Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.
-William Faulkner
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Well, after a two year writer's block, I finished the story!!
Muahaha :D
But I'm only giving it away one chapter at a time.
This by far, is the most complicated plot I ever made so forgive me if you have to go back over the chapters to figure some stuff out. So I put recaps of certain parts of the story that are important to the present chapter you're reading.
Me is cool, eh?
I hope you enjoy. I made it just for you. :)
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NOTE: Anything in italics was written before in other chapters but mostly there to refresh your memory.
Chapter 9 recap:
There was a ripping BANG and the spraying of red dust in the air.
"It's not supposed to be like this..." a little girl's voice kept saying over and over again.
Scar looked down in horror as he saw John's body sprawled on the floor.
X-Ray widened his eyes exaggeratively and jumped up, acting surprised. This slightly scared John, but still he didn't move.
"A box?! A BOX?! Well, boy, what kind of a box is it?"
John smiled his smile, and for a second, X-Ray's heart dipped into his stomach guiltily.
But only for a second.
"A treasure box!" John exclaimed.
"Did Annabelle tell you that, too?" Squid scoffed, still thinking about his mother. He hated John. And that Freak was going to pay!
John sighed and sat on the bed and suddenly he put his face in his hands and began to sob quietly to himself.
Squid scoffed again, and the others looked away out of awkwardness.
God, why is he here?
Zigzag walked cautiously towards John and sat on the cot beside him. The moment that he had seen this boy, Zigzag felt a kind of… fear. But this time when he looked down at the thing, all he could feel was pity and curiosity.
"Now, now. boy.," Zigzag said in his most adult voice, " This isn't the place for such shenanigans. You have to stop that right now."
John lifted his round, blotchy face from his hands and looked up at Zigzag. His large, black eyes held a screaming person inside, dying to leap out of John's inarticulate tongue and express what he truly felt.
But no, John couldn't do that.
John was just a—
"Fucking retard," Squid mumbled to himself, then rolled to his side and covered his steaming face with a pillow, thinking about his mother.
"I don't want to do this anymore," John simply said, then continued crying.
"You don't want to do what anymore?" Zigzag asked.
John slowly, almost soundlessly, lowered himself to his new, vomit-reeking cot and closed his eyes.
"So… tired. I'm not supposed to be here… It's not s'posed to be like this… I'm not supposed to…I'm…I'm…"
He dozed off.
I'm not supposed to be here…
THREE DAYS LATER
(ref.chapter 9)
"What the hell is this?"
A trail of rich, thick blood…
"Everybody stay calm!"
Pendanski follows the trail of gore into the desert night.
It's dark…
Flashlight…
"I need a flashlight."
Pendanski got up and ran as quickly as he could to F-Tent, where he had a flashlight stored somewhere in his crate.
His hands found a cylindrical object and he brought it close to his face.
Pendanski sat next to the edge of the hole and flicked the switch of the flashlight.
Peering over the dark hole once again, he stuck out his hand and shone the light into it.
"N-n-n-n-no…" He said, his voice was small and hoarse.
Words could not describe the fear, agony, nausea after what he had seen.
Words just couldn't describe...
"John…"
No. it wasn't John. It couldn't have been.
Could it?
The cold sweat was now pouring profusely from his pores and dripped off of his large nose.
He felt like screaming, but couldn't even bring himself to move.
First his wife…and now…
"No…"
John, or what was left of John, was sprawled at the bottom of the hole.
The stomach area was ripped open and the trail of blood ended there, in his abdomen. John's once peaceful eyes were now closed into its final slumber. His hands were fisted tightly as if he was trying to withstand great pain.
He must have been killed near the Wreck room, and then dragged to a chosen hole.
What person would have thought he could be rid of the body by dumping it into a hole, yet leaving an easy trail to follow?
And how could he have been killed so quickly and dragged here in a short period of time?
He felt sick.
-
-THE WARDEN'S OFFICE--
"I just don't understand it!"
The Warden pondered whilst walking back and forth the wooden veranda.
Her nails toyed slowly through her course read hair which was braided like a rough rope.
"How could all this have happened in such a short time?" She shouted mostly to herself than the formation of tent councilors in front of her.
-
Meanwhile, Scar shuddered like a dying fool in a bathroom stall. He was crying, and everyone could hear this.
What did it matter, anyway? Everyone knew because of that fucking dead kid that he was a… a drag queen.
Annabelle told me you have girl's clothes in your bag and you try them on when no one's looking.
