While It Is Dark Outside (Chapter four and last one).

Chapter four: Lost and found. 

(To read chapter one, two and three, just scroll down).

"Jamie, Im so sorry" I say to her. I try to approach her, but she flinches, she can't look me in the eyes.
"I don't know what happened, I was dreaming, having a nightmare". Jamie doesn't even look up, she just turns and locks herself in the bathroom. I can hear her crying inside.

I just sit in the bed, completely shocked about what just happened. What the hell just happened? It all looked so real, it felt real, every part of it. The pain. I stare at my arms, trying to find a trace of an injury, but there is nothing, just muscle and skin. I clutch my hands into fists and hit the mattress with all the force that I have. It does not make me feel any better.

I thought I could escape it. Deal with it. Learn to live with my sickness. I had a routine. It worked, well, I thought it did. I guess you can't run away from something that is always there, haunting you, eating you alive.

I try to retrace my steps, I am more than confused, I don't know what is real and what is not. Am I even here right now? How could I know. Not being able to trust your own brain, for it to not be able to show you what you are trying to see, to not be able to trust your own memories, what you think is your life, what made you who you are. It all wells up into a excruciatingly pain that takes me full force. What am I supposed to do?

There is a click in the bathroom door. Light pours out and I focus on Jamie's face. Her eyes are puffy, her hair is a complete mess. There is a big rip in her t-shirt. Did I do that? How much did I hurt her? I can't figure our her expression. It feels like something I have seen before, and something that I don't wanna see ever again. Disappointment. Pain. Unhappiness. Me, hurting her.

"Jaime, has anything like this ever happened before?" I ask her. I am afraid to know the answer. She finally looks up and stares at me. She opens her mouth to say something, but she stops herself. She looks down again and stares at her hands. I get up.
"Jaime, look at me, have I hurt you before?"

Silence.

"Tell me!" I yell at her.

"Yes. It's not the first time". She slowly walks to the edge of the bed and she sits.
"How many times before?" I ask.
"Too many".
"How bad?".
"Bad enough".

No. How? How could I forget it? How can I not know this? What the hell is going on?

"I need you to tell me everything, right now".

"No".
"What do you mean, no. This is my life we are talking about Jaime". I am angry, so angry. I don't know who I am, and what the hell I am doing here? She has the answers, and she won't tell me.

"Jaime, this is my life, I need to know WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!".

Jaime starts laughing. It scares me. She look up at me, her eyes are weird. Bigger than usual. She is laughing loudly, not the sweet laugh that I remember. This one is deep and disturbing. Something is not right. Am I dreaming again? Is this real?

"Jaime stop, you are scaring me".

She continues laughing. The whole room shakes with the sound coming out of her mouth.
"Stop!" I hold my hand into my ears, trying to block it away, but the laugh is still here, penetrating my brain.

My heart is pounding in my chest. It feels like its going to explode and I am going to die. I fall into the floor and curl up into a ball. There is a drilling sound, I can't tell where it is coming from, but it hurts me. There is pain in my body, a lot of pain. I can't concentrate. I only feel pain, it is everywhere. It is taking over me.

Time
is
lost.



There
is
only
darkness.



A beeping sound wakes me up. I can not open my eyes. They feel heavy. I try concentrating in my breathing, I open my mouth, but it hurts. It's so dry.
Beep. Beep. Beep.

I slowly try to come back. I manage to open my eyes. But a light hurts them, so I close them again.
Beep. Beep. Beep.

I open them again. Things start to come into focus. There is a machine. I am in a bed. There are curtains around me. Something clicks in my brain. I am in a hospital. The beeping sound is my heart-rate.

What happened? Nothing makes sense.

Someone opens the curtains. A nurse.
"Mr. Reginton. I see you are awake. How are you feeling?" She asks.

I now see the rest of the room. There is a small table with a vase filled with flowers, but they are dead. There is a window on the right side. It is dark outside. Nighttime. The scariest of times.

