that I should head into the forest, seeing as a bike was an easy target on the road. I took a break after I left the main road, got out my phone, and started to dial my dad's number, but a thought occurred to me before I did. I turned the phone over, slid open the battery case, and, sure enough, a little computer chip was staring back at me. They were tracking me by my phone! Since I didn't have a way to remove it, and seeing as it was useless to me now, I chucked it as far as I could into the woods.

I got back on my bike and took off in the opposite direction, bouncing over the rough ground. The forest was beautiful, being very nice and shady. It was very peaceful despite my pounding heart, and it helped to calm me down so I could actually think for once. I figured I could just head into the woods and maybe find a park ranger, seeing as I was so close to Mammoth Cave National Park. I doubted that the kidnappers would follow me into the national parks.

The sun started to set and the cicadas started up. Man those things are loud! I swear; a forest in the evening has to be one of the loudest things in nature. Suddenly, I felt something large and rough hit my face. It started buzzing, and I quickly reached up with one hand to brush it away. Almost as soon as my hand left the handlebars, my bike suddenly jerked out from under me.

I tumbled off of the bike and rolled down a slope, rocks digging into my side. All of a sudden, freezing cold water covered my face. It covered my entire head, and I started thrashing. I felt something under my hands, so I grabbed at it and used it to push myself out of the water. I quickly rolled over and jumped up only to find I was standing knee deep in a small creek. I was freezing, soaked, and my bike had a bent front wheel.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, I felt a cold drop on my hand, and then another. Suddenly it was pouring down rain. I hadn’t noticed, but with the arrival of the clouds, it had gotten noticeably darker, and I could barely see more than ten feet.
Just great! It's dark and cold and I can't see where I'm going. At least I can't get any wetter.

Just then, there was a flash of light and a loud boom, and out of the gloom, I saw a quaint little cabin come into view for a brief moment. I figured that I could stay there until I could get to a pay phone. I hurried over to it, knocked loudly, and yelled, “IS ANYONE HOME?”

Hearing no immediate answer, I threw the door open and rushed in. Promptly tripping over something lying right in front of the door, I plummeted towards the floor, and in a flash of light and a burst of pain, cracked my head on the floor. Seemingly out of nowhere, a black mist crept into my vision. It overwhelmed me, and, with a feeling like I was falling, everything went black.

:iconpokeumans: belongs to :iconpokemonmanic3595:, and Pokemon belongs to Nintendo.

Big thanks to :iconmegacharmoeleonx: , My editor, without whom this never would have been written.


Link to next chapter: fav.me/d718qm7

© 2013 - 2024 BattleBlissey
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Now this is definitely a good way of starting! I'm looking forward to what else you have in store for this now!

Welcome to the group! :la: