I would really appreciate it. I'm looking for any feedback (punctuation, grammar, whatever) I finally got my query letter in shape and I hope to start sending my work out soon. Thanks =)
One
Darkness. The darkness was everywhere. All around me. And the air contained an emptiness, it pressed down on my chest. Heavy. I needed to breathe. In and out, I reminded myself. I strained to pull in a single breath, but the gurgling, fluidly sound in my throat refused to let the air pass through. The sound was sickening. Terrifying. Unnatural. This had to be a nightmare. That's it! I had to be dreaming. But that was impossible. You don't feel pain when you're dreaming. Not physical pain, anyway. Why am I in pain? Something happened. Something important. Something bad. Very, very, bad. But what was it? And why can't I remember? A numbing sensation started inching its way up my body. My feet, my legs, my torso, I tried to fight it before it reached my head, but it was useless.
No more pain. Nothing.
“ Elsie,” a soft whisper called through the darkness.
Yes, I thought, my lips failing to move. Where am I?
“ You're dead, Elsie.”
I tried to answer the voice, but before I could think of how to respond I was thrust into a bright light.
So warm, so peaceful.
###
I slowly walked out of the light, until I was standing in a field. A familiar field. It was the same one I would wander into when I was younger. I knew it was just a dream, but it was the only place I could hide from my father.
I felt safe here, just as I had in the past.
I continued forward through the pink, purple, and lavender flowers, everything unchanged. Just as I had remembered it.Except for the huge tree centered in the middle of everything.
This was different.
I had never seen this tree before, but it's sheer beauty took my breath away. It was covered in tiny white blossoms, each one containing four glistening petals. I plopped down in front of the massive trunk, and gazed up into the blue sky. Which held four picture-perfect, white fluffy clouds. The kind you see in the travel brochures. I could hear water flowing not far from where I was sitting, but I saw no signs of a creek or a stream nearby. Just an endless field of flowers which seemed to extend for miles. There were no birds, or any other signs of life. It was just me.
I was alone.
I shouldn't be alone, someone else should be here withme. Think. Elsie. Think. I squeezed my eyes shut as I tapped my finger against the side of my head. Chelsea. That's right! Where the hell was, Chelsea? We've never been apart, not since I was twelve, anyway. She was the first person I noticed when I walked into Anna and Greg's house. Unlike Chelsea, the kids in the other four foster homes despised me. But there she was, sitting on the bottom step of the stairs smiling at me, ready to accept me, no questions asked. I knew that was six years ago, but we were all we had, each other. And Chelsea would never, ever, leave me alone.
Not even if her life depended on it.
The last thing I remembered was driving home from Frightland. It was cold, and rainy, especially for October. It was October 15th, that's right! And we had fun, well,she did. I wasn't crazy about haunted houses, even if it was the best one in Delaware. I've never been the type to get off on lame mythical creatures such as zombies, ghosts, possessed clowns, and chainsaw - wielding freaks. Let alone fantasize about making – out with them like she did. I laughed at the thought, but then stopped as soon as I thought of something else.
We did make it home, right? Of course we did, why wouldn't we? But why don't I remember? In fact, I couldn'tremember much of anything. My body started trembling. No. It was more like convulsing as the hysteria set in.
I placed my face in my hands and started sobbing, my body was cold, frigid. I couldn't live without her. Icouldn't. I would rather die then be separated from her, we needed each other.
I needed her.
###
“ Elsie, can you hear me?” The voice echoed all around me.It was soft, caring. And it was the same one that called out to me in the darkness.
I glanced up and gazed all around, searching through my tears, trying to distinguish where the voice was coming from. There was nobody around me, just the same stupid field of flowers. The flowers I was so sick of seeing. “ Hello,” I whispered, hoping whoever it was would hear me, and take me away from this now – dreadful place.
“ I'm not sure if you can hear me. But please ... I beg. Please hold on, Elsie,” the voice pleaded.
“ Hold on to what?” I screamed out of frustration.
Why was it so urgent for me to hold onto for this...boy, or whatever he was?
After awhile I started hearing other noises; a steady beeping sound, more voices ( male and female ), scuffing of shoes over a floor, and crying – lots of crying. Then I heard someone I recognized. It was Anna.
The scene around me started to fade, and before long I was once again in the darkness. I didn't like the dark.It caused my pain to return, even though it was less severe this time around, it still hurt.
The voices were gone, and eventually, I opened my eyes to a dim light just above my head. The room was unfamiliar, it was white. I slowly glanced to my right, there was a wide window, but I was unable to see outside, the white vertical blinds were drawn. To my left was a long blue curtain, it reminded me of a shower curtain, only bigger. The steady beeping sound was coming from behind me now.
There were tubes – small, clear ones – that twisted and turned around my hands, and there was even one attached to my nose. They confined my body to an uncomfortable bed – a bed with rails. I suddenly knew where I was; I've been here before. Not this particular room, but in a hospital. The night my father tried to kill me in the kitchen. I blacked out and when I woke up I was in a room similar to this.
My thoughts were confirmed when a petite brunette walked briskly into the room, uniformed in blue.
“ Elsie, how are you feeling?” she asked as she continued over to check the clear bag filled with liquid beside me.
“ Why am I here? What happened? And where is... my sister?” I watched her make her way around my bed, checking the tubes, making sure they were all still secure.
“ Oh, sweetie, I'll send Anna in. She shouldn't be long. She stepped out to get a cup of coffee,” she said, then she injected something into the bag of liquid next to me.
