Chapter 1-Veronica-I Play Fetch With the Show Dog for Color Contacts
I had a pretty standard day, that is if you don't count the crazy dream I had the night before or the giant black dog that tried to eat my face off. I should probably start with the 'crazy' dream first, ok, but I'm not guaranteeing you'll believe me.
Usually my dreams are vivid and odd, but never a mixture between crazy and scary. Believe me, when I tell you this, but I knew that the dream must have been true because my imagination did not have that wide of a range. I mean some of my dreams are scary (like seeing your soc. studies teacher in a leather jacket trying to imitate the lead singer from Duran Duran …don't ask) but I never get death threats. In my dream I was in a cave. The walls of the cave had gems incased in the rock but some of the gems were sticking out of the walls. In the center of the cave there was a black bonfire sending off a dark shadow across the cave. I was looking at four people who were tied up around the black bonfire.
One of them I knew immediately (even if she did have a piece of cloth tied around her mouth and was unconscious). It was my best friend, Savannah. Savannah was thirteen and had long, light brown hair. Savannah had an Indian skin tone and she had green eyes (you couldn't see them at the time of course). Savannah was wearing her usual jeans shorts with a pink shirt .She also wore a pink jacket that was tied around her waist and flip-flops.
The second person was a bit harder to recognize on sight, (mainly because her hair was five inches shorter than it should be) but after a few seconds I realized it was my good friend Annabella, who was not unconscious, by the way. She was fourteen and also had a piece of cloth tied around her mouth. Annabella was supposed to have long dirty blond hair that stopped about three inches below her shoulders. But now it was only about half an inch below her jaw line. She usually died it completely blond but it looked droned out and depressing as if she hadn't died it in a while. She also had blue eyes that occasionally change to a light gray and has a slight, and I mean slight, tan on her pale skin and she was wearing loose fitting boot cut jeans and an orange Reeses shirt with black converse.
I couldn't pin a name to the third person, but he looked familiar. I felt like I had seen him somewhere before, I just couldn't name where or when. He had dark brown hair that was cut short but fell in his eyes. He looked to be about my age twelve or thirteen. He had bright green (that had a slight tent of blue) eyes and was wearing blue jeans shorts that stopped at his knees. He was also wearing black, white, and red Nikes and a t-shirt.
The fourth person I was blank on, but I'll describe him for you. He looked about the same age I was maybe a little older. He had olive skin and dark hair and eyes. He was wearing blue jeans pants and a black t-shirt with dancing skeletons on the front. He was also wearing an avatars jacket and gray converses.
Suddenly, while I was still trying to ponder on where I had seen the third person before, a cold deep laughter filled the cave. Not trying to state the obvious, but there was something in there, something not human. "I'm not going to help you!"Said a girls voice… wait a minute?! That was my voice… but …I didn't say anything! I put my hand to my mouth as if to keep the unspoken words under control, but they continued anyway. "Yes you will-", said the creature "no I won't", my, not my own, voice interrupted. "You should learn to control your tong", the creature growled "and yes you will, or would you rather your precious friends to be burned alive" the creature said in an amused voice. A nervous laugh came from 'me' "one problem with your threat, you overgrown mutated creature from hell, my friends are nice and not in mortal danger, training back at camp". Camp, I didn't go to a camp.
Ok, remember how earlier I said that I knew that this was all real? Forget that, there's no way this is real, I mean, 1) I can't afford to even think about attending a camp. 2) What kind of camp do you 'train' at, and 3) when am I ever brave enough to stand up to 'overgrown mutated creatures from hell' (though now that i think about it, i never was able to keep my mouth shut. ever.) who want to burn my friends alive. Does that sound believable to you? No probably not. "You really think those weaklings are at that useless camp of yours can defeat me? Well think again", the creature said.
So…the dream becomes weirder, because that's when Savannah, Annabella, unknown boy #1, and unknown boy #2 all started to glow red and raise above the cavern floor (I know, completely unbelievable right).
