Hey, so some of you may remember this story as Separate Lives from the author NewHampshireMan155, well that was my old account, I decided to create a new account and come back to writing with a clean slate, and work on improving my writing and making sure the stories I've written on the old account are up to my standards. Now I want to add some back story for chapter one and why there are some things mentioned here that are never brought back in the rest of the story, well this was originally an essay I had to write for English class that I was able to adapt to fan fiction. Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy! Just remember to review and let me know what you all think!
DISCLAIMER: James Patterson owns Maximum Ride!
Every morning I wake up at 6:00 AM exactly, not a moment earlier or a second after. I slowly pad my way into the bathroom and gently remove my dark blue fuzzy bathrobe off of the hook it has on the back of the bathroom door. I quietly pull my bathrobe on over my green and white striped pajamas with the 6-inch hole on the right knee. My parents keep saying they will get me new ones but always seem to "forget." I continue quietly in my white and grey and red and black striped socks down the hall and make my way carefully past the Christmas tree partially blocking the doorway and curl up with Rosa in front of the lit gas stove in the living room.
Rosa looks up sleepily into my eyes and immediately starts licking my face and curling up closer to me, her warm furry body pressing tightly against my cool hairless one. After about half an hour I turn off the stove and get up careful not to wake Rosa up but she does anyway and follows me as I sneak quietly into the office, which also is my bedroom. I turn on the computer and wait for the light on the monitor to come on and then wait for a minute or two after that. I log into my account on the computer and immediately click on the icon indicating Internet Explorer at the bottom of the screen. When Google finally decides to show up on the screen I go to the tab indicating Facebook and check for any messages or anything from any of my friends, there are none.
The next action I take is going into my favorites and selecting the shortcut for " " and check to see how many people have read the Maximum Ride fan fiction I had written. I thought that a few might have, considering that I had just added a new chapter to the story yesterday. I looked at the "traffic" tab and my eyes grew wide with shock as I read the number of people that had read the story that I had written about my favorite characters in my favorite series of books. It seems that "Unlikely Friendship" was not such a bad title for my story and that my story was not a bad idea for one. The number of hits I had was 68 and the viewers was 25; the record for my story. When I learned this I felt a warm nice feeling spread throughout my body, and I would use that wonderful feeling to get me through the school week.
I clicked back to my Facebook page one last time before quitting Internet explorer, and found that some person from China had added me as a friend. Now, I may know a lot of people around the world, okay maybe just in the US but I still know a good number of people in this country and our big neighbor to the north. I know that I definitely know absolutely no one in China, so I quickly hit the "ignore" button and quit. I walked silently back into the living room and sat down tiredly unto the couch and clicked on the TV to channel 9 news so I could see everything wrong with the world.
As I finished watching the news I retreated into my thoughts so I could clear my mind and meditate for about half an hour then, without any warning, there was a loud knock on the door, pulling me back to the present. I ruffled my feathers in annoyance and got up quietly so as to not wake the sleeping members of my family, and quickly moved to answer the door. Standing outside on the icy front step was my best friend and partner in crime, Kayla Snipe. She was the only person who truly understood what I was thinking; the only person who understood what it was like being me. Kayla was rather short, at only 5'0", with shoulder-length brown hair highlighted with strawberry blond lines. I hoped that all of the commotion with the knocking on the door and the barking of the dog had not woken everyone in the house, unfortunately though, it had.
"What's happening out here?" I heard a tired voice ask from behind me.
"Nothing Mom I was just talking to Kayla after she came over."
"Well do it quietly, we don't need everyone waking up because of you two" she replied.
"I'm sorry, I just wanted to come and ask your son if he wanted to do anything with me today, like right now" Kayla explained.
"Do you even need to ask? Of course he can go, and I am sure he would love to do something with you," my mom said, rather embarrassing me in the process.
"Well come on then!" Kayla said, trying to pull me out of the door with her.
"Wait a minute Kayla; I still need to get dressed! I will only be a second," I said, running back to my room and pulling on my red and brown striped shirt with my green pants and black and orange Keene High School band jacket with my name on the right arm. I made sure that my feathers were not crumpled or folded at an uncomfortable angle then rushed outside and joined Kayla on the street outside my house. "So where do you want to go?"
