As If Time Stood Still
Chapter 1: Paranoia
"Paranoia turns everything into poison, devours its host, then salivates the people around it." ~ John B. Bejo.
XOXOXOXOXO
Author's Note: This is a request from the great Amon23! What an honor, dude.
This will be a longer story, so I'll be working on this alongside my Simon x Jeanette story as much as I can. Hope you enjoy it so far!
XOXOXOXOXO
"ALVIIINNNNN!"
"Uh-oh," Alvin said, biting his lower lip. He was sitting in his bedroom, enjoying some time to himself while watching television. Simon had taken Jeanette out on a date, Eleanor was tutoring Theodore in math, and Brittany was too busy chatting on the phone with her friends to give him the time of day. In all honesty, it had been a very peaceful day without Alvin doing anything wrong! Standing up and preparing his best puppy-dog eyes, Alvin scurried over to the door just as Dave appeared on the landing. Alvin poked out his lip for good measure, just in case. "I swear, Dave, I didn't mean it –"
"Save it, Alvin," Dave said flatly, folding his arms. "I've been around you too long to be fooled by that."
"Darn," Alvin grumbled, shifting uncomfortably. "So... what did I do this time?"
"Your teacher just called. You're failing your Lit. class," Dave said crossly.
Alvin sighed. Oh, how he hated school. The only class he truly looked forward to was Gym, and that was mostly to train and show off to the ladies! No mental strain required.
"You know how serious your studies are."
"I know, Dave. But school's just not my thing! It's for brainiacs like Simon and Jeanette," Alvin said, laughing heartily. Dave's stern expression, however, told him that this was no laughing matter. "Come on, Dave! I'll do better, I promise. Okay?"
"That's what you always say," Dave sighed, shaking his head. Alvin rolled his eyes. It seemed like he was getting the same old lecture more often nowadays. "Do I have to get you a tutor like I did for Theodore? There's nothing wrong with asking for help, you know."
"I don't need help. I can do it on my own," Alvin said stubbornly, tail frizzing up defensively. He refused to have someone tell him what to do. Besides, he was no dummy! If he put his mind to it, he was sure he could do it just fine by himself. "I promise, Dave. Just give me one more chance!"
"Fine, Alvin," Dave relented, unfolding his arms. "But I better see improvement by the next progress report, or you're going to have to cut back on some things."
"Yeah, yeah, got it," Alvin said quickly, scurrying back into his room. "I won't let you down, Dave!"
Closing the door behind him, Alvin settled back in front of the television. Who said he had to work on that right away?
Currently, some sappy love drama was about to premier. No way.
He looked around for the remote control, eventually spotting it sitting on top of their bunk bed. Walking over to the ladder, he began climbing the side of the triple bed with ease. Along the way he began to do extravagant jumps and flips, the thrill of his own stunts giving way to carelessness. Before he knew it, his foot slipped and he went toppling down and onto the floor with a sickening thud. Cursing under his breath, he clutched at his foot in agony.
"God, that hurts," he hissed, slowly letting go of his foot to inspect it. He had fallen onto one of Theodore's toys, a sharp-edged square robot. Kicking it away furiously, he inspected the gash in his foot. The pain was subsiding steadily, but it still throbbed and pumped out fresh blood onto the carpet below. "Great, I can just here Dave now, complaining about the stain," he chuckled.
Hopping on one foot, he made his way towards the bathroom. Gingerly climbing on top of the sink, he turned on the cold water valve. Tenderly pushing his foot under the cold stream, he audibly sighed in relief as it cooled his heated flesh. He watched as the blood went down the drain. There seemed... to be an awful lot of it, for only a small wound. Shrugging, Alvin dismissed his worries and turned off the faucet, drying his foot with a piece of paper towel. Satisfied that it was clean for now, he climbed down. As he landed on the bathroom floor, he found that it was still bleeding, as if it was a fresh cut...
"What in the world?" Alvin said slowly.
Now concerned, Alvin cleaned it a second time. Yet it still bled on steadily, for several minutes after. Soon, he was forced to stay sitting in the sink and let the blood drain out. Finally, after seven minutes, the bleeding stopped. Alvin quickly bandaged it up tight and walked out of the bathroom. There stood Theodore and Eleanor, playing a game in front of the television. How dare they just barge in and muscle in on his "me time"?
"Hey! I was watching T.V here!" Alvin complained, glaring at the two youngest chipmunks. Eleanor simply blinked at him and Theodore giggled. "Ah, whatever. I guess you guys are done with homework now?"
"Yup, finally," Theodore said. His green eyes soon locked onto the bandage wrapped around Alvin's left foot. "Are you okay? What happened?"
"Oh, it was just a little fall," Alvin said, smiling embarassedly. "I guess I wasn't watching where I was going. No big deal."
"You were in there for a long time, though," Eleanor said worriedly.
How long had they been there? Alvin shook his head, waving his paw around dismissively.
"Really, it's just a scratch," Alvin said. But Theodore and Eleanor looked at each other, obviously not sure what to believe. "I just wanted to make sure it didn't get – er – infected, that's all."
"Well, okay..." Theodore said slowly. He shrugged his shoulders, dropping the issue. "You wanna play with us?"
"Sure, sounds fun," Alvin replied, sitting down beside Theodore and picking up a spare controller.
It'll take my mind off of that, at least...
XOXOXOXOXO
Later, when everything was quiet and all the lights went out, Alvin quietly sneaked out of bed. He carefully slid down the metal bars supporting the bed, careful not to wake his snoozing brothers. He then tiptoed out of the room, past the Chipettes' and Dave's room, and downstairs into the living room. Booting up the computer, Alvin sat in front of the keyboard and waited for the desktop to load. Once ready, he double clicked the Firefox icon and immediately went to Google, typing in the keywords "bleeding for longer than usual." Hey, give him a break, he didn't know all that medical stuff!
Why was he doing this? Alvin got into tons of trouble all the time, often resulting in cuts, bruises, and other small injuries. But he was usually on his feet within minutes. But this time was different. Something inside him told him this was a matter he should investigate. Normally, he would ask Dave or Simon, but he didn't want to worry them over nothing. Lord knew they could blow things way out of proportion at times...
"Ah! Bingo," Alvin whistled, scrolling through the various search results.
To his horror, he realized most of them were diseases or infections. He was fairly certain he didn't contract any infections, considering how quickly he cleaned the cut. But a disease? He was as strong as an ox and rarely got sick! Not even the flu, for years!
Was it really possible this was something serious...?
Alvin shut down the computer and walked back to his room, embarrassed by his own wild imagination and paranoia. What were the chances he had something like that? One in a million! It was only a simple cut. Who knows, maybe it was deeper than it looked and he was just surprised by how much he bled out.
"Yeah, that's it," Alvin said confidently, snuggling back underneath his crimson bedsheets. Laughing at himself, he snuggled into his pillow. "What am I thinking? Worrying myself over nothing... starting to sound like Dave..."
Yet, still, the terrible thought would not leave him in peace.
XOXOXOXOXO
Author's Note: First chapter done! This next few chapters will come along soon!
Amon23, I hope you liked the introductory chapter! I promise the next one will be more interesting and set more things up.
See you next time.