Savannah's eyes shot open as the four of them rose higher in the air… then she started to freak out. She struggled against the bonds tied around her wrist, frantically kicking her feet, and somehow managed to remove the cloth tied around her mouth (along with her jacket tied around her waist, which fell to the ground). She yelled out for help, calling my name, but it sounded far away, and it sounded as if it were calling directly to me(not the dream me). The creature started to laugh again and Savannah's voice changed, becoming less pleading and more annoyed. "Veronica, Veronica wake up!" The voice was not Savannah's anymore, but the words seemed to draw me out of my subconscious, pulling me away, with only one thought, what was going to happen to my friends?"Veronica!"My eyes shot open to a disappointing sight.
My cousin, Alex (short for Alexander, but he'll punch me if I call him that) was glaring down at me. I guess I should probably describe him for you. Well for one thing, Alex looks completely different from me. He has light brown eyes and hair and a light skin tone slightly darker than Annabella's. His hair is cut at his brow line and is wild, that's the only word I can find to describe it. I mean, it's rarely not sticking up, but my aunt (his mom) makes him get it cut military style ('high and tight' she calls it) every summer. Alex is fifteen (I'm twelve by the way) and even though he is my cousin (well technically he isn't my cousin he is my late god mom's, sister's son, but it's easier just to say he's my cousin) he acts like my brother, and for all those poor girls out there with cruel older brothers, you know how hard my life is. I should probably tell you that both my parents are dead along with my god mom, and that I'm stuck living in the basement of my aunt and uncles house. Yah, that's pretty important information.
"I thought I told you never to come into my room", I said as I got out of bed. "And I thought I told you that if you made me late to school today I was going to", Alex started "going to what?", I interrupted, "Convince your mom to turn my room into your own personal 'man cave', and have her stick me in the basement? Oh wait, you already did that." Those words earned me a punch on the arm, but I was used to getting those. "Just hurry up, it's already six forty five", Alex said walking toward the, door, "and if you're not ready by seven o five, you're walking" I was going to reply but Alex was already gone. I sighed and walked over to my closet. "Got to love Friday's" I said to myself as I grabbed my favorite Evanescence t-shirt (I got that at a concert last year), a pair of skinny jeans, and a pair of army boots.
I looked around my room, it wasn't much. There were four walls all about ten feet long, and at the tallest point, twelve feet tall. Then the roof comes down at an angle to about nine feet. Against one wall was a twin sized bed and a small book shelf at the foot of the bed with a radio on the top of it (not that it got a very good signal in the basement). Against the next wall there was a keyboard that was placed between the closet and the door leading out of the small room that I was incarcerated in. Against the next wall there was a bigger book shelf with four shelves' on the top half and a drawer on the bottom filled with, well pretty much junk that I didn't want to look at. On top of the book shelf was a small TV with no cable but it was hooked up to a VCR/DVD player, as well as a WII. On the top shelf there were my favorite books (pretty much the Harry Potter books, Holes, and the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books as well as a few others), on the second shelf there were a bunch of games for the WII (mostly game cube games) as well as the controllers. On the third shelf there were movies on DVD, and on the fourth shelf there were movies on VCR. Next to the book shelf was my dresser, and on top or my dresser was pretty much all my drawing equipment (pencils, erasers, color pencils, sketch paper, exc.). On the last wall was my makeup/drawing desk (spinning chair included). I usually put on little makeup, eyeliner, and eye shadow, (at most) but I do a lot of drawing on the desk. Finally, the last descriptions of my room, taped along the walls were all my drawings. Well, it beats wall paper.
I sat down at my desk and looked at the mirror on the wall in front of it. Alex really did look nothing like me. He had pale skin and I had tan skin (not extremely tan but darker than his), he had light brown eyes I had dark brown eyes that were almost black (actually, I think they are black), and he had wild light brown hair I had wavy black hair (with the occasional curly clump of hair in it).
After I put on my makeup I went up stairs to go eat breakfast. My aunt and uncle lived in a two story house that had a basement (which was where my room was) and an attic. For some reason my aunt and uncle have declared that I am forbidden to visit the attic. I walked through the labyrinth of hallways, looking at the decorations that my aunt put on the walls all throughout the house. Most of them were from Greece. The house had a kind of library/museum inhabited by an old woman look to it. So, imagine that there was a small museum that only had an ancient Greece exhibit that was ran by some cranky old woman who always had a certain place for everything and if anything wasn't in its rightful place she got really mad. Mix that with the smell of febreze air freshener and parsley. If you can do that then you have a pretty good idea of how the house looked and smelled.