"You gave us quite a scare there. You had a heart attack, had to go into surgery, but Dr. Wellington fixed you right up. You are gonna be in pain for a few weeks, and you'll need a lot of recovery time. But are going to be okey".

A heart attack? When did this happen? My arms itch. For the first time I look at them. Something is wrong. Very wrong. They are not the arms I remember. They have wrinkles and spots. They are... they are old.

I start to panic. I lift them and stare at them closely. They are not my arms! They are not! I swallow some saliva and try to speak.
"I... I..."

"Don't try to talk right now honey" The nurse says as she approaches me. "You should rest".
I will not rest, I need to look at myself.

"A... a.... mirror". I manage to say. The nurse stares at me in confusion.
"Please". She hesitates, but then she walks out of my vision, I hear the clicking of her shoes. For a moment I think she ignored me completely. But then I hear coming back.

She holds a small hand mirror.
"Here" she says, as she extends it towards me.

My whole body is shaking, so she helps me hold it. I close my eyes. And then I open them. An old man is staring back at me. A very old man. He has no hair. His eyes are swollen and his skin is almost transparent and full of wrinkles. I do not know him. Who is he? Who am I?

Everything comes crashing at once. My breathing is hard. The nurse tries to take to mirror out of my hand but I hold on to it with all that I have. This old man's eyes are panicked. He is scared. And in them I see a flicker of recognition. They seen familiar. They are my eyes. I am me. I am the old man.

I am lost, but at the same time, I am found. Nothing makes sense. But seeing my reflexion makes me almost remember something. I can't grasp it, but I can feel it. I've been sick, I've been lost inside myself. But now, now I know. This is me.

And I know that soon there will be nothing left of me. I will be gone again. And I hope, I really hope, that the next time that happens, soon, I will be gone forever.

The End. 

C.L.S.A 
Hope it wasn't too depressing. 
Lovelovelove. 

Mary-go-round (Chapter four)

Mary-go-round

By: Carla Sierra Arzuffi

Chapter four: Peter

The last time I saw Peter was four years ago, at prom night. Peter and I grew up together, we were always in the same classroom and he lived just a few houses from mine. His mom and mine were good friends so we had a lot of play dates together. As we grew older the uncomfortable feeling of growing up and actually becoming a girl and a boy put a strain on our friendship for a while, but we managed to save it, he was my rock.

After he and his family moved away (disappeared) the day after prom night I had a hard time copping. People in our town don’t just move away, it is a very weird thing to happen, but every 10 years or something, it happens, and when it does, they never come back. At first it always shocks the community, but then they start talking less and less about them until they are just a forgotten memory, like they never existed.

Me on the other hand, I couldn’t just let go. The space that Peter had left was hard to fill, when someone is that crucial to your life and routine you cant just simply cut the cords and move on. At first, I didn’t understand how everyone else could do it, I would watch my mom for hours trying to catch a glimpse of her missing Peters’ mom, it never happened.

Every time I tried to talk about it, talk about him, the people around me would just smile and say “He is gone Mary, you just have to move on”. And I tried. I really tried. The truth was that I had been in love with Peter, actual-real-love, every fiber of my body and mind was attached to him, when I was with him I felt like I could continue this fake life is Peter was by my side.

The only person I could talk to about Peter was, of course, old Tom. He always listened, he would let me rant, cry and sometimes laugh hysterically. He just sat there, waiting patiently until I poured out everything I was feeling. I knew he could understand me, because when he was younger, much younger, something similar had happened to him.

Peter never talked about moving, or going anywhere, I knew things where tense inside his family; Peter talked about his dad and mom fighting, which is very unusual in this town. His dad was a researcher for the elders, I never knew exactly what he did, but Peter said it was something important.

