OUTCASTED--OUTCASTED--OUTCASTED--OUTCASTED

Here it is, a week—and then some after I promised it would be. Sorry guys, homework showers were hitting hard this week! Then Memorial Day weekend was unbelievably busy. I hope you all had a good holiday, and I hope you all forgive me for the broken promises, and enjoy the first official chapter!

Life. It's completely pointless, if you aren't exactly living it. If you can walk down a crowded expressway, exerting as much noise, you possibly can from one person, and create no commotion whatsoever, it's pointless. When you can fling yourself from windows, attempt neck shattering stunts, and walk away perfectly intact, it's pointless. The need for human contact and the yearnings for companionship become more and more necessity, because without them, it's all pointless. My own pointless journey began on an insignificantly foggy night.

Saturday, January 5, 2008—around 3:00 A.M: Highway I-95, Los Angeles, California.

"Turn up the music, will you?", Joseph asked with a subconscious wave of one of his arms; an attempt to draw attention. He'd been squinting out into the fog for the past ten minutes—from the time we'd left the Megaplex, from a midnight showing of a horror-flick I'd already forgotten the name of.

"Seriously, turn it up." He ordered again, irately. If anyone else had been in the driver's seat, I would have unleashed a strong 'concentrate on the road' lecture, Joe however, was at his minds ease when life was at its loudest.

"Shh…" the silencing drifted from the passenger seat. Julie-Anne was about to get a mouth full. "Are you shushing me?" Joseph asked, obviously through a head-full of disbelief. "I was...", she answered mid-yawn.

Julie's my best friend, Joe's too I suppose, though technically I brought her into our lives. "Huh." Joseph snorted from the front of the Range Rover, and tightened his grip on the wheel, even from the backseat, with each passing street lamp's foggy light, I could see how white his knuckles were, Joseph wasn't much for being told what to do, shushing qualified gravely in that category. Julie grinned, then dropped both of her feet from the seat of her chair and her criss-crossed position—we were all pretty wiped out.

"Since when is your brother such a grump, Kev?" She asked, reaching back, backwards to touch her hand—presumably to my curls, she fell short; I slapped her hand, in a lame excuse for a high-five but I made due, considering her hand was dangerously close to jabbing me in the eye.

"He's always been quite the grump." I mused. Joseph let out a loud groan of protest, and Julie snickered loudly. "I've never been grumpy." He snapped angrily , which sent Julie-Anne into hysterics. Even Joseph had to laugh at his irony.

"I'm just trying to get us home alive, through all of this…shitty fog", he professed, relaxing off his state. "Profanity." Julie-Anne warned. She had a real irking towards curse words, I can recall dropping the' F-bomb' once in her presence; she was so angry, her face turned beat red, I genuinely feared for my life. "Jeez Julie-Anne, don't be such a grump" he teased, Julie shrugged before retorting "Someone has to act as the adult around you three." Three meaning Joseph, Nicholas, and I. Nicholas had fallen asleep just minutes ago against window.

I found myself answering that, myself. "Please, you're hardly eighteen."

"But I am eighteen!" She exclaimed happily, turning around in her seat to face me. A large grin upon her face, I couldn't help but laugh, Julie-Anne would never get over the excitement of being finally legal.

"If anyone is an adult here, it's me." Nicholas piped up, groggily from his seat. "Please, shut up, all of you.";I Doubted he was coherently aware he was talking; the second we climbed into the car, the kid was bait to pass out. "Nick's right, he's a fifteen year old….forty year old…." Joe contemplated aloud.

