Chapter One

An average day in the Life of a Student with a Job
or
How my Perception of Reality Changed Forever

It was the wonderful point of the morning where you know that the alarm can't have possibly gone off yet, so you don't actually have to get out of bed and face the world. Being someone who hates doing the things, I rolled over and snuggled with the other person in my bed, one arm being held by him like a teddy bear, and my free hand loosely tangled in his hair.

Six snoozes later I conceded defeat and groggily rolled out of bed, eyes still closed. As usual I'm not the first one up. Luckily my 'wife' has my work clothes set aside for me already. After an awkward moment where I almost try to brush my teeth with my hair brush and forget to take my glasses off before washing my face, I'm heading out the door and across the street to my job as a cashier, kissing my boyfriend of nearly 6 years goodbye before clocking in with half a mountain dew in me, hoping the caffeine fixes what waking up only 25 minutes before my shift does to me.

It's near the end of the month, but it should still be busier then this. See, the grocery store I work at is kind of like Walmart, but without the whole feeling like you need to take a shower after shopping there thing. Oh, and lower prices. See, there have been 'terrorist' reports on the news, and lots of people have been either leaving or disappearing. Reports of 'monsters in black with yellow eyes' are being written off as scare tactics by the 'enemy' to frighten the general populace. We have been reassured that there is nothing to worry about. Besides, I live in Oregon. There's nothing to bomb here, no one important enough to be made a target of. Right?

After a boring 7.25 hours of ensuring that everyone 'found everything on your list?', I clock out and down my second mountain dew of the day. I have trig homework to do and I need the caffeine. Really. It's a little dark out, but it's literally a four-minute walk home, so I don't bother to call for my sweetie. I can walk myself home. Turning the first corner, I notice that the night is quiet. Too quiet. I look across the street and for the first time I can remember that isn't three in the morning, there is NO traffic. I wait a minute, expecting that I've simply noticed a lull and nothing happens. Weird.

Crossing the street towards the complex I hear something moving in the bushes that line our complex like so many other cookie-cutter apartments. I hesitate, really not wanting to bother what I assume is either a squirrel or a nutria. Then I hear the last thing any girl walking home from work ever wants to hear. "Hand over you money or I shoot."

Icy sweat instant covers me. I only have keys, phone and a debit card. Why didn't I call my boyfriend to walk me home? If I run, home is only a minute away, but i'm out of shape and I don't want this guy to know where I live. If I did try to run, would he really shoot me? Does he actually have a gun? I turn slowly, hands out like I've always read in books to show I'm unarmed. Oh yeah, he has a gun.

It's the only thing I can look at. I couldn't say anything definitive about the person other then male, average height, tan enough to be Hispanic but light enough to be Caucasian. "I won't ask again. Hand over your money, or your dead."

I nod quickly, reaching my hands into the pockets of my apron and emptying them into my hands. Small change, two receipts from work proving I paid for my mountain dews and lunch. A flip phone that's not even worth the $80 I paid for it two years ago, my pathetic keys with one for the apartment and one for the mail box. And my debit card. He makes a disgusted noise, and I hope he doesn't shoot me for being broke. Or worse.

Chancing a side glance I notice that there still isn't any traffic. Or people for that matter. It's only 9PM, and it's July, there should be people out. At the very least the stoners should be hitting up Taco Bell. "Hey, i said don't move!" But he isn't looking at me. It's the bush, rattling much too violently to be a mere nutria, much less a squirrel. Maybe the nice what I can only assume is a raccoon will save me?

He suddenly panics, turning the gun back to me "Don't get any smart ideas!" I drop my hands, letting my belongings fall to the ground and holding my hands up in a defensive gesture, palms towards him in a sort-of push-up position "Look, I don't wanna get shot, but getting bit by a raccoon isn't on my list either. Just take my stuff, ok? The pin is 7789, there's an ATM in the store across the street." The gun wavers between me and the bush, and I try really hard not to cry or piss my pants.

