"This means" talking
This means thinking which believe it or not, the characters will have brains and thoughts.
CHAPTER 1
People are confusing; you never know what they're going to do until the last moment. I know that it's probably best this way but at times in moments of anxiety, when everything depends on one decision of one person, free will doesn't seem too grand. I guess I should be making an introduction of myself. My name is Sasuke and I'm often pondering about this among other things now-in-days. I just turned 17 and I was looking back at all that's happened and I felt that I should write some of it down so that when I die, people will be able to understand me a little more through reading this. I didn't always think about things with this perspective. I used to not worry about such things, but I guess God decided to give me a reality check. To cut to the chase, it all started a year ago and this book is mainly about how I've gotten along so far.
My family was stinking rich and I was your stereotypical rich boy with the whole snob thing going on. My friends and I had this tradition of trying to out do each other's parties. We went wild on this competition. There never was an end to how far we would go. I turning was turning 16 that July and as everyone knows your sweet sixteen is supposed to be the highlight of your adolescent years, you know other than prom. If I was going to be the best of the best, I'd have to pull out all the stops for this party. The theme was going be Japanese because of my heritage. Trust me though, I did not wear those pants that looks like a dress.
It was going to be amazing! The budget was practically limitless. I was going to invite only A-list people and have guards at all the doors to keep out everyone else. Only one problem, to make it a big bash I would need alcohol. My best friend Naruto brought out vodka at his last party. He was my best friend and all but we were still rivals in competition. It wasn't like we had it in for each other but at times it did make things tense between us. I knew my parents wouldn't agree so I order twenty bottles of sake behind their back. To get away with drinking I was going to have the guards not let them in. I didn't want them there anyway, parents always tick me off. Whether they were mine or not I didn't care, they ruin the fun of being a teenager.
The night of the party, things were going great. I was having time of my life! Girls were coming up to me to say they forgot to get me a present and would just give a kiss instead. Can you believe that?! That was how good the night was going; totally awesome. Everywhere I looked I saw jealousy in my peers' eyes. At that moment, I never wanted the night to end.
People are fairly entertaining when they're drunk. I wasn't drinking because I wanted to remember everything about tonight. I thought nothing could mess this up for me. Murphy's Law, if something can go wrong then it will.
About two hours into the party my parents called me on my cell phone. They started yelling at me for not letting them in. They also found out about the drinking and got seriously pissed off about that. The conversation went like this:
"Did you think you could get away with this?!" My dad yelled. I could hear my mom crying in the background. Nothing new, she hated it when we had family problems. Said it tore her apart inside because she had the same problem with her parents. Apparently they got so mad at her they cut her off as soon as she turned 18.
"I won't tolerate this disobedience, you damn ingrate!" again my father yelled and my mother sobbed harder and louder.
"Well I'm tired of you treating me like an idiotic child," I yelled this back without thinking much.
"I'll do whatever the hell I want OLD MAN!" again I wasn't thinking much and my dad's reaction came faster than I thought it would.
"LOOK YOU DAMN LITTLE BITCH YOU'RE GOING TO REGRET THAT AS SOON AS YOU GET HOME!!!" I could hear my mother right out break down, begging my father to forgive me and to stop fighting. He ignores her when she does this so I felt bad for her even then.
"WELL THEN I JUST WON'T COME HOME," I hung up after I said that. I was thoroughly outraged and stressed at the same time. I mean really, what was I going to do if I couldn't go home. But I cheered up as the night went on. Sure, I wasn't as lighthearted as before but it wasn't all that bad. I could even say that I was having fun until the cops came….
People were running all over the place but the police didn't seem too interested in anyone in particular. That was until they saw me. One of them got the others to look over at me. Then someone held up some kind of photo. That was when I knew to run, they followed. It wasn't too long of a chase really. I got cut off in the alley.
"HEY, LET ME GO!" I put up a good fight. I had no intention sitting around a jail cell till my dear old father came to pick me up. But whatever my intentions were at that moment, they didn't happen. I was pushed into a squad car, handcuffs and all. I pleaded for them to let me go. I've seen the movies, guys like me get beaten-up and butt raped and stuff in jail. I tried sharing this information with the cops driving to see if it might help but whenever I would start rambling, they would just give me this sympathetic look. Sympathy from a cop is unexpected and nerve-racking. I thought cops only had sympathy when somebody wrongfully gets put on death row. Again, I panicked. There wasn't much else for me to do.
We pulled up in a strange parking lot; I noticed that it was daylight. One of the police officers said the only reason he put the cuffs on was so I wouldn't run. More confusion clouded my mind. I mean, of course that's why he put handcuffs on me. That's why they put handcuffs on all the criminals, so they can't get away. But what was strangest about this cop was that took them off me. I didn't know what to do so I just followed him into the building. When we got inside I noticed something even stranger than a cop taking the handcuffs off the person he arrested before putting the person in a cell. There were sick people around me, people in wheelchairs and nurses all over the place. Then I figured it out, I WAS IN A HOSPITAL!
