Minus One

Chapter 1

Being a sophomore means being invisible. Freshmen are brand new, and so, you notice them. Juniors and seniors you know long enough to remember them. I'm a sophomore, and I'm invisible. My younger sister is a freshman, but she is known by nearly everyone. Her popularity shines. My older brothers are twins, seniors, and Jocks. One is a track star, the other, the varsity quarter back. How am I invisible when I have super popular siblings? They hate me. When I'm in the same room as them they don't acknowledge me, and at home they take it out. I don't fit in at all. I'm too weak to be jock, too poor to be prep, too stupid to be geek, and too lame to fit in with all the other losers like me.

I have no friends. The only release I have is to draw. Emotion comes loose, as tears of sadness and anger emerge from pencil onto paper. It is the only help I have. They are loved by everyone. I knew this because all of them had a Pokémon but me. Mary had a Glameow, which I thought was ironic, because eventually it would become a fat, ugly beast. Tyler had an Arcanine, one of the Pokémon I thought were most used by douche bags everywhere. Michael had a Carvanha, which sort of matched him, because he would just strike randomly, and he didn't have feelings.

My parents just don't care. As if they are home long enough to care. My mother is always away on business, and my father goes and spends all her money at the bar. She never sees me, and he sees me as a disappointment. I often remember my drunken father asking me why I wasn't popular like Mary, or athletic like Tyler or Michael. Whenever it happened, I would go to my dark room and draw, just letting the pain roll off me. Who knew it would collect?

I sat alone at my lunch table. All that lay in front of me was a small sandwich I had packed for myself. I shifted my gaze from it, and scanned the room. It was loud, and quite fussy in the cafeteria. I picked out Tyler and Michael making asses of themselves in the corner with the Jocks, and I saw Mary re-applying make-up in her corner of popular people.

I sighed and looked back at my sandwich. It hadn't moved from its lonely spot on the table. Gingerly, I picked it up, and took a bite. It was bland, tasteless, and dry. I chewed it, swallowed, and set the remaining sandwich back on the table. I looked up at the table of average people. There was a girl sitting with her group of friends there. She had long brown hair, fair skin, and pretty blue eyes. Her name was Lilly Hafren, and like all other people, didn't know I existed. I had a crush on her for a long time, and I knew that she would just be that. A crush. Not a friend, not an admirer, and definitely not a girlfriend. I sighed again as the bell rang, and I threw my barely scraped lunch away.

The day dragged on slowly. I sat in the shadows of my classes, listening to the drones hum away their useless knowledge. Even the teachers didn't notice the invisibles like me.

Cherrygrove City didn't get high traffic and I thanked it for this. It meant that I didn't have to wait in the car with my three siblings as long. Along with all the geeks and losers, I was a victim of bullying from all three of them. Mary hurt my feelings, Michael humiliated me, and Tyler left bruises on my skin, and awful memories in my mind.

One time when I was five and when Mary had barely learned to talk, Tyler tricked me into going to one of the deep ditches in the park. When we got there, he pushed me into the six foot deep ditch. It was more like a giant hole that the town dug to fill up with rainwater and to keep the park from flooding.

Once he pushed me into the hole, he laughed, and then walked away. It was five hours later when my preschool teacher finally called my mother to ask where I was, another two hours to find me, and twenty minutes to get me out of the hole safely. And to make matters worse, they scolded me for playing in the hole and missing school. The memory burned in my mind. That was when I knew my brother hated me.

We pulled up to our house a few minutes later. I grabbed my backpack and got out of the car last, waiting for my brothers to leave the car first so I wouldn't have to endure something from them. I walked in slowly, dropping my bag on the floor. Tyler was in the living room with his Arcanine. This situation was one I'd like to avoid. His Arcanine was aggressive and ruthless like Tyler, it did whatever he said, and I was usually one who didn't benefit from it. I avoided them, and went up to my room. The walls were painted black, and the window was covered up to stop the light from getting in.