Nick and Joe, are my brothers, if I hadn't mentioned so before; along with our younger brother Franklin (who's seven, and far too young to indulge on Joseph's driving tactics). In another family, it could have been strange that three siblings were spending a Friday night together, in our case, it was every bit normal. My brothers were two of my best friends, aside from Julie-Anne of course, we were so close, we'd even started our careers together. Our band, 'The Jonas Brothers'. Though, that's entirely a different story—the gist is: Nicholas' has a set of pipes on him. He'd already had a record deal, and when his contractor discovered us; Joe and I, they went nuts. I at the time, was already decent in my guitarist's skills, and Joseph—, who's relatively like a chameleon, can adapt to any musical instrument with a long 

while of practice. Not long after, we were a marketer's dream: Three good-looking (I say this modestly, nobody likes an egomaniac) blood related brothers, who could write and play their own G-rated songs. Disney picked us up. And since hither, we've been living a surreal dream.

"Whatever, I'm still eighteen!" Julie-Anne squealed, her chin eased on the neck-rest of her seat, she was smiling excitedly at me. "You're nuts." I probed, reaching over her head to grip the hood of her sweatshirt, I forcefully brought it down past her eyes, to which she batted her hands madly trying to shove away mine. I stood my ground, but let go at her convenience. She flung the hood from her head, revealing her wavy brown hair, messy and wild. "No, I'm eighteen." She corrected "And you suck.", she turned around in her seat, away from me. I smiled to myself, I was full aware that in a few passing moments she would forgive me and all would be well.

"Someone, turn up the music, now!" Joe exclaimed, his face was so close to the dashboard, his nose was nearly against it. "Joseph." Julie-Anne hissed, but obliged and cranked up the volume on the stereo. I should have driven. The music before, a distant background, now sent loud vibrations around the car. The bass of the song, nearly made poor Nick jump out of his skin, he sat up, pushing himself away from his window. Jules looked over her shoulder, mouthed an apology to Nicholas, and quickly turned away, not before shooting me a glare. I grinned again, Julie-Anne was my best friend, but making her angry was highly amusing.

"Great. I can't see!" Joe's complaint came surprisingly audible over the music.

And that was it. That was the last thing I remembered hearing before we were hit. A flash of searing white light cut through the fog, and shone into the Rover, leaving the four of us frightfully petrified. Joseph jerked the wheel, Julie-Anne let out a large sob, and Nicholas instinctually reached for his door handle. I didn't do a thing.

I remembered, learning about wrong way drivers, in Drivers Ed., years ago, when I was just learning the ways of the road—there was some sort of national statistic, One in every three 'wrong-way drivers' victim…Dies? Lives? Walks away free of injury? I prayed to God, whatever answer: we would all be okay. "Damnit the wheels are fucking locked! Shi-"

With one swift crunch, the exterior of the car was compounded head-on. I lurched forward, into the passenger's seat, fortunately my safety belt tugged me violently back; a large snap etched my earshot. 

Shattered glass rippled vilely from all directions. The airbags had let loose on impulse. I found myself looking out the distorted window—the pavement to the road looked so surreally close, I wondered if this was all a dream, before I could even think twice, I was reaching out of the window, and…touching the pavement. How was this possible? How was this happening? This wasn't right. I was alive, wasn't I? God, I was just at the movies, Joseph was just asking for louder music, Nick was just asleep, Julie-Anne…she...what if they died? Any of them.

My sick thoughts stopped at a light in the darkness; "Is...Everyone…okay?" asked a, high shaken voice. "I think I am…Nick?" I immediately replied, it was surprising to me, how calm my voice was, I felt as if I could snap in half at any moment.

"No, it's Joe….Nick?" Joe's shaken voice requested again, illicit with panic. No response.
"Nicholas?" I tried. Nicholas was the youngest, he was fifteen, if he died, if he was hurt…seconds were passing in centuries; an ambulance siren could be heard in the distance. Nick wasn't talking. "Are we…upside-down?", Nick finally asked his voice was loud, and distrusting, but he was alive. "I'm alright." He added quickly. Relief washed over me in an instant. And as fast as it had come, it was gone. We were upside-down. "Hey….Julie?" Nick asked cautiously.

