Misfit: Hey guys! I hope you guys like this one, I'm not usually to great with OCs but I really like the ida of Jace and I hope you guys like him too. Reviews are greatly appreciated.
"Oh my friggen god – I can't believe this." Jace let out a large open mouthed yawn as he fingered through the folder on his desk. He ran a hand through his dirty blond hair, and pulled a photo out from the folder. The firm appointed him to a store, a new store who needed some advertisement. Jace had gone over to the store about two weeks ago and had taken a bunch of shots, he had used the precision that he had spent his career perfecting, he has taken the best pictures he could. He thought they were amazing, and yet the firm had sent them back. The same note came with these pictures as the last few pictures had. The note was from his boss – Mr. Shimant. It simply said the same message again and again, "Good pictures, not what we need, we've gotten another photographer who can do their job to take the pictures, too bad for you – here's your pay of 40 dollars for a job barely half done – better luck next time."
Well, maybe the note didn't say that, but it all came down to that simple fact of "your not good enough for us, not anymore." Jace was stronger that most 26 year olds, he had been through hell, he ended up alienating his family and passing up the chance to have a well paying job because he wanted to follow his dream. Since he was 12 he had wanted to become a profession photographer, he had shelled out money for lenses, cameras, film. He has perfected it and went to school for it. His family turned away from him, knowing the being a photographer was a 'starving artist' career, and since he was 17 and moved out he hasn't talked to any member of his family, not for anything. He had worked in various jobs and now he was barely paying his rent, but he'd rather starve than go back to them.
They didn't want to understand him and they turned away form him quicker than he could even realize what happened. In the process of living alone for all of his adult life, his self confidence and esteem among other things had taken a few hits for the team and they were, to state it bluntly, very low. He had taken up a very tough outside armor. He had turned his back on the world that had been 'caring" and "loving". He had instead, turned to his work, using it as his protection, as his defense. When things wouldn't go right, he'd turn to his camera, he'd use it to make money, for entertainment, to get by. He had the same camera for all these years, it was his, he had bough anther one, of course, things improve with time and the camera had improved, but he always went back to the same camera that he had bough 14 years ago. When he had nothing else in the world, he turned to his photography, it was the only thing he had when nothing else mattered, nothing else cared, and nothing else was there.
It was his, it was all that was in his heart, went he took pictures, went he poured his soul into those simple frames, sometimes color, sometimes black and white, but always beautiful in his mind's eye, he was releasing what he never showed to people, he was releasing his heart into those prints and went the people refused them, rejected them, insulted them, he was crushed. This was one of those times when it felt like the world was just ganging up on him and wanted to crush him lower than what he already was.
Back to reality, he sat himself down on a swivel chair, one hand still clutching the photograph, the other on his hip as he bent his legs up to his normal sitting position.
"They wouldn't know a good picture if it hit them in the face." He announced to the empty apartment, not hiding any of the venom in his voice. He spun the chair around once, staring at the picture, trying to find its fault. When he could find no noticeable problem he went back to his typical excuse, "They just don't like me – I know it!..." Jace said, his eyes wide, as he felt the tears coming up to his eyes, instead of allowing them out he swiped greedily at his wide, glassy grey eyes. He hadn't really cried since the first time he was publicly rejected, he didn't really cry, he didn't want to, although he knew that one day he had to let the tears out he didn't want to do it any time soon, the feeling of those hot tears pouring out of him and spilling onto his face was worse than acid and it made him feel weak, useless, alone…
When a person cries their suppose to have somebody there to wipe away their tears, kiss and hug away their sadness, cure their depression. Yet, every time he felt the over whelming black pit of despair call to him it was the fact that he had nobody there to do what was suppose to be done that made him stop. He couldn't be weak, because if he was weak then what was he going to do? If he was weak, nobody would look after him, he was made for himself, he couldn't think of other people in the sense that they would help him, or ever in the sense that he needed them. He felt that if the world ended tomorrow, he'd be best ready for it, after all when he was in his apartment, developing photos, only one of the camera's used film, his favorite, the older one, the new one was digital but he didn't have enough money for a computer or doing anything else for that matter, he felt the world had ended, he was the only person in his bubble, also known as his apartment, his world, his universe.
Jace put his leg down from the chair, putting his foot down on the carpet stopping the chair mid-swivel and standing up. He took one more good look at the picture and after not finding any fault whatsoever in his own mind flung the photo onto the clustered desk. For being so alone he had a lot of shit on that desk…..Photos, film, blank collage ruled sheets, pens, pencils, a handful of random paper holders in different shapes. He stood up and walked into the kitchen part of his apartment, by kitchen he meant, there was a fridge, 2 counters, and a microwave, oh yeah, there was a stove too. He never used it and cleaned it even less.
He strode into the 'kitchen' and walked to the fridge, bending down and looking into the cold abyss, after looking for a good few minutes and feeling his thin stomach growling under his white Guns N' Roses shirt he decided to make a sandwich. He looked at the stove and decided to make a grilled cheese one. Getting on his knees he found a can of tomato soup in one of the cupboards in the counters and decided to make that too. He cleared the stove off the best he could and pulled out a small pan, the only one he owned. When he couldn't find any butter he decided to do without, he started to cook when the phone rang, he was horrible around stoves and the fact that the phone rang while he was trying to cook something mad things worse, the shock of it all made him burn his hand.
