I know I'm totally insane. I have a research paper due at 11 a.m. tomorrow that I haven't even started. I have to get my voicemail for my phone set up. I need to run to the store to buy some stuff that I need for an assignment tomorrow. That's not even counting all the other homework that I have tonight, not to mention my chores. But I have to get this off my chest before I explode.

Okay, some background info. My mom's a fashion designer for a relatively small firm, and my dad is a dentist. Both of them are obsessed with the yard. Our dog, Mojo (where Mom came up with that name I will never know), is on pain killers for his broken leg that he acquired when Dad heard him barking in the middle of the night and went to check on him, only to trip over the sumo-sized bowl that Mojo had somehow managed to push into the middle of the floor and land on Mojo himself (who happens to be a Chihuahua). I, of course, got stuck with the task of caring for Mojo, even though he's Mom's dog and Dad's the one that landed on him. I even told them that I had a huge paper coming up, but no, I still had to deal with Mojo. Okay, enough with family.

I bought this car earlier this week, an old, beat-up Camaro. Not something you see every day on the lot of a snake-oil car dealer, but it's not that horribly uncommon. You're thinking, okay, so the chick bought a car. Whoop-de-do. That's not the end of it, though. See, here's what happened. Earlier tonight, I was reading over my chemistry pre-lab stuff when I heard an engine start. Now, most people in my neighborhood are not going to drive off at eight at night, so I had to admit, I was curious (and searching for any reason at all for a break from chemistry). I went over to my window and saw not one of my neighbors' cars moving, but MY car.

So you called the police, right?

Wrong. I ran downstairs, got on my bike, and followed the thing, screaming at the carjacker. Stupid, huh? That was not the end of my stupidity for the night, oh, no. Not by a long shot.

I followed my car to some old abandoned place on the edge of the slum/ghetto district. The place looked like no one had been there for a decade and then some. The fence was rusted out, the parking lot cracked and overrun with weeds and grass. Retaining some common sense in spite of my stupefying anger, I didn't actually follow the carjacker in. Instead, I hopped off my bike several hundred yards behind my Camaro and inched up through some four-foot-high weeds to where I had a good view of my car from behind some wild shrubbery. Only then did I get a really good look at the interior. There was no one inside.

My mouth dropped open, and I just froze right where I was, in a crouch. My shocks were not over for the night, however, as my car played one final trump card: it changed. I watched in some unprecedented combination of awe, shock, fear, and horror as my Camaro shifted its form and became a humanoid, bipedal, robot thing. It looked at its . . . hand? . . . and I saw that there was some kind of box-looking thing in it. Before I could get a really good look, though, a light shot up from the box-thing, and I gasped. The Camaro snapped its head in my direction, and I freaked. I crawled, shimmied, and stumbled my way back through the weeds to my bike, leaped on, and rode off like the devil himself was after me.

I didn't stop to think where I should go. I just headed straight home, shot up the stairs, and dove into my bed, hiding under the blankets.

After a while, when no giant metal hands had crashed through my window or pounded a hole in my roof, I climbed gingerly out from under my covers, senses on high alert. After I had checked the premises and made sure all was quiet, I went back upstairs and sat down at my desk. I tried to focus on my homework, I really did, but I couldn't. Not after what I had just seen. So I gave up on homework, and started writing.

And here I am still, at 11 p.m.—

The sound of a car, rolling ever so softly into the driveway, makes me freeze in terror. I drop down under my desk, shaking so hard I'm sure I'm producing enough friction to heat Siberia. My cell phone rings.

How's that for a first chapter? Let me know! Review, please!

KitKat