When I entered the kitchen the first thing I realized was that no one was there. "Aunt Tressa…Uncle Chris…Alex?" I called. Where could they be, unless, no it couldn't be that late already? Quickly I ran to the bedroom next to the kitchen. It was only a guest bedroom but all the rooms had clocks in them (except for the kitchen). I cursed and ran to the living room where I had left my back pack. "Seven ten" I said to myself while I ran to the living room "it couldn't possibly have been that long." I grabbed my back pack swung it over my shoulder and ran to the front door. I grabbed my denim jacket off of the coat hanger next to the door, opened and closed the door, locked it then ran down the street that led to my school.
Four miles, that's how far I had to run to get to school, it was seven ten, and I needed to get to school by seven forty fives. I turned a corner, and ran along the side walk. How long would it take to run four miles to school, maybe about thirty minutes, thirty five? ( to answer your question, i live out in the country, so that's why i live four miles from the school)That would leave me about five minutes to get something to eat, depending on weather there was a line and how long it would take for the person to prepare the food. I turned another corner, and looked at my watch seven eighteen and I probably already ran about half of a mile, my stomach growled. Ugh… well at least I was making good time. But that wouldn't last long because when I looked up from my watch about twenty feet in front of me there was a giant black dog blocking the side of the road.
I stumbled to a stop. After I regained my footing I looked up at the dog. The dog was bigger than an average dog, about the size of a rhino. The dog was probably a blood hound but I'm not a dog expert so I wasn't really sure. The dog (I really don't know what else to call it, so I'm just going with 'the dog') looked as if it had been woven out of smoke (not normal). Its eyes were defiantly not normal. The dog's eyes, instead of black or brown were glowing bright red. So, I figured either the dog was wearing LED color contacts that were so new the public didn't know about them or it was possessed by a demon or something.
"Hay doggie", I said trying to keep my voice steady while talking to the dog who was now growling. "I'm just going to walk around you and"- the dog barked angrily, showing off its sharp teeth, and its glowing red eyes that were filled with complete hatred. I scrambled back almost tripping myself. I felt kind of stupid being afraid of a dog. My 'uncle' had once complained while watching a movie where the main characters were running away from a wild dog saying that they were being stupid for being afraid of a mere animal and I have to agree with him. I mean, mankind isn't at the top of the food chain for no reason. But this dog looked a bit more threatening than a hungry wolf. Like it could eat my soul out of my body after it was done shredding my body to bits, making it to where not only would I die, but I would die then go through eternal pain and surfing in the afterlife. Witch didn't sound fun to me.
The dog barred its teeth at me and growled at me some more. A bone chilling growl that would have made the animal control guys run for their mommies. "Um…ah…'', I said looking at my surroundings. Not much, a couple of cars on the road, a rock here, a tree there. 'Wait… hmm' I thought to myself. I slowly inched toward the tree. The dog growled at me some more, while watching my every movement. I slowly bent down and picked up a dead branch from the ground. "Hay…um…Smokey", don't ask me why I decided to call the dog that it just kind of popped into my head, "you wanna play fetch?" I said as I swung the branch back and forth. Growl… Bark! "Good boy", I said weakly.
That's when things started to wrong. Either the dog became impatient, or it saw a cat behind me, or it just wasn't impressed by the very nice branch I was holding, just something. It just decided to lunge at me. Fifteen feet, ten feet, in about a second it would be on top of me slicing me to bacon bits. So I did the natural thing, I swung the branch.
I heard a loud yelp and the sound of fur against asphalt. I turned just in time to see the giant black dog starting to get up. It had landed in the middle of four lanes of light traffic( wow I'm strong), but before it could even cross one of the lanes, an eighteen wheeler ran over it. I didn't wait to see if the dog had survived and frankly, I didn't care. That dog had now made me late to school. I took off running toward the basic direction of my school at full speed. I looked at my watch. Oh no. seven-thirty seven.