"Son, if you could just sign something real quick, we can take you back there." asked some doctor near me who was suddenly holding me by the shoulders. I must have looked absolutely bewilder because he repeated this a few times.
"Why am I here? Am I injured? What's going on?"
"You don't know?"
"NO, I don't know!"
"Just calm down, we'll take you through in a minute, but she's just about to go into surgery." My heart stopped. For a second nothing seemed right, I couldn't understand why this was happening. For the millionth time that night I panicked. But everything left my mind after that moment. It wasn't because of what the doctor said. It was because of what I saw. Nothing could have prepared me for this. On one of those hospital stretcher beds, I saw a woman, a horribly mangled woman. She seemed to be having a troubled sleep. There were nurses and doctors all around her, clamoring to get her somewhere. To my horror, as the mangled woman past me I stiffened up. My entire body ran cold. She had the same eyes as me. Her softened look I had come to know so well had been disturbed by terror and to my knowledge, a weapon. The woman was my mother.
As I've said, nothing could have prepared me for this. I followed the calamity of doctors and nurses through the halls for a good distance. I don't know what became of the doctor who had been asking me to sign whatever it was. He must have let me go because I don't remember him following me.
They took her into some kind of room with tools of all kinds. They hooked her up to a heart monitor and you could hear a steady beeping. She slowly opened her eyes and relief came about me. That relief was taken faster than it had come. The beeping of the heart monitor started to speed up, my mother was screaming, her screaming soon muffled by a gas mask. Her eyes were darting back and forth from the scalpels to the needles. Her eyes quickly darted upward and for a moment she was stiff with terror. She started to cry hysterically. The doctor in the middle who looked like he was in charge of everything did his best to make her stop. He kept pushing her down to keep on the bed but this only made things worse. He decided to start the surgery but the others around him were unsure. They must have trusted him because they went ahead with the surgery.
My poor mother now had no chance of her opinion being heard. Her eyes were filled with tears and the tears gradually streamed down her face as she slowly fell asleep, no less troubled this time as when I had first seen her.
The heart monitor was still beeping fast and blood was rushing as over the doctor's hands but it didn't matter. They were still trying and they were doing their best. But no matter how hard they tried, the heart monitor stopped beeping insanely and only gave me one long steady beep to inform me of my mother's death. I turned away. The doctors were still trying but I knew it was the end.
I sat down on a wooden bench in the hall. I never understood why they put indoor benches and stiff chairs in a hospital hall until now. I had to sit to down. I had to think things through. My mother was dead and I didn't know yet what happened to my father. He could be missing, dead, or barely alive.
The head doctor who had been there came out of the operating room. He still had his medical mask on. He just walked away.
We had family albums all over the house. My mother always said that a picture can describe any memory better than the words of any great author. There were wedding pictures, birthday pictures, holiday pictures and pictures taken for no reason. My mother used to be a photographer before she met my dad. My parents met in college and every morning my father always felt the need to remind my mother of how the met. There was some rally and my dad was the sound guy and my mother was a photographer taking pictures for the school newspaper.
My mom was trying to get backstage so she could get pictures of the crowd from the viewpoint of the stage but the guards kept kicking her out. My dad witnessed this about twelve times and decided that she was so pathetic he would just sneak her in. He succeeded in this by putting her in a cardboard box, wheeling it up to the backdoor and telling the guards it was sound equipment. This somehow worked because my mother got those pictures and became a legend because she not only got those pictures, she also got a picture of the lead singer of U2 putting on his wig. Apparently, the poor guy was balding. I don't really know why this was such a big deal. Of course the guy was going bald. HE WAS OLD! What was really amazing is that the cardboard box my mother was carried in was an old box for a dish washer. The words "DISH WASHER" must have been written all over that thing but the guards didn't notice a thing. That should have been the punch line of the story if you ask me.
The reason why my dad can somehow miraculously remember this every morning is because on my parents beside table, there is a picture of my mother in a sunflower dress getting kicked out of what looks like the unloading area of the back of a warehouse. If you can imagine how much my mom looks absolutely ridiculous in that picture then I will applaud you. But my dad loves it. He says it reminds him of why he married my mother. "Because she's as stubborn as they come and I've never been able to say no to her" is what he would say in the blissful stillness of the morning with his hair all messed up, drinking coffee and smirking at my blushing mother.
We weren't to have those mornings anymore. My mother was gone and I didn't know yet what became of father or what had happened to cause this grief of mine. I was knocked out of my memories when the police officer who had originally arrested me started saying something about the Coroner's Office.
"We need you to come and identify a body down there. They're not sure if it's your father because there wasn't any I.D. on the man." Those were his exact words because I remember those giving me hope that my dad was still alive and that I could find out what was going on. I didn't want to wait to find out, I wanted to know now.
"How did this happen? What happened?!"
"We need you to identify a,"
"WHAT HAPPENED?!?!" I screamed, I yelled, I wanted answers. The only reaction from cop was sympathy and I don't know… guilt almost. Almost as if he felt guilty that this all had happened to me. That was real sympathy, not the same load of bull that everyone else faked to get friends. That was the first time that I've ever remembered me being thankful. I didn't know why I was thankful, but I was. Real human sympathy is truly amazing. I'm sorry to say that you yourself will never see this sympathy because it is simply statistics.