"I was thinking that we should go and find the biggest candy store in New England and just pig out," Kayla answered.
"Sounds great," I said enthusiastically so with that we spread our wings and took off for the great city of Boston, Massachusetts, the home of Sweet Treasures, the biggest candy store in the US and Canada. We spent about 5 hours pigging out at the candy store and then moved on to go out to eat at the Restaurant De Tao-The best Spanish-Chinese-American restaurant this side of Chicago. We sat down in our booth and talked about life. We didn't do this a lot because there was never any need; we each understood each other so well that we could always say whatever we needed to just using our eyes, which kinda freaked our friends out but for us it was just normal.
"Hey guys, what can I do for you?" the waitress asked us, this waitress was actually quite attractive, she had long dirty brown hair and eyes the color of the chocolate that I had just eaten at Sweet Treasures. She looked to be about my age, 16, and she was about 5'9" the same height as me. When Kayla saw the way I was looking at the beautiful waitress she slapped me upside the head and the waitress looked at us with a weird look on her face.
"Okay then…so anyway, my name is Max and I will be your server today." Max introduced herself.
"Nice to meet you," Kayla said while still glaring fixedly at me and I grinned back at her and she kicked me under the table causing me to gasp in pain and Max gave us another strange look.
"Okay, I will have three cheeseburgers, two chocolate milks and two egg rolls," I ordered.
"And I will have two chicken and broccolis and two chocolate milks, please" Kayla said.
"Okay, sounds great! I'll be back with your order in a little while." Max said and then smiled at us and walked back into the kitchen. After exactly 7 minutes and 36 seconds had passed Max came back with our order and we dug in, without worrying about our manners or anything like that. It just didn't matter to us; I figured that once you're a little bit weird there is no going back; especially not when you're as different as Kayla and I are, what with the wings and everything.
"Excuse me I was just wondering if there was anything you needed." At that we both looked up at the speaker and saw a rather large man with skin the color of Max's eyes and short black curly hair growing close to his head. He was probably the biggest person in terms of height and muscle that I had ever seen, and I could tell immediately that all of the girls liked him, his voice was one that could calm the sea and bring an end to the suffering and wars in the world.
"Nope everything is great. My name is Kayla" Kayla said, introducing herself.
"Cool, I'm Matthew by the way. I'm the chef here," He said.
"Oh, that is so cool!" Kayla said.
"Yeah, I'm trying to save up my money so I can go to college and earn my degree in music education." Matthew replied.
"Really? Me too!" Kayla said.
"Okay, I hate to break up this love fest but why don't you just exchange numbers and talk on the phone later, because right now we need to go," I said, slightly irritated. We left the restaurant, me practically dragging Kayla out the door. We were about to get on a bus to go to Lexington when I heard a shout from behind me. I turned and looked behind me and saw the waitress, Max, running to catch up with us.
"Hi, I'm glad I caught you. You left your iPod on the table," she said, handing Kayla's iPod Touch to her "and I also wanted to talk to you about something"
"Thank you sooooo much! My mom would've killed me if I lost this!" Kayla practically squealed in delight.
"What did you want to talk to us about?" I asked suspiciously
"Well I noticed from your jacket that you live in Keene, New Hampshire, right?" she asked
"Yeah, why?" I responded slowly
"Well my dad lives in Keene, and you guys seem really nice, so I was wondering if you ever wanted to hang out when I come up there?" she said.
"Yeah…okay," I said. "That sounds fun."
"Alright, cool, I just want at least one friend up there so I won't be completely bored out of my skull."
"Okay, so here's my number so call if you're ever in town, and we could probably hang out or something, if you want to." I wrote down my number and handed the paper to Max and she did the same for her number.
"Thanks a lot!" Max replied.
Kayla and I then got onto the bus and took a seat in the back and talked about the most recent developments while we waited for the bus to arrive in Lexington.
"So…..you gonna call Matthew tonight or tomorrow?" I asked teasingly.
"Tomorrow, I'm not that desperate," she said, punching my arm, hard.
"Ow! Geez. It was just a question, calm down," I complained but for whatever reason I was smiling anyway. "And anyway I was kinda joking."