Then it happened. A clocked shadow with a weird as shit hood came out of the bush. But i's so short, is it someone's kid? The gunman certainly seems to think so, and his face pales. "Oh, hell no." The clocked figure turns towards me, and a yellow glow is emanating from underneath the hood. That's soooooo not someone's kid. The gunman panics.

"It's the terrorists! You- Your with them, aren't you? That's why he came out!" I fall down hearing a loud banging noise once, twice. I think he shot me. It seems very important to try to tell him I'm not a terrorist, that I've never seen the thing that's now tackling him to the ground and slashing his arms-chest-face open until a glowing something erupts from his chest, and I see an orb of pink-yellow-white erupt from his chest that I have the thought of is that his heart? And realize that being shot might not be my biggest problem.

It must be the shock. Hearts are organs that do not glow, or levitate, and certainly don't cause clawed monsters clocked in darkness with yellow eyes to do what can only be described as a happy dance at their appearance. It's all very meta. Like something out of a story, or a video game. But as I try to sit up, I see my own chest, and it's not good.

He did shoot me. Twice. As his body evaporates into swirls of what can only be described as darkness, I stare that the nearly fist-sized hole in my chest. The necklace that I've worn since I was two years old is covered in my blood, and thicker things then that are splattered down my work uniform. I have a stupid moment of wondering how my boyfriend, my '50's wife', will get my uniform clean before I notice the thing is coming closer to me.

I recognize it now. Wither everything in the last few minutes has been a hallucination from being shot, or if I'm actually dead and you really do just dream after you die, there's no doubt that what is approaching me is a heartless, a shadow. It's not as cute as it was in the game, I think it got disney-ified for it's audience.

My vision is starting to go. It's a race to see what finished me off first, the shock of being shot, blood loss or a freaking heartless that is so not a terrorist plot like they wanted us to believe. If i'm not dreaming, if this is real, I have to warn him. I can barely move, but my phone is only inches away. I wonder if he heard the gun go off. Is he coming? Oh, please, don't be coming, don't let it get you, too. My fingers inch towards my cell, the adrenaline rush of must protect giving me the strength to move my broken, bleeding body. And it's foot is on top of my phone as my outstretched fingers touch it.

Does it know? As it lowers it's face to mine and sniffs inquisitively, I wonder if it has stopped me on purpose, knowing another heart is on the way if I can't make that call. It probably just stepped on my phone on it's way to me, but the voice in my head is pissed that it took this last act of love away from me, the last thing I could ever do for him. My chest aches at that though, a different ache then the wound pouring out my blood onto the sidewalk. As I fall back onto the ground, no longer able to hold myself up, my necklace dips into the wounds. I stare up into yellow eyes, and a bright light covers everything.

I'm floating in darkness. Is this what happens to hearts? Am I inside of that thing now, a part of it, or just dead?

There's a pinprick of light in the distance. I'm not sure if I have a body, an anything, but whatever I am I angle myself to 'look' towards it. The necklace is a heavy weight around me, much like when I found it as a two-year old. It was a skeleton key in the wood chips at the park I played in as a child. When I found it, I took off my purple shoelace, and tied it around my neck. I haven't taken it off in the 21 years since that day. Someone special had left it there for me, and as I look into the light the boy with brown hair and purple eyes waves at me as his mother takes him away just like that day at the park. The light is getting closer, and I'm falling again.

Maybe this is like those dreams everyone has where they wake up right before they hit the ground? Supposedly, you die if you don't wake up first, and dying in a dream is dying in real life. Scientifically I know that the 'jump' experienced when you wake up is actually your body having a reaction to the fact that you stopped breathing on auto-pilot while you slept, so it's 'shocking' you into waking up so you breathe manually. I really hope it's a falling dream, cause I'm not falling into the light anymore, I'm falling out of it, and the ground is coming at me, and I swear I won't hit snooze this time just please let me wake up in time.