The next day at school was pure torture. Nearly every breath that Aiden took sent sharp pain shooting through his chest and lungs. Luckily, he managed to play it off all day until P.E. Evidently, someone up there didn't like him all that much because today was the day that the school was testing the students on their mile-run. He tried to run and barely made a lap. Rather than kill himself because of this stupid test, he decided just to walk, but even that left him barely able to breath.
Alex jogged passed him then slowed down, matching his pace. "Hey!" she chirped, grinning at him.
He nearly tripped over his own feet, and he took in such a sharp intake of breath that he actually started coughing, doubling over. His chest was on fire, and he actually had to sit down for a second. "Sorry, I... I fell down the stairs this morning," he rasped out.
Alex was kneeling beside him, one hand resting on his back. "Wow, you okay?" she asked. "Maybe you should go to a hospital."
"No!" he said quickly, getting to his feet. "No hospitals. No doctors." He started walking again.
She sat on the ground, stunned for a moment, then ran to catch up with him. "Okay, no hospitals, and no doctors. Can I at least give you a ride home?" she offered.
He stopped, staring at her. "No!" It was one thing to be friends with her at school where he was safe, but he couldn't let his dad find her. She would be in danger too.
She was hurt by his rejection; he could see that in her face. "Fine," she muttered, stepping around him and running off once more.
Aiden was relieved more than he was disappointed. Maybe he wouldn't have her friendship anymore, but at least he would know that she was safe away from his father. He didn't see her again until after school. She was sitting on the steps and stood when he passed her.
"Hey," she said, matching his steps. "Look, I'm sorry about yelling at you in gym. I'm just worried about you, and I really wish you'd let me give you a ride."
He shook his head. "I appreciate the offer, but I really can't..." He thought about telling her why, but he knew that would be a bad idea. "I'm sorry. Thanks for the offer though. I have to go. The bus is waiting."
He waved, and she waved back. She still wasn't happy though. If they were going to stay friends, they were going to have to start sharing secrets. But that means giving up your secrets too... Do you think you're ready for that? Groaning, she stomped her foot. There had to be some way to get through to Aiden without revealing her own secrets. But how?
Showing posts with label Pain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pain. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
Side Story: "Pain" Chapter 3
Aiden jumped when he heard the door close, sliding out of his corner to peek out. No one was in the room so why had someone looked inside? Sighing, he slowly got to his feet and pulled his frayed backpack onto his shoulders. Pushing open the door, he nearly tripped over Alex's legs as he turned to head down the hallway. "Oh, uh, sorry," he said quickly, taking a step back so he wouldn't step on her.
He'd never seen her before, and he thought he'd remember if he had. She had fiery red hair, and her green eyes were staring at him. Her full figure and soft curves would've easily gotten her in with the popular crowd; she was sure to be noticed by the jocks at school too especially with that leather ensemble she was wearing.
She immediately leapt to her feet, beaming. "Hi! I'm Alex!" She thrust her hand out for him to shake. Where the heck had he been hiding? I just checked that classroom, she wondered.
He stared at her. "I-I... uh," he looked behind him as if expecting someone else to be standing behind him before turning back to look at her, "you're talking to me?"
Frowning, she lowered her hand to put both hands on her hips. "Well, who else would I be talking to? The rest of the school's at lunch."
"I... I don't know," he admitted, cheeks flushing. "Uh, I'm Aiden."
Her smile returned, and she lowered her hands. "Hey, Aiden. I'm new here. Just moved into town. Do you think you could help me find my classes?"
"I... guess," Aiden said, taking the paper she held out. Her schedule was identical to his. "Oh, uh, we have the same classes."
"Great! So, can I just follow you around all day?"
"I... guess?" Aiden mentally kicked himself. He sounded like an idiot, repeating himself like that. Handing Alex back her schedule, he headed for the next class on the list--English.
"So, I take it your not a big fan of cafeterias either?" she asked, falling into step beside him.
"I don't eat lunch."
Her eyes widened. "Why not?"
Let's see... Because my dad rarely buys food? Because anytime I do try to pack a lunch, he ends up taking it to eat for himself? He sighed. "Never saw the use. I just eat breakfast and dinner." That was a lie, but he wasn't about to tell her that. When he was lucky, he could get breakfast.