"Kev.…Joe…anyone?" Julie-Anne whispered. She was okay, all of us, we were okay. Scratched and bruised maybe, but we were alive. "Jules, we're all okay." I answered, a grin etched acrossed my face. "Seriously, someone answer!" Julie-Anne wailed. I shifted nervously in my seat, and tightened my belt, something wasn't right, had the crash affected her hearing?

Julie-Anne shifted around in her seat to face me, a thick red stream of blood was drooling down her cheek, and dirt misted her face. "Oh my God..." her green eyes widened with genuine fear, I suppose I had to look a little strange. "What? Am I bleeding?", I asked, suddenly afraid of how different I could look. The possibilities were infinite. Nick leaned in against velocity to get a good inspection, I lifted my hand to feel any seeping effects. None—not one. Nick shook his head in a confirmative 'No.' but she'd turned away, and was fighting a frenzy of gagging noises.

"Joe…Joseph, please be okay." She pleaded loudly, from the mashed in driver's seat, he shot me a puzzled expression. "I'm okay Julie-Anne, it's all good.", Julie-Anne ignored his words, and looked his way to see for herself, I assumed. "Oh…" she trailed on. "I told you, we're all fin-"



Julie-Anne let out a high-pitched shriek, an interjection, a single plea—'Help us', could barely be made out. From the tone of pitch she'd taken on, dogs were our only hope. I clamped my hands over my ears, Julie-Anne had removed one of her sneakers, and was bashing her shattered window with it, shards of glass that hung mercilessly, launched to the scene of the accident. "Miss, is everyone alright?"

A man in a dark blue police-uniform, had clamped his hand around Julie's wrist, sneaker-still in hand, she looked up at him nervously. "No…", she choked. I couldn't understand, we were all fine, why was she doing this? The man waved urgently to a group of paramedics standing by. "We'll get you and your friends out of here and to a hospital as soon as we can.", he released her wrist, and peered curiously into our car, "Sir, everyone's fine." Nicholas told the policeman, who turned his head, sickly and barked an order to the medics "Speed it up, it's not looking too good. There's a female in the front. She appears to have sustained injury, but is able to communicate, let her out first. Two males in the back, one in the driver's seat, all….major injury, possible death.", Julie-Anne screamed a sob.

"What's going on?", I demanded. I glanced over at Nicholas, who's eyes were wide, and full of frustration, then quickly at Joseph for an answer, his face only mirrored Nick's, and on the more or lesser possibility, mine as well. "I don't know…we're fine…we're perfectly fine" Nicholas uttered. I propped myself uncomfortably up, on the ceiling of the Rover so I could look at my two brothers. "You'd think we were invisible.", Joe snorted angrily . As soon as he said it, his eyes locked on mine from the in the cracked review mirror, wide, and afraid, we all were.

"Shit…", Nick breathed. This is the exact moment we realized our dilemma, the actual journey starts here. "Shit!" He wailed. The fit Julie-Anne would have if she could have heard. "We are. We're invisible. Aren't we? Is this a joke?," the paramedics hacked on our car, dismantling Julie's car door, not that I was paying any attention to them. Personally, I was feeling much like a hopeless sap—starring in a low-blow movie; the guy who you watch as something unrealistic and terrible occurs toward, and then thank the heavens you aren't. "We're invisible……." I trailed off. Joseph pounded the horn of the Rover, it cried loudly into the night, well over the paramedics who were working on cutting Julie-Anne's belt from her.

Not a single head turned.

Saturday, January 6th, 2008—5:17 A.M: Good Samaritan Hospital, Los Angeles, California.



Being invisible was definitely something I could have done without. After they'd aspectly pulled 'us' and Julie-Anne from the Rover, they'd wheeled 'us' in a set of four ambulances, and blazed away, leaving the conscience (spirit?) us—Nick, Joseph and I behind. They had definitely wheeled three someone's into those ambulances, besides Julie-Anne, but I couldn't see anyone on those stretchers—same going for Nick and Joe—we watched the paramedics, and the policemen run frantically around them, strap in nothing aside from a sheet, and thin air, and fuss off to the hospital.