The cop just looked at me with that same sympathetic look. I have to say that as thankful as I was for this courtesy, it was getting on my nerves.
"We can stay a few here for a few hours if you need to calm down but as to what happened to your parents, it's not my place to tell you…" He kept talking but I wasn't listening. I wondered what in the world could have been done to them. I did calm down a little, or at least enough to go to the city morgue eventually.
I actually spent an hour just sitting down, doing my best to think of nothing. In that hour, I saw plenty of people. The old, the young, and the middle aged. It was 8am then and little kids started coming in for doctor appointments. Some of them threw fits and others were scared. There was a little girl about nine years old who looked terrified.
"Mommy, what are they going do to me?"
"Hopefully, they are going to make you better sweetie."
"I change my mind. I don't care about saying home from school. I want to leave. Hurry Mommy, we have to go now. Something bad is going to happen, I just know it."
"Now Jerica, I promise nothing bad is going to happen and when it's all over, we'll sit in bed all day, drink hot chocolate and read Winnie the Pooh."
Though as scared as she was, she did look as if that sounded to be a good idea. Then for one reason or another, she turned to look at me. I don't need this right now. Maybe she'll stop in a minute. Needless to say, the girl kept staring at me.
"What do you want?" I asked coldly. She looked down at her shoes and started fidgeting with her laces. She didn't even look up while she spoke.
"I was just wondering, if you knew the doctors here were good people or not." She rambled nervously.
"Why would that matter? They do their job and get paid." I raised my voice a little in annoyance. She looked as if she was going to cry. Oh great, this is why I hate little kids. But the girl took a deep breath and continued on.
"Before I moved here, I had a really nice doctor. He had a playground in front of his office and if you were well enough, he would take you down there and push you on the swing. Even if my mommy didn't have the money to pay him he would just say 'I can wait'. He was the best but he had to go to Iraq because that was where his parents were and they were really sick and needed him more than me. I was just hoping that this place had doctors like him so I wouldn't be so afraid."
She spoke this small speech with bravery. She had to be brave to not wet her pants since I was giving her death glares to leave me alone. She was a good kid I guess, but really, who cares?
"If you want reassurance that you'll be okay, then you have come to the wrong guy. My mommy just died." I put emphasis on the last two words. The kid just sort of stood there. Then all of the sudden, she reaches into her mother's purse (who by the way has been doing paperwork this entire time) and pulls out a set of car keys. Then says: "Mommy, mommy follow me!" poor Jerica shrieks.
The kid then runs straight into the parking lot, starts her mother's car, waits for her mother to partially climb in the car (mommy apparently thought she could pull the key out in time), and then proceeds to drop a heavy story book on the gas pedal.
I wonder if you can imagine my smirk. Just picture the evil grin the Grinch had on his face when he stole Christmas. But of course my trademark grin is more subtle and sickening.
I'm sure that in a few years the kid will get over her phobia of new doctors from her old one, but who said that I ever had to help? At least the kid still had her mother to assure her of a lack of crooks in hospitals. I then remembered my own mother and what had become of her. At that point I lost most of my hope for my father. It was a numb feeling but along as it wasn't painful I didn't care and I just wanted to hold on to that feeling.
I walked through the halls filled with the old, young and middle aged. Past other little kids going to their appointments and pass the dying. Where is that cop? sigh I should probably check next to the vending machines. And that was where I found the dutiful officer of the law, eating a honey bun.
"I want to see him now. Or what is left of him I guess."
He looked astonished to hear me say that so casually but he swallowed what he was chewing and followed me outside. If you didn't know, I am fairly pale. So that would lead you to believe that stayed inside most of the time which is not true. I am simply awake mostly at night and during the day I enjoy a good sleep in class. Maybe I'll go out to beach this summer with Naruto. At best I'll get the chance to watch him drown.
We finally arrived at the city morgue (Mr. Honey Bun drives too slowly) It was a simple two-story brick building in the historic part of town. It had sign or engraving to tell you what it was. It just looked like one of the many law offices in the area. When we walked inside I noticed the cop said hello and was on a first name basis with this old man in a white lab coat.
"Jake, I need to see the John Doe you received this morning. This may be his son." The officer said this quite gravely and was given a grave response.
"Don't bother, the man's body is completely covered in 3rd degree burns. I matched the dental records and it is confirmed."
"Can I still see him?"
I wanted to see him. I wanted to know what he looked like. "Jake" agreed after awhile. I have seen horror films. The worst that could happen is that I wouldn't recognize him as human. So they walked down this stairwell (apparently the bodies were kept in the basement) and held open this heavy metal door for me to go through. We passed several isles until Jake picked the right one to continue down. He stopped and opened this steel drawer as if he was taking out files. It did look human. The body was twisted up and stiff while the jaw was stretched wide open as if the victim had been screaming the whole time.
AN: Remember to review or I won't be able to know what to put in the next chapter!