He spat on the ground and continued playing the scene over and over in his mind…
The bright light, the look of pain in that poor little shit's face… dragging him into that hole…
That little girl's voice…
"It wasn't supposed to be like this…"
Everything he ever knew seemed intangible and strange.
"What happened?"
Then suddenly
Scar became aware of something much odder that even what just happened.
Everything seemed so…
Familiar.
John's face, his smile, the white light.
It was all so God damned…
Familiar.
Then at that moment, he knew.
He knew what that little girl meant.
"It isn't supposed to be like this… It isn't…"
Suddenly he heard Pendanski's voice outside of the stall.
"Jerry?"
It's Scar, you piece of hokey pokey shit.
The thin door that was permeable to all sounds of discomfort and digestive secrets creaked open, and the small man was standing right in front of him.
Yet there was something very different about the way that Pendanski was standing, talking, breathing.
Scar opened his mouth to say something, anything sensible enough to prove his sanity in this world he was now so unsure of.
But all that came out was,
"It… it isn't…"
Pendanski saw it in the boy's face. In his blue eyes that had been completely enveloped in black.
"Jerry?"
But Jerry was gone.
"It isn't supposed to be like this… IT ISN'T… IT ISN'T SUPPOSED TO…"
Before anyone, including scar was able to know what was happening, he leapt upon the councilor and wrapped his calloused hands around the man's neck.
"IT ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS! YOU DON'T GET IT! YOU'RE FAKE! YOU'RE FAKE!"
Just as Pendanski's vision was completely covered in black, the boy was pulled off of him, and he heard the Warden's voice.
"The kid has lost it. Someone call the authorities."
Scar's hysteria weakened and for no reason at all, he passed out.
The institution sent a van a few hours later. Pendanski watched as they carried theboy away in a stretcher, still mumbling those words.
"It's not… not supposed to be like this…"
But at the very last three seconds before he was hoisted into the van, Scar's eyes went into focus, and he stared at Pendanski with such an intensity that it made him squirm.
But what the boy said and the way he said it made Pendasnki doubt every single thing he was ever sure of.
Scar said,
"Annabelle… She's yours, isn't she?"
Pendanski stared.
"She didn't kill him. It wasn't her."
And the doors closed, dragging Scar's mess of a mind away, and Pendanski left to clean it up.
-
It's midnight. Walter is in his pajamas correcting papers.
He is a schoolteacher. He has a class the next day.
Dianne is beside him in a newly-bought, silk nightgown that barely hid curve nor contour…
She had hoped he would notice it.
"Do you like it?' she had just asked minutes earlier, shyly twirling around, hoping to catch that glimmer in his eye he used to have, followed by a "you're so beautiful," and a blush on either of their cheeks… usually his.
"Dianne, it's the middle of winter, what are you thinking?" Walter laughed and continued correcting his papers, leaving Dianne silent and disappointed.
Strangely she didn't blame Walter. Of course he had put up walls around him since… that day, so had she.
That day…
"Your daughter has leukemia…"
And just a year later, the coma…
Dianne blamed God.
And Walter blamed himself.
Dianne suddenly begins to wonder what Annabelle is dreaming right now…
What she is remembering, what she is feeling.
She gazes at the back of his head for the longest time, diligently working in his mask of papers.
D is for diligence.
"Walter…"
"Just a second."
"I have to tell you something…."
Walter murmured something with annoyance in his voice, but still did not turn from his papers.
"Please… look at me. It's important."
Irritated, Walter sighed, and rolled over to face her. His face was set like wax.
"I am pregnant."
His head unexpectedly jerked, as if someone had turned the on switch in his brain.
"What, you mean pregnant? Like… with a baby?" Walter choked.
"Well, I hope it is," she replied, smiling tiredly.
Then she saw it. That little glint in Walter's eye, and in that single moment, he became the old Walter again.
Stupid man.
He dropped his "important" papers and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
"A new baby! God is giving us a second chance, Diane!" Walter breathed in a hopeful, childish manner.
Yeah… "God."
"A new baby…" he murmured again, smiling.
Yep… and it isn't yours.
--
It began with his eyes
There was something about the black, powerful gaze that drew her into his strange, peculiar mannerisms.
He was Asian, new and strange to her.
And he was fucking hot.
And she wanted him.
He lived next door.
Which made it convenient enough to begin the obsession…
Walter's obsession with the baby.
And the next door neighbor's obsession with Dianne.
Dedicated to ooihcnoiwlerh, flamingblade28, Maddiecake,
xhellsoverhead- thanks for the critiques. yeah, this story is really "out there", but I constantly keep doing that because it makes me less bored.