That's hardly the weirdest thing. Just minutes after we were stranded alone with the last of the policemen, snapping photos of the accident, and scribing down notes; we weren't there anymore, on the side of the high-way, by our mangled up ride. We were in the middle of Good Samaritan Hospital—one of L.A's uptown medical centers—a place I'd only indentified with as the place my younger brother Frankie had gotten his tonsils removed at last year; and we were there.

It was an hour or so later, of wandering, and questioning people (who couldn't hear or respond to us—which is annoying to say the least), we found Julie-Anne's sobbing mother on a fourth floor in-patient wing. After we found Julie-Anne's mother, it wasn't hard to find our own, she was demanding of a nurse she see her sons in a night-gown and coat. She was bawling, but yelling through her tears. Our father, stood distinctly off to the side his head was cradled in his hands, and he was shaking with his cries. Frankie—our seven year old brother was looking around sadly, confusedly, I doubted anyone had told him what was going on. At the sight of our family, in the state they were, it was a terrifying feeling. Joe excused himself from our crowd of three, I suppose he felt a lot of the responsibility for the break-down of our parents, being the driver. It wasn't his fault. Nick however, snapped. He'd shouted the vein of his existence to my mother, who didn't so much as glance in his general direction, but instead continued to shout at the frightened nurse.

"Time of death, five-seventeen A.M….", a stern voice shouted from behind me, for a moment the entire buzz of the in-patient floor stopped short aside from the sobbing and silent tears; everyone looked around at one another, hoping it wasn't their own loved one, who had died, at 5:17 that Saturday morning. Joseph returned quietly by my side shortly after quiet talking and whispering had once again started up. "Nick lost it?" he asked throwing a gesture at our younger brother, slumped against the nurses' stand exterior at our mother's feet. I nodded, ignoring the pangs of fear, and questions that were hitting me as the seconds ticked by: How long would this last? Was this really happening? Why did—"Mom! Mom, answer me, I'm right here!" Nicholas wailed, pounding his fists against the hard wood body of the desk. Joe shot me a wry smile—a sad smile. He wailed again, a musk of anger, and flusteration hit our environment, with only Joe and I to cringe at its loud sound, I masked my ears with my hands and turned away from the sight of my fifteen year old brother losing…quite possibly his sanity.

In the corner of the waiting room, in the last row of chairs, reserved for those accompanying the misfortunate, a thin girl, no older than Nicholas himself with waved blonde hair that at drifted down 

past her ribcage shot up from her chair, her hands—like mine, were clamped over her ears. Her ridiculously green eyes, even from good fifteen or twenty feet away, shone with fear as she searched the crowd frantically, she was dressed lazily in navy blue plaid pajama bottoms, and a 'Green', green sweatshirt, she obviously hadn't intended to spend her Saturday morning here either, all this aside from the point, as Nick's scream came to an end, she removed her hands from protection mode, away from her ears, and sat back down. Though her eyes still shiftily looked around, suspiciously. It wasn't her appearance that had caught my eye, though I couldn't deny she wasn't lovely (the fact that she couldn't have been older then Nick, made me feel pedifile-esque)….it was that she had acted like she'd heard Nick's scream. A nudge in my ribcage caused me to tear my gaze from the sight. Joe was pointing to the same blonde girl I had been watching milliseconds before. "Did…she just hear that?" he asked breathlessly. The girl screwed a pair of pink ear buds, that trailed down to a small white iPod, into her ears. "Yeah," I replied. "I think she did."

So there it is! Tell me what you think! I swear from now on, I'll try and stick to my updates proposals, and the scenes won't be as long, those were just two major ones for the story (I have this whole sucker outlined). Next chapter you can expect a lot more pop culture references, I love them. Suggestions—reviews?