Chapter 1: There is trouble brewing.
Jess opened his eyes. He was leaning against a steel so cold his skin stuck against it, and forcing himself to stand up, he ripped away the flesh from around his elbows. Warm blood trickled out, tears came to his eyes.
"WHERE AM I?!" he shouted, and although the room was so large he couldn't see the ends of it, there was no familiar echo. No empty reminder of his own self. He began to walk, and with each step the pull of his skin against the floor ripped more and more. Soon he was leaving tracks of bloody footprints in his wake.
The room was dark. He could barely see ahead of him, and nothing was in his midst but the shadow hidden walls and perhaps a ceiling. He called out again.
"CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME? OH GOD!" He grabbed his hair, clinging to it, and breathed heavily through gritted teeth. His eyebrows furrowed into a look of pain. He couldn't stop walking or his feet would stick even worse. It felt like he had been walking for hours.
Suddenly the floor shifted and the steel was pulled forward, knocking him over. He smashed his head off the floor.
"SHIT!" The steel melted while retaining its cool until 4 long knives appeared forged from the ground. A laughter resounded around him, and Jess realized he would much rather be alone than with whatever mad man was howling with such evil ferocity. The blades suddenly flew towards him, the ground pulling under. They landed between him and as he looked back, he realized they were attached to a hand.
"Oh my GOOOD!" he shouted. "OH MY GOD SOMEBODY HELLLPP ME!" The darkness grew thicker until he could no longer see the glove, only feel it as the floor pulled around him. He ran, bloody footprints everywhere. He began to slip on his own blood. He smashed face first into the ground, and this time an echo blasted from every direction, his own pain broadcasted to him a million times from every direction. Tears streamed down his face faster and faster.
A ball of light from above appeared and began to draw downwards like a globe of hope. Jess stared at it for a moment before realizing that too was nothing but an object of terror. It merged with the glove, turning cold steel hot, and the red metal against his feet began to burn at his exposed nerve endings. Jess shouted again, coughing and vomiting in front of him. He stepped in the vomit for a moments release from the heat.
Leaving tracks of blood and vomit behind him, he ran every which way as he hoped to avoid the steel claws. He could feel their grip against the floor growing stronger and finally it stopped and began to push downwards. Jess slipped and hit the floor again, cracking his skull. He began to slide downwards as the ground pushed itself lower and lower, and he clawed at the red steel, his fingers sizzling as with every other part of him. His shirt lit on fire, and he threw it off of him, the smoke entering his throat and sending him into a coughing fit.
He stopped sliding and jumped to his feet running in circles to keep off the ground. Coming towards him was a man in a dirty red and green sweater. His brown fedora shadowed his face, and he stood motionless, chuckling quietly and malevolently. Jess was screaming at him to stop doing what he was doing. The man looked up. His burned skin became apparent to Jess. A disgusting grease added shine to his shriveled horror.
"You're a bitch, Jess. Only bitches cry." He raised his arms and flames spurted from the ground, engulfing everything in sight. Jess screamed and breathed in and the flames entered his body, burning him from the inside and out.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Jess woke up in a violent state of terror, clawing at his sheets, bed and body. His dad ran in the room.
"Jess, JESS! What's wrong?" Jess refused to calm down, falling onto the floor before finally seating himself properly on the hard wood and squabbling nonsense.
"Jess, it was only a dream son. It was just a dream. Hush now boy, dreams can't hurt you." Jess grabbed onto his dad, hugging him tightly, clawing into his back for protection.
"Dad, I... Dad I'm sorry."
"Hush son, ain't nothin' to apologize for. Come on, get dressed and come downstairs." Jess noticed he had woken up his little sister. She sat on the bed across from him looking worried.
"Jess, you gonna be alright?"
"Yeah Maybelle... Everything's okay."
Jess looked out the window. It was a cloudy day, and he had school. He was too burnt out to practice running, so he went to finish up his chores before breakfast. Meandering work to keep his mind off the pain of his nightmare. It hadn't been like other nightmares, and boy had he had his share. It was different. It felt more real. It felt like death was coming even after he had woken up. A voice in his head told him he was wrong, but he couldn't shake it. He had to get his mind off it. There was no if and or but about it, it had just been a dream, but it felt scarring. It felt as if everything good about his life had been sucked out and replaced with terror. Thinking about it brought him closer to death. He had heard that stress shortens your life span, so he wondered how a farm boy could ever live past a week. Every day could mean failure if the weather wanted it to. Every day was a struggle to pay the bills and the mortgage. Jess didn't have to deal with that he was too young, but that made it even worse. He felt like he couldn't even help no matter what. Jess promised himself he wouldn't die until he was a day over 100. Life hadn't been good enough to him yet, but he figured by then something good had to happen. It was just one of those things.
"Breakfast is served," his mother touted in her upwards tone. Jess stared down at a full plate of eggs and bacon. He had never been fond of bacon, but he loved eggs and ate them with a hungry fervor.
"Jess, your dad says you had some trouble waking up this morning. What was that about?"
"I had a nightmare is all mom," Jess lied. It hadn't been just a nightmare. It had been a brush with death himself, he thought.
"Well just keep an eye on the happy things in life. Nightmares only come if you concentrate on the negative." Jess didn't feel like he'd been thinking about anything bad, and certainly nothing to that level, but he silently agreed to avoid the possibility of an argument.
His older sisters eyed him with no concern. They were selfish and were part of the reason the family had so little money. They always wanted something, and it was never to help. They weren't ugly, but he saw them that way. He only saw what a person looked like through their personality. His little sisters were too young to understand what was going on. Maybelle had an idea, and he thought she'd be beautiful some day, but his baby sister didn't really think about much beyond sleeping and eating. He hadn't grown very attached to her yet, but he also had no idea what kind of person she was ever gonna be.
Honk honk. The bus pulled up outside, engine falling into an idle. Jess grabbed his backpack and launched himself out the door in his crappy sneakers and ajean jacket his grandpa had given him for Christmas that year. His shaggy hair fell into his eyes and he looked down at his feet as he stepped on the bus trying to avoid the glare of the bus driver.
"Getting closer, Ace. One of these days you'll be here before I am."
Jess plunked down next to his new friend Janice. She had been popular before he ruined it, and she never knew the truth behind that. He figured some day he'd tell her he was the one who planted a note in her desk to make her think a guy he'd never even met liked her. They were grades apart, and Jess knew the next year he wouldn't have her any more when she moved on to high school, so he made the best of it. It kind of made him sad even if he barely knew her.
He felt his sketchbook, full of precious drawings. Thumbing it, he wondered if maybe it was the right time for Janice to see it. He had always been real private about it, didn't want anyone to look into his world and see what made him tick. His best friend Leslie was the only one he was comfortable with looking at it. She had died over a month ago. Jess hadn't coped well, and he still wasn't, but focusing on the negative was never a good thing. Focusing on Leslie's death. Focusing on losing Janice at the end of the year. Focusing on his nightmare.
The bus pulled up in front of the school, and as the students pooled out, Jess decided to focus on the day ahead of him. It wouldn't be fun, but at least it wouldn't be depressing. Things don't always go right, but he'd be a hundred years old some day.