"I know but let's just talk about something else, okay?" she asked, blushing.
"Fine. What do you want to talk about?" I asked
"How about why we are taking a bus to Lexington when we could just be flying there" she said.
"Okay, so you want Matthew and the rest of Boston to know that we are freaks" I replied.
"Oh, good point. I hadn't really thought of that." She replied, slightly embarrassed
"Exactly! That is why I had to make sure we had enough time for the bus trip and had to leave the restaurant early."
"Oh, good idea." Kayla replied, rather reluctantly.
"Then the plan is we will fly from Lexington to Keene, drop you off at you house and I will continue on to mine. Sound good?"
"Yup, sounds cool" she replied, sounding really tired.
"Or, if you want to we can spend the night in Lexington," I offered.
"That sounds really good," she admitted, again, rather reluctantly.
"Well okay then, I guess we will stay the night here and leave first thing in the morning for Keene. Does that sound good?" I asked.
"Yes, thank you it sounds awesome" she replied rather sleepily.
"Well, then, that's what we'll do."
"Thanks again."
"No problem," I answered.
At that moment the bus pulled up in the Lexington bus station and Kayla and I stumbled sleepily from the bus and managed to find a nice hotel right in front of us. We walked in and ordered a room. The clerk at the desk gave us a funny look but stopped once I gave her my dad's credit card with a smile. She handed us our room keys and we took them up to our room. When we opened the door we realized why the clerk had looked at us weirdly; there was only one bed.
"Here, I guess I can sleep on the floor or the couch, you take the bed," I offered.
"No, you don't have to do that. I will take the couch," she argued.
"No, it was my mistake that got us into this position, I'll take the couch," I insisted.
"Fine, but only because I'm too tired to argue with you anymore." She finally gave in. We then brushed our teeth with the toothbrushes that the hotel had given us and lay down in our respective beds, me on the couch and Kayla on the double bed.
"Goodnight Kayla." I called.
"'Night," she replied sleepily.
We woke up in what we assumed must be the morning because light was streaming through the windows. We went downstairs and ate our fill at the free continental breakfast provided by the hotel. After we had eaten enough to fill a biker gang-no wait, make that three biker gangs, we walked out the door into the broad daylight. We searched for a dark ally and we finally found one, right next to the hotel we had stayed at. We quietly snuck in and making sure nobody was watching us we stretched out our wings and immediately took to the sky. We flew north silently quickly heading towards Keene New Hampshire, AKA home, when we saw it: a double rainbow was crossing the sky right in front of us.
"That's good luck you know," I said to Kayla who was flying right beside me, as always.
"Good, I'll need all the luck I can get, what with having to put up with you all of the time" she said in reply.
"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, pouting slightly.
"Don't worry, I was just kidding," she reassured me.
"Oh okay, good." I answered.
We then were approaching Keene and we started to see the famous landmarks of the city that had hosted Jumanji.We started to lower ourselves in the sky as her house was approaching quickly right below us. We landed gently on her front yard.
"Okay, so I'll see you tomorrow?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"Definitely" she answered as always.
"Cool."
And with that I spread my 15 foot-long-black wings with brown spots and a white base and flew up into the sky. I quickly turned and soared in the direction of my house in downtown Keene.
By the time I reached my front door, I could already tell that something was wrong. All of the cars I had seen on the street were empty and I saw nobody walking downtown. I walked in and after calling their names several times I realized to my horror that nobody was going to answer me they were all doing something together, which might be normal for some families, but not for my family. We never did anything outside of the house all together unless I was the one behind it. But, they might have changed, unlikely but always possible.
After I looked around the house several times to make sure that I had not missed them, I left and started walking around the town. The whole city was the same-everyone was missing, all of the shops were empty, all of the houses were dark. Even the Keene Sentinel was devoid of all people. That's when it hit me. What had happened to my home town, the mysterious act that led to many people thinking about UFO's, was so horrible that it could not be described.
Everyone in the entire city of Keene and Cheshire County had vanished into thin air, leaving the area in a state of complete, total, absolute, silence.
Hope you liked it! Please review after you read this chapter! Thank you!
P.S: the narrator of the story is a character I created he is not one of James Patterson's characters