"MOTHER FU – " he was cut off by another ring as he tried reached for the cold water tap on the sink. Finding it he ran his hand under it, causing it to sting and burn but it started to feel better quicker. When he couldn't find a towel, he wiped it on his shirt and walked to pick up the phone.
"Hello?" He asked, annoyed. Nobody really ever called, it used to be ex- girlfriends, one night stands, the people who lived below or above him who wanted him to turn off his cold water because the pipes were leaking, credit card companies…..nobody ever important, and then they all stopped calling. Slowly but surely they all stopped calling, they knew better and there were only a few people that call ever…The soft voice on the other line was the one voice that called every week.
"Hiya, Jace. How you doing? You seem pretty mad." The soft voice of Zelda, a girl who worked at the firm, emitted from the other end of the line. Together they joked about her parents being nerds. Although he was six years her senior Zelda was one of the few people who Jace would tolerate. He even could go so far as to saying he liked her a bit, not much, but more than any other person in his life, and at of the day that wasn't saying much.
"No…not doing……anything …." Jace muttered, his voice far off and distant as he tried to find something to wrap his hand with.
"Okay, well I was just calling you to tell you some things…" She started, her voice questioning, as if every word she said was like stepping on uncertain ice, like she was waiting to say the wrong word and let the ice below her words break and crack and falter and let her fall into the endless abyss of hatred that she knew Jace could dish out. Jace was, in fact, very uninterested in what she had to say as he took the phone and scoured the apartment in search of something to wrap his slowly reddening hand in. Finding nothing he took off his white shirt and wrapped it around his hand, exposing his skinny torso to the empty apartment, Zelda's voice still chatting nervously in his ear. Finally Jace tuned back in.
"…and so what I'm getting at with all this is that you're getting one last chance…it's not a big one or a good one but – "
"I'm sorry…What?! I've been looking for something to…just…I've been preoccupied……tell me again what you're talking about."
Zelda sighed, her voice even soft and calming when she wasn't feeling so at peace. Jace waited, looking at the phone, waiting for the answer. "You are so clueless.' Finally came the reply. "But I'll explain again. I said Mr. Shiman is going to fire you, but I fought with him and asked if you could have one more chance, and he said okay. This is your last chance to do what he wants. Okay?"
"Why bother – I hate that ass and I can't wait to get freedom from the hell hole you call 'work'." Jace muttered something else after that but he didn't even know what he had said so he was grateful when Zelda ignored him and kept going.
"Your assignment is to go to this abandoned town – some place called Silent Hill. You'll get tickets tomorrow to go there, I think it's by train halfway and then you have to drive. A group of people really want to renovate that place and they want pictures of the town – in detail. So if you could do this it might just save your job." Zelda huffed softly, as if she had said all this about 20 times and it still wasn't getting through. Jace looked forward, his eyes blank, his mind void, she knew that was how he was looking right now, well perhaps not shirtless, but staring at the wall in front of him like a dead man, eyes wide open yet unseeing, listening and yet not hearing a word. He nodded slowly. Remembering that she couldn't see him he snapped out of his mind and huffed an agreement. Some kind of sound that seemed like a reluctant yes, Zelda took it and seized the opportunity the distance herself from the situation, the anger and blankness of Jace that scared her.
"Well I'll let you go if ya' want….I know you probably have to start packing up and whatnot, it's not just going to be a one day things, you'll probably be there 2 days or at least a day and a half because of the ride and everything and you probably want to get back to whatever you were doing before I interrupted" She sighed a deep heavy sigh again, as if it hurt her to hang up on him and if he was emotional there he might have actually cared about how she felt, but he wasn't. After the pictures he had gotten back he did what he was used to doing when things happened like that, he cut himself off from every feeling that he could. Tiredness, and hunger was sometimes okay, it depended on his mood. Sometimes either was signs of being weak and therefore he wouldn't allow himself to sleep or eat until the feeling of "If I do this I'll be weak and that's what they want" would pass. Today he had just detached himself of sadness, happiness, love, and any other 'feeling' that wasn't related to a body function like eating or sleeping. He muttered something as she promised to call tomorrow around the same time. Before she could finish her sentence Jace dropped the phone back unto it's stand, cutting her off short. Why let her waste her breath?
His head started to hurt horribly, a throbbing headache was starting right behind his temples and he was suddenly weighed down, both physically and mentally and all he craved was a nap, a nice, long nap on his shitty bed, which at the moment didn't seem nearly as shitty as it had two hours ago went he dragged himself out of it. He and his crudely bandaged hand stumbled their way to the small room that served as a bedroom. Inside was his bed, a queen sized mattress on the floor with one blanket, a cheap grey flannel thing he used in the summer. He has a nicer heavier one in the living room on the couch. Other than that, there was almost nothing in the room, in fact there wasn't even a door to the room just half a wall separating it from the rest of the apartment, a mirror in one corner of the room and handfuls of clothes strewn across the hardwood floor.
He stumbled his way across the room, he felt drunk but had nothing other than a glass of disguising tap water all day long. Finally reaching the mattress he felt himself fall onto it, he felt his body give out from under him and although he was clean for over 2 years it felt like he was on a high, some sort of screwed up high in which he left his body….hell who was he kidding that's what every high felt like but still….And that was the last thing he remembered before he blacked out.