I went over to my desk, and sat down. My sketchbooks were laying on it, several had been filled completely with arts, most of which were of sadness or depression. I opened my most recent book, and flipped to a new page. I gently picked up my pencil, and laid the tip on the crisp white page. I swerved it, and swiftly brought it along the page, letting my day of pain glide down my hands and onto the paper. I shaded parts, lightened others, and eventually, I had a page of lines, whites, grays and blacks merged beautifully on the sheet. I closed the book, feeling better. A sigh escaped me again, and I quietly went downstairs.

The TV was on, blaring football into the living room. I tried to ignore the brainless meatheads run across the grass field. It took fourteen steps to get from the stairs to the kitchen, all of which went uninterrupted. I let out a small breath when I got in, and I pulled a can of soup from the pantry. It made a watery plop into the bowl I poured it in, and I stuck it in the microwave. Mary's Glameow gazed at me from the kitchen table. I looked at her, then went back to watching my soup turn around in the microwave. The Glameow leapt majestically from the table, and strolled out of the kitchen. I ignored her.

A few seconds later, Tyler's Arcanine trotted into the kitchen and sat down behind me. Just as the microwave ringed, Tyler came in, pushed me out of the way, and took the soup from the microwave. "Hey, I made that for me." I said to him.

"So?" He said to me. "What are you going to do about it?"

He walked out of the kitchen, his Arcanine followed. I sighed again, and stood alone in the kitchen, drowning in my loneliness. I shuffled to my room, not looking at the couch. My door was left open slightly, and could hear people inside.

"Oh my god, what is this? Some sort of scribble?" I made that out to be Michael's voice.

"No, it's his gay lover. What a retard." I made this out to be Mary.

"Maybe it's his feelings." They all laughed and I walked in.

"What are you doing?" I asked softly.

"Looking at your gay little drawings here." Michael said flatly.

"God, these suck." Mary said, flipping the pages in it. I felt a lump begin its way into my throat. Tyler looked at all of the books, and then to his Arcanine. He laughed, and picked them all up. "Well, since the world doesn't need to see this trash, Arcanine, do us the honest favor of burning these." Tyler tossed them in the air, and a flamethrower escaped the Arcanine's mouth. I saw in the split seconds as the pages turn to ash. They sprinkled to the floor, and Michael chuckled. "You have such a good pet, Tyler."

"I know." He said, looking at the pile of ash with a grin. All four of them walked past me and out my door, each of whom I heard say, "What a loser." The door slammed behind me.

I stared at the ash on the floor. The years of emotion held within each of them slowly began to flood back into me. An overload of sadness, anger, despair and pain enveloped me, and tears rolled down my cheeks, landing with hard plits on the carpet. I silently stood there crying for a very long time. When the front door didn't open at eleven o'clock that night, I knew that my father was just going to end up falling asleep at some public bench or something.

I heard my siblings go to bed, and yet another hour rolled by me. My eyes hurt from all the tears they had produced, and I couldn't breathe out my nose. I let out a slight breath. I knew that moment what I was. Invisible. Invisible, and useless. I looked up at my ceiling light, it was off, and the fan remained motionless.

Silently, I went downstairs through the dark. The kitchen was as cold as it was dark. I walked over to the knife block, and pulled three sharp steak knives from it. I took them out to the living room, and pulled the pictures of Tyler in his Football jersey, Michael in his Track jersey, and Mary's school picture off the wall. I pulled the photo from each of their frames, and took them too my room. I set the knives and pictures on my now empty desk, and pulled the jar of burgundy paint off my desk. I dipped my fingers in it, and on my wall, wrote, "Try running from this."

Once finished, I splashed the rest of the paint all over my room. The rest of my walls were splattered with paint, along with the window, ceiling, carpet, and desk. Once done, I took Tyler's picture and put it on the wall, under the words I wrote. I took one of the knives, and with a thunk, stabbed it through the picture into the wall, leaving it there. I did the same with the other two pictures, and then went to my closet. I took a long tie from the back of it, and brought it over to my desk. I pulled the chair from it, and dragged it under my ceiling fan. I made the tie into a noose, and put it around my neck.