When they reached the classroom, Alex settled herself in the seat right next to his. She had no pencils, no notebooks. She didn't even have a backpack on her. Aiden momentarily wondered why this girl had come to school so unprepared then realized she'd just moved here. She might not have even had the time to get supplies yet.
"Here," he said, passing her an unused notebook and a spare pen. "You'll want to at least look busy in this class," he murmured.
The teacher was already writing on the whiteboard. Every class session began with a journal entry, and there would be hell to pay for any student caught not writing. Setting down her pen, she walked back to her desk as students began to scribble away. Usually the prompt was just a quote or a short question. Aiden couldn't help thinking that today's quote was quite ironic for his life--"Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.", a quote from Oscar Wilde. He wondered briefly if Oscar Wilde would think his life was important and that someone actually did need to talk seriously about his life.
Still, he scribbled away, and he could see Alex doing the same out of the corner of his eye. After only a few sentences, Alex set down her pen and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest. Aiden was still writing. Sighing, she leaned forward and scribbled a quick note, ripping the paper out of her notebook. She passed it to him when the teacher wasn't looking. When Aiden unfolded it, the paper had only one question: So, do you think you could show me around town too? Aiden inwardly groaned, folding up the paper to think of how to answer it. This was going to end badly for him...
He'd never seen her before, and he thought he'd remember if he had. She had fiery red hair, and her green eyes were staring at him. Her full figure and soft curves would've easily gotten her in with the popular crowd; she was sure to be noticed by the jocks at school too especially with that leather ensemble she was wearing.
She immediately leapt to her feet, beaming. "Hi! I'm Alex!" She thrust her hand out for him to shake. Where the heck had he been hiding? I just checked that classroom, she wondered.
He stared at her. "I-I... uh," he looked behind him as if expecting someone else to be standing behind him before turning back to look at her, "you're talking to me?"
Frowning, she lowered her hand to put both hands on her hips. "Well, who else would I be talking to? The rest of the school's at lunch."
"I... I don't know," he admitted, cheeks flushing. "Uh, I'm Aiden."
Her smile returned, and she lowered her hands. "Hey, Aiden. I'm new here. Just moved into town. Do you think you could help me find my classes?"
"I... guess," Aiden said, taking the paper she held out. Her schedule was identical to his. "Oh, uh, we have the same classes."
"Great! So, can I just follow you around all day?"
"I... guess?" Aiden mentally kicked himself. He sounded like an idiot, repeating himself like that. Handing Alex back her schedule, he headed for the next class on the list--English.
"So, I take it your not a big fan of cafeterias either?" she asked, falling into step beside him.
"I don't eat lunch."
Her eyes widened. "Why not?"
Let's see... Because my dad rarely buys food? Because anytime I do try to pack a lunch, he ends up taking it to eat for himself? He sighed. "Never saw the use. I just eat breakfast and dinner." That was a lie, but he wasn't about to tell her that. When he was lucky, he could get breakfast.
When they reached the classroom, Alex settled herself in the seat right next to his. She had no pencils, no notebooks. She didn't even have a backpack on her. Aiden momentarily wondered why this girl had come to school so unprepared then realized she'd just moved here. She might not have even had the time to get supplies yet.
"Here," he said, passing her an unused notebook and a spare pen. "You'll want to at least look busy in this class," he murmured.
The teacher was already writing on the whiteboard. Every class session began with a journal entry, and there would be hell to pay for any student caught not writing. Setting down her pen, she walked back to her desk as students began to scribble away. Usually the prompt was just a quote or a short question. Aiden couldn't help thinking that today's quote was quite ironic for his life--"Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.", a quote from Oscar Wilde. He wondered briefly if Oscar Wilde would think his life was important and that someone actually did need to talk seriously about his life.
Still, he scribbled away, and he could see Alex doing the same out of the corner of his eye. After only a few sentences, Alex set down her pen and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest. Aiden was still writing. Sighing, she leaned forward and scribbled a quick note, ripping the paper out of her notebook. She passed it to him when the teacher wasn't looking. When Aiden unfolded it, the paper had only one question: So, do you think you could show me around town too? Aiden inwardly groaned, folding up the paper to think of how to answer it. This was going to end badly for him...
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Side Story: "Pain" Chapter 2
"Alright, let's begin. Please say your name, age, station, and your reason for being here."
