Handle With Care
A Touch Fanfiction
Chapter 1
The Numbers
Alyss Brantessca Brindley was born on December 13th, 1999. She was a gifted child, one that saw numbers and wrote them down on pads of paper, over and over again. She talked practically non-stop about multiples and division; adding and subtracting. Her parents dreamed that she would be the next genius in the world, a new hope for the number nuts. And she did, winning every math contest and getting grades on all of her tests that blew others out of the water.
That was before the accident.
She and her parents had been taking their new car for a spin when an intoxicated man in a Ford Escort plowed into them head on, killing her father, and injuring her mother severely. A bystander called 911. The police came, along with an ambulance and the fire department, with their "Jaws of Life". The man had been killed as well. She had only been 2 years old.
The rest was all a blur. Within at least 6 weeks, she stopped talking all together. She never talked to her friends, just stared into open space, grinning, and wrote down long chains of numbers, none of which anyone could figure out. Only she knew what they were for.
-15 Years Later-
"Alyss, come on!" Her mother yelled up to her. "You'll miss the bus!"
Alyss dragged her beanpole of a body out of bed, and got dressed. In doing so, she thought about her numbers. That's what they called them: her numbers. One of those numbers (61812303445) had also just so happened to be the date, time and coordinates of the car crash that had killed her father: June 18th, 12:30, 34 degrees west, 45 degrees north. She went into the bathroom and continued this as she brushed her hair and teeth, and washed her face.
"ALYSS!"
She sighed. Why didn't her mother understand that she was trying to hurry? Of course, the word 'hurry' to Alyss meant 'move as slowly as possible'. Her mother knew that, and always thought she was being belligerent. Alyss wasn't, though. She was just…careful. Yes, that's what she was, careful. She smiled a little as she thought about these things, and then went downstairs to fix herself some breakfast. "Breakfast," she thought in her head, "It's such an odd word. Why would you break fast?" She set this thought aside, and continued eating. She finished, put her dishes in the sink, grabbed her books and backpack, and headed down to the bus stop. Her friend Qwera was there. Her real name was Qwerantha, but she liked Qwera a lot better. Alyss nodded hello to her. She nodded back in reply. She knew what had happened to Alyss' dad, and that she had stopped talking for the past few weeks. She never understood why, though. She also thought it was weird that Alyss wrote down numbers
"So…" Qwera finally said, after much awkward silence. "Have you been doing ok?"
Alyss just simply nodded.
"Ah." Qwera said. More awkward silence.
Suddenly, Alyss began shaking. She fell to the ground, her books scattering everywhere. Qwera ran to her side, terrified at the situation.
"Alyss? Alyss!" She ran back to Alyss' house, and barged in, screaming at the top of her lungs, "Ms. Brindley! Ms. Brindley!"
Alyss' mother whirled around. "What is it, Qwera?" she asked, bewildered.
"Alyss! Shaking! Bus stop!" was all that Qwera could get out.
"Oh, no…" Ms. Brindley said. "No, no, not again!" She ran out the door to the bus stop, and knelt down next to Alyss, who was writing numbers down again, only they were different: 12018454390. She wrote them over and over again, all the way down the paper. Her mother looked at her face, which was blank as a whitewashed wall, and looked at the paper.
"The numbers…" She whispered.
Qwera came running up to them, panting. "What's the big idea, Alyss?!" She screeched. "You have a seizure, scare me half to death, and then you start writing?!"
Alyss' mother looked up at her. "Wait, Qwera. Just wait."
So they waited. And waited. And waited. Qwera eventually got tired of doing this task and stood up to go get her own mother to take her to school. Alyss' mother stopped her both times she tried. "Just wait" was all she told her.
The bus arrived on that day, 1/12/01, at the time 8:45, 43 degrees west, and 90 degrees south. Qwera finally understood why Alyss wrote down so many numbers. They were dates, times, and coordinates. The first four were the date, the next three or four (depending on the time) were the time, and the last four were coordinates.
Qwera and Alyss got on their bus, and sat down across from each other. Qwera seemed to have lost her ability to speak as well. Qwera finally knew why Alyss wrote so many numbers down.
-End Prologue-
So, how'd you guys like the first chapter of my new fic, huh? Think it was pretty good? Well, there's this button labeled "Follow Story" below this story, and if you think you'd like to read the rest of it, then click that button, and hit "Submit".
If you'd also like to follow some of my fellow writers, check out 12, a friend of mine who is writing a Star Wars fanfic right now, and also check out CrazyChibiSama, one of my favorite writers of all time (with the exceptions of Cornelia Funke, Delia Sherman, and Suzanne Collins, among others.), as well as O.J. van der Beek and Magician Girl Mirani, and pandarock97.
I'll also be trying to hurry and write the next chapters of Lego Minecraft, another one of my fics, so that you can all enjoy the mystery of that one, as well as the mystery in this one.
Well, got to go now, see you all later!
~Ciao,
Oceanus Biddle