“ What's that? “
“ Something that will make you feel a little better,” she smiled warmly.
I watched her walk out of my room, but for some odd reason, I didn't feel like I was alone. I kept seeing a figure, or some sort of form blur across my room.
“ Hel-lo?” I called out, hoping I wouldn't get a response. Because if I did, it would definitely mean I was one fry short of a Happy Meal.
“ Elsie, Omigosh! You're awake!” Anna gasped, rushing into the room, her coffee spilling out over the rim of the cup as she closed the distance between us.
She placed her coffee on the small brown table beside me, and sat next to me on the bed. “ How are you feeling?” Her voice was different, hoarse.
So unlike the sweet, melodic sound it normally makes. And her eyes, they were so red, and swollen. I've never seen her look like this, not even the day she found out her mother had died, and from what I knew, they were pretty close. That's what Greg told me, anyway.
“ I'm sore. And my head hurts,” I answered, quickly focused my attention to the far corner of the room. I thought I saw something again, but there was nothing there, just a shadow of a chair being cast by the dim lighting in the room. “ Where's Greg and Chelsea? Are they close by? And what happened to me? Why am I here ... covered with tubes, gauze, and plaster? “ All my questions flowed out at once, failing to give her a chance to answer them individually.
Her eyes started glazing over with moisture, and I couldn't help but to notice she swallowed hard before she opened her mouth to answer me. “ Greg's right outside. He'll be in in a minute, he's talking to the doctor.” She inhaled deeply, taking in a lung-full of the sterile air that surrounded us, and exhaled it back out into the room, slowly. “ You were in an accident. That's why you're here. You've been out... for awhile now.”
“ Did I fall or something? “ I asked, confused at what she was saying. I didn't remember falling. In fact, I didn't remember anything.
“ No. ” She reached her arm out, placing her hand gently over mine. “ It was a car accident.”
“ A car accident,” I repeated, squinting my eyes, trying to will myself to remember, but I came up empty. There was nothing there for me to remember, and I couldn't figure out why. Why was my mind a huge void?
Anna must have noticed I was struggling, because she gently squeezed my hand. “ It's okay. The doctor said your memory may come back,but he didn't know for sure. You've been in a coma for awhile. Your head suffered some trauma, but you're awake. And that's all that matters.” Tears started to fall down her cheek, and she quickly brushed them away with her hand,almost like she was trying to conceal them from me.
“ What's awhile? What's today's date?” I asked anxiously.
“ The accident happened the night of October 15th. Elsie,today is December 7th.” She watched me cautiously, possibly waiting for a reaction.
A reaction I couldn't give her right now.
I was trying to process everything she was telling me, but none of it made any sense. If she was saying I wrecked on October 15th, the same night I was driving home with Chelsea, then where was she? Had she been injured as bad as me? I flinched at the thought of her being hurt.
“ What's wrong, honey? Are you in pain? I can call the nurse in. I'm sure she can give you something stronger.” She watched me carefully – her tawny eyes searching the plains of my face for any kind of distress.
“ No. It's not the pain. Where's Chelsea? Was she hurt badly, like me? “ I asked her.
She immediately dropped her gaze to the floor, as if she was purposely avoiding my question.
“ Where's Chelsea?” I repeated, my voice contained more of an edge this time as my throat tightened, knowing something was wrong.
“ Elsie, Chelsea didn't... she didn't make it, sweetie.” She squeezed my hand harder and started to cry.
I shook my head, refusing to accept what she was saying was true. She must mean something else. Maybe, maybe, she meant to say Chelsea didn't make it here to visit me.“ Is she home?”
“ No. She didn't make it through the accident. I'm so sorry, Elsie. The Medics did everything they could, but they couldn't save her – ”
She continued to ramble, but her words faded away into the distance when what she was telling me started to process in my mind.
A numbing emptiness flowed through my head and down the length of my body, consuming me entirely. “ Chelsea – no ! no, no, no,” I screamed, my throat tightened some more, making my sobs sound like I was choking on the air around me.
I couldn't breathe.
I forced my body upright – ignoring the popping sound and the stabbing pain in my ribs – swinging my arms erratically, fighting the tubes that confined me to the bed.“ Chelsea !” I tried to scream, but it came out muffled, it sounded more like a gurgle.
The next thing I knew I was being forced back down on the bed, unable to fight the weight on my chest.
“ Nurse! Nurse! “ Greg's voice rang out from somewhere in front of me, urgently.
An ear-shattering buzzing sound suddenly echoed around the room, and I heard people running in from the hallway.And then I was the center for all of the commotion as I tried to fight everyone off of me. I kicked and screamed through all of the agonizing pain, all of the warning buzzers on the monitors, doing everything I could to free myself from their grasps, but nothing was working.
Soon the room became fuzzy, and I was getting sleepy. Very sleepy. I could no longer hold my eyes open. I was slipping. I didn't want to sleep. I wanted to find Chelsea.
The room was now only a tiny slit in my field of vision, but that didn't stop me from noticing the blurry figure again. It was closer this time, right next to me. But I still couldn't figure out what it was.
“ Sleep, Elsie,” the figure whispered, his voice was so soft, so angelic.
Afraid, I fought to resist the voice. I refused to go back into the darkness. It was cold and empty, but more than that, it was my fear of being alone.
Then everything was gone.
i like it:) it makes you wonder what happens next:) would you be interested in reviewing any of my work?
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Rambling thoughts
- Dreamwriter77
on Dec. 2, 2009 at 1:00 AM