A young couple sits in the recorded video, nervously watching the camera.
"Both of us?" The woman asks. There is no verbal response, but she must have received some kind of signal as she glanced briefly at the man beside her, then turned back to the camera."My name is Emily Peters. I'm... I'm 27 years old. My current station is as a labratory technician and my reason for being here is... Do I have to say it?"
"Yes, Mrs. Peters. We need to record all of our patient's responses."
The blond woman sighed and looked straight into the camera. "My reason for being here is money. They've promised us a large sum of money for participating." She immediately breaks down into tears and runs off camera, causing the image to turn black.
Alex spent the first ten years of her life not even knowing if she had parents. She was brought up by young men and women in white coats, who taught her how to speak and control her powers. They weren't quite as talkative or friendly as she supposed humans were to their own children, but she never really considered herself human. At least not until she was old enough to understand the tapes she was now watching.
Another video, but this isn't a regular session. This time, the woman is sitting in a wheelchair. She is heavily pregnant and sweating, but smiling happily.
"This is a private tape I've asked your father to record. It will be given to you when you've watched all the others. They told me I won't get to see you after you're born. I may not like it, but I did sign a contract."
She rubs her swollen stomach, then smiles at the camera."They did tell me you are a little girl. They have also allowed me to name you. So, my little Alexandra, I may never meet you, but I love you. When we did this initially, it was for money. I won't lie to you, my baby, but over these months I have come to understand that, no matter what you look like, I will always love."
She pauses, seeming to almost say more, but a spasm grips her and she gasps in pain, after which the camera shuts off.
The next few tapes Alex watched were of her learning things in the lab where she grew up. She reaches up to finger the locket with her parent's pictures in it and decides to flee for good. At two years old, she managed to escape the lab on accident. She spent two weeks on her own before they found her. She then spent two months chained to a pole in her room. Now, for the past few months, she's been trying to look like a human. With effort, she can draw her demonic traits into her body and have the outward human appearance. By the time she is done, she is exhausted but happy. She can look in the mirror and see her mother's blond hair and her father's green eyes.
She managed to walk out of the lab that day. At 14, she was finally free.
She spent the next 4 years jumping from school to school, changing her hair color or wearing wigs, wearing contacts, and occasionally changing her name. Whenever people got too close, or teachers got too suspicious, she would change schools yet again. Now, in her last year of school, she hoped to try and make a friend or two and stay long enough to graduate.
She had put off going to school as long as possible, but she finally made up her mind to show up. It was noon by the time she walked into the office. She was given a schedule and told to return when the bell rang.
Wandering the halls seemed like a good idea, so she looked into every classroom she came across, wondering if she would make a friend at all. She'd had one before, but she had told them her secret and they panicked and called the cops.
She fingered the locket around her neck as she looked at yet another empty room. She thought about finding her parents, but she had seen the contract they signed. They had turned over all control of their daughter to the lab and vanished into anonymity. She sighed as she closed the door and sank to the floor outside of it. Most of the school was at lunch and she was already starting to regret coming here.
A young couple sits in the recorded video, nervously watching the camera.
"Both of us?" The woman asks. There is no verbal response, but she must have received some kind of signal as she glanced briefly at the man beside her, then turned back to the camera."My name is Emily Peters. I'm... I'm 27 years old. My current station is as a labratory technician and my reason for being here is... Do I have to say it?"
"Yes, Mrs. Peters. We need to record all of our patient's responses."
The blond woman sighed and looked straight into the camera. "My reason for being here is money. They've promised us a large sum of money for participating." She immediately breaks down into tears and runs off camera, causing the image to turn black.
Alex spent the first ten years of her life not even knowing if she had parents. She was brought up by young men and women in white coats, who taught her how to speak and control her powers. They weren't quite as talkative or friendly as she supposed humans were to their own children, but she never really considered herself human. At least not until she was old enough to understand the tapes she was now watching.
Another video, but this isn't a regular session. This time, the woman is sitting in a wheelchair. She is heavily pregnant and sweating, but smiling happily.
"This is a private tape I've asked your father to record. It will be given to you when you've watched all the others. They told me I won't get to see you after you're born. I may not like it, but I did sign a contract."