I paused for a moment, but quickly got over the thought. I stepped up onto the chair, and tied the other end of the tie to the fan. I took a deep breath, and kicked the chair over. Instantly, a sharp pain screamed from my neck, and I struggled for a moment, trying to get the noose off me. But it had been done.

I was in a black place. The darkness felt like a home to me, and I inhaled deeply. But as I did, my neck let out a jolting pain. That was when I remembered what happened. I had killed myself. My hand flew to my burning neck, and I started to panic. The darkness was no longer my friend, and the cold, pain, and sadness returned.

I stared at what I thought was the floor, and a tear rolled down my cheek. I felt something wipe it from my face. I looked up to see a floating pink cat thing. Mew. I wanted to speak, but my voice was gone. She giggled, and I heard her voice. Young one, you cannot speak here. You are nothing more than a lost soul. I looked around. I was certainly lost. Yes, you certainly are. Your spirit never did find its way to the gates of the afterlife. You are what they call a ghost right now.

I blinked, then looked around again. This is what ghosts were? Stuck in a void of blackness and sadness? I stared at my feet. I guess this is what I deserve for being selfish. Mew's paw lifted my face up to hers. You can see why ghosts can haunt, can't you? Just like you, they wander in this void, being stuck in only their place of death.

I nodded. Well, young one, I can give you two choices. One, you can stay here, and be a ghost forever, or, I can give you the path of another life, with all your memories and experiences in tact.

I stared at her in sad, disbelief. Another life? Another chance? It was an opportunity too great to pass up! But, I looked away; it was also too selfish a choice. I chose to take my own life, why have another chance to screw up and destroy? Mew held my face to hers again. Young one, you had been alone and sad for too long. I see your pain. You thought the world would be better off without an invisible child, and you didn't want to live with the pain any more. You deserve another chance at happiness. Everyone does…

And with that, my environment changed again. The cold and the pain in my neck disappeared, and the sadness lifted slightly, but it still existed. The darkness also existed, but at least it was nice and warm here. But I had a weird feeling of stir craziness in the back of my mind. For some reason, I didn't want to be here. I felt around me. I was in some sort of pod. The walls were hard like rocks. I knocked on it. From the other side, I heard excited talking. The words were too muffled to hear, though. I knocked again, and this time, a knock came back. It echoed all throughout the pod, and it rung in my ears. But that was strange, how were my ears on top of my head?

I heard more talking from the other side, and it sounded anxious and slightly angry. Deciding to end the squabble myself, I pounded the wall as hard as I possibly could, but nothing happened. I continued the pounding for a while. Finally, a crack echoed throughout the pod, and I got excited. It was tiring, but I smacked a hole straight through it. I pushed at it with my feet, and instantly, I spilled out into an extremely bright, cold place. I shielded my eyes, but before I could, I heard yelling, and it hurt my ears, which I still didn't know why were on top of my head. Before I knew it, I was being wrapped in something warm and dry.

My eyes had finally adjusted to the light, and I blinked. Staring back at me was Lilly. She was smiling at me. "Lilly? Ohmigosh, Lilly! I just had the worst time of my life!"

"You are just so cuuute!"

"Excuse me?"

"Yes you are! Yes you are! You are such a little cutie!"

"Calm yourself, Lilly; I'm not that cute…" I blushed slightly.

She held me up in the air, and dangled me above her. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it, but since when was I this small to be lifted above her? I heard someone else talking. "Lilly! Stop hogging him! I wanna see him!"

"See me?" I asked. But Lilly piped up. "No, Vanessa, he's MINE. Mom and Dad got him for me."

"MOM!" Lilly's little sister Vanessa yelled. "Lilly won't let me see her new Pokémon!!!!"

Pokémon? I heard her mother yell. "Lilly, just let her SEE him."

Lilly huffed, and then handed me to Vanessa. She stared at me with her big, watery, blue eyes. "Aww, what a cute little Minun!" She said cutely. I blinked, dumbstruck. A Minun? A Minun? Of all the Pokémon in all the world, I was a Minun?! I cursed at Mew for this, but it subsided when Vanessa held me above her head and dangled me inches above her face. I had to admit, I loved it.