We forgot to mention that the chapter titles are the character's perspectives!
My head pounded painfully as I tried to recall what had led me to be on the cold pavement instead of inside the nice warm bus. All that came to mind was Angry Birds. How I hated that game. I never liked it before, but I had a feeling that Angry Birds had left me out here on the pavement. That bus driver had looked sketchy.
"Oh, Diane, you're surely a mess," A familiar voice said. I looked up to see Joey grinning down at me. Joey never stopped smiling, especially when something bad happened to somebody. His teeth were pointed like a shark's, his eyes gold, and his hair a bright green. I had grown up with Joey, and he'd always had green hair and gold eyes.
I turned so my face wasn't in the blood soaking into the sidewalk, and looked up at the blazing sun. What the hell? It had been night when I was on the bus. Wow I had slept a lot. The sun was then blocked by Joey's head as he leaned forwards, his shaggy hair draping down his face.
"Diane, you're bleeding," he told me with a smile. I lifted a heavy hand to my forehead where a considerable gash had placed itself. I traced it with my fingers. It didn't seem to be bleeding anymore so I tried to sit up. As soon as I did so, my head spun uncontrollably and I had to slump back down towards the ground.
"What happened?" I croaked out to Joey.
"Oh, that bus driver sure loved his Angry Birds," Joey commented as he competed against the blackness that kept on trying to cover my eyes. "Got him in a lot of trouble. I think he went straight through the windshield. Maybe he got stuck, he was rather large, I don't think he could have fit out of the windshield."
Joey had a habit of insulting people and avoiding blunt answers. Fortunately, even though I grew up with this menace, the habit was not transferred to me. I ignored Joey's comment, and then said, "We crashed."
"It would seem so," Joey muttered as he looked around. "Only six of you guys got here. You real folks."
I ignored him, and propped myself up on my elbow. Once the spinning stopped, I could see a guy crouched over, rocking back and forth, muttering words I could hardly hear. Reject and reality stood out the most. I looked around to see two guys on the ground, and a red-haired girl. There was somebody else, but I couldn't tell if they were a boy or a girl. The muttering guy and I seemed to be the only people conscious. I wondered if the others were dead.
"Hey," I called out to the guy. He looked at me for a moment, his eyes wild, before he turned back to whatever he was muttering to. Crazy, he was, and I'd make it to myself to avoid him. I still tried to talk to him though. "Hey!"
"What?" he shot back.
The anger in his voice made mine quiet down. "Where are we?" I asked softly.
"Rivendell," he told me, though his tone suggested that it was more of a joke than something true. He gave a couple of laughs, and I noticed that he was holding a needle in his hands and furiously was sewing at something. What, I didn't want to know.
I decided not to talk to the guy anymore. He was crazy, and I didn't want to have to deal with him. But he had said Rivendell. Like from Lord of the Rings. Weird. I lay back on the ground, and sighed. "Lord of the Rings?"
"Precisely," Joey said with a smile that spread ear to ear.
I furrowed my brows at him and shot back, "You can't be serious!"
The boy looked at me and I realized that he thought I was talking to him. I closed my mouth and then looked away from him, though that meant that blood smeared on the right side of my face.
"Oh, I'm serious," both the boy and Joey said at the same time. Joey continued softly, "Though, I'm not sure if it's real or not. Diane, you can decide on that."
I frowned at him. I had a hard time deciding whether Joey was real or not sometimes; but this whole place? Surely it was some coma induced stupidity that I had thrown myself in after the bus crash. I looked back at the sun. That was a likely possibility. I could already picture my mother crying over me as I slept, and my father suing the pants off of that bus driver. I smiled to myself at that thought.
It would be satisfying to see that man behind bars when I woke up. Joey crouched down to me, leaned over in my ear, and then whispered, "If you wake up."
Thanks for reading and please review! ~ Kyon