She rubs her swollen stomach, then smiles at the camera."They did tell me you are a little girl. They have also allowed me to name you. So, my little Alexandra, I may never meet you, but I love you. When we did this initially, it was for money. I won't lie to you, my baby, but over these months I have come to understand that, no matter what you look like, I will always love."
She pauses, seeming to almost say more, but a spasm grips her and she gasps in pain, after which the camera shuts off.
The next few tapes Alex watched were of her learning things in the lab where she grew up. She reaches up to finger the locket with her parent's pictures in it and decides to flee for good. At two years old, she managed to escape the lab on accident. She spent two weeks on her own before they found her. She then spent two months chained to a pole in her room. Now, for the past few months, she's been trying to look like a human. With effort, she can draw her demonic traits into her body and have the outward human appearance. By the time she is done, she is exhausted but happy. She can look in the mirror and see her mother's blond hair and her father's green eyes.
She managed to walk out of the lab that day. At 14, she was finally free.
She spent the next 4 years jumping from school to school, changing her hair color or wearing wigs, wearing contacts, and occasionally changing her name. Whenever people got too close, or teachers got too suspicious, she would change schools yet again. Now, in her last year of school, she hoped to try and make a friend or two and stay long enough to graduate.
She had put off going to school as long as possible, but she finally made up her mind to show up. It was noon by the time she walked into the office. She was given a schedule and told to return when the bell rang.
Wandering the halls seemed like a good idea, so she looked into every classroom she came across, wondering if she would make a friend at all. She'd had one before, but she had told them her secret and they panicked and called the cops.
She fingered the locket around her neck as she looked at yet another empty room. She thought about finding her parents, but she had seen the contract they signed. They had turned over all control of their daughter to the lab and vanished into anonymity. She sighed as she closed the door and sank to the floor outside of it. Most of the school was at lunch and she was already starting to regret coming here.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Side Story: "All the World Gives is Pain" Chapter 1
“If you have this baby, you do realize that the cancer in your body will kill you? The only way that we can treat your cancer is to abort your pregnancy.”
Catherine didn’t even blink, her gaze firm. “I’m going to have this baby whether you like it or not. Your job is to keep me alive until my baby can be born. I don’t care about the cancer. All I care about is my little boy.”
Sometimes, Aiden wished that wasn’t how his life had begun.
Home videos shot by Kitty, Catherine’s sister, showed an overjoyed father crumbling as the life left his wife’s body. Doctors worked to get the baby boy out, presenting a wailing, pink infant to a broken, empty shell of a father. Kitty had caught it on tape—“Get that thing away from me!”—then he’d stormed from the room. Baby Aiden was left abandoned by his father, and Kitty took him into her home.
For the first three years of his life, Aiden was a happy child. He lived with his aunt, played with his two young cousins, and every day Kitty would tell him the story of how her sister gave up her own life in a selfless sacrifice to bring him life. Aiden loved that story, and if he thought hard enough, he could still remember it during the darkest of times.
On his third birthday, Jeremy showed up and wrenched Aiden from the only life he’d ever known. “He’s my son!” he’d shouted at Kitty, forbidding her from coming near him again. But home wasn’t a happy place with Jeremy. Drunk and angry, Jeremy blamed Aiden for everything—Catherine’s death, his alcoholism, the state of the house, anything the older man could think of. When Aiden started school, a teacher contacted CPS. Jeremy coached his son for weeks regarding how to lie to the social worker that showed up, and Aiden used these new lies to keep CPS from being called again.
He’d ended up in the hospital for three weeks after the first call. Jeremy said he’d fallen from a tree.
Fourteen years later, and Aiden was gifted at lying. No teachers ever suspected abuse; they suspected he was a shy, quiet student who kept to himself. They called him gifted, bright, and praised his schoolwork. Jeremy didn’t care as long as the house was clean, and there was food on the table when he came home from work. And beer. There always had to be beer in the house. Otherwise, Jeremy would beat Aiden then stalk off to a bar to drown his anger in alcohol.
Hooded blue eyes stared listlessly at the notebook in front of him. It was lunchtime, and Aiden hated going into the cafeteria. Instead, he would bring a sack lunch and find a small, unused classroom to sit with his lunch and his journal. Today, his father had slammed his head into a wall because he hadn’t gotten up in enough time to make breakfast. Aiden thought he might have a concussion, but he didn’t dare go to a hospital.
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