So, I couldn’t understand how it was possible that Peter was here right now, and that I was actually seeing him. Peter no longer looked like a boy, he was better built now, and he had a hint of a beard, but his face looked the same. Peter moved his arm, motioning me to go down to the patio. I was wearing a thin nightgown and nothing else, my feet were bare, my hair was a mess after the bath and I again was sweating like a baby pig. But none of that mattered. My body moved like a magnet being pulled into his opposite and before I could notice I was outside.

The night was dark, I searched for Peter, who was just a few minutes, or seconds ago, standing right here, but I could not see him. A thought crossed my mind, maybe I was finally going crazy and with everything that had happened today I could not deny that it was a possibility, and now I was imagining people. But then I heard a “Psstt, Mary, over here”

I turned right and I saw something moving in the bushes, I moved quickly, when I reached the place were I was sure I had heard Peter voice I felt something, someone put his arms around me. At first I flinched, it scared me, but even though I could not see him, I could smell him. It was Peter. Defeated I put my arms around him.

“Its so good to see you Mary” Peter whispered in my ear. I don’t know why, but hearing this made something inside me burn, I pulled away and I slapped him right in the face.

I could now make out his features. He touched his cheek and smiled.

“I guess I deserved that, in some way”.

“What are you doing here” I said, my voice was breaking “Where did you go? Why? Why didn’t you told me? You were gone, and you never called or send me a letter or a smoke signal that your were okay”

Peter looked right into my eyes as I let myself say some of the things I had been holding for years. I couldn’t help it, I started crying, the warm tears fell into my cheeks reminding me what it felt to feel something.

“Well, that’s a lot of questions” Peter said with just a hint of pain in his eyes “I know I would have the same ones, I want to explain, I will explain, but not now, not here” he whispered.

I stared at him in shock “What is happening, I don’t understand anything”.

“I know you don’t, at first I didn’t too, but you will soon. You have to be strong, I know you can”.

I swallowed and whipped the tears with my hands “Okay” was all I said.

Peter smiled, it was his same beautiful smile, that smile that use to make everything okay, and just for a second I felt like everything could be okay.

“Meet me tomorrow at the cliff, be there around noon, and I will explain, bring the book” with that said he moved and gave my cheek a sweet kiss, I felt the warmth of his lips touch my tears, and then he was gone.

I knew now that old Tom, Peter and the book were connected, but I still didn’t know why. I walked back to my house and room; I picked the book from the floor. I crumbled into my bed holding it, and even though I thought I was not tired, I instantly fell asleep.

 To be continued ......

C.LS.A

The “Tynooza finite” (Chapter four)

The “Tynooza finite”

By: Carla Sierra Arzuffi

(To read other chapters of this story, just scroll down)

Chapter four: He’s alive! He’s alive!

You all must be wondering about the subject: Tyler Nooza is the human that can’t die. This is how it works; Tyler Nozza cannot be killed, not on accident, not by fire, bullets, water, or disease. Not of broken body parts, dysfunctional organs, and must important off all: old age. Whatever sort of death you can come up with, well Tyler can’t die by that.

Tyler reached his 27 birthday and stop aging, why?, how?, we don’t know, it just happened. Let me clarify that this is not a vampire story, Tyler can go out in the sunlight and he does not, by any circumstance drinks human blood.

Lets say Tyler was in a car crash, a very dramatic one, would he regenerate his wounds? No. He simply wouldn’t have any wounds, not a scratch.

One normal evening Tyler was smoking a secret cigarette on his roof (that’s something he only did when he was really stressed). When he finished his treat he got up to quickly and lost his balance. Tyler fell out of the roof.

While he was falling the only thought that crossed his mind was: “She won”. But 10 seconds later he was on the floor, scratching his head, alive. No bones were broken, and not a single drop of blood could be found. He started to laugh hysterically and then proceeded to scream like a crazy person “I´M ALIVE I´M ALIVE!”. That’s how Tyler Nooza definitely knew he was a peculiar person.

For the next couple of weeks he performed all sorts of experiments and stunts to see if he could get hurt. He never did. He was just as confused as you all must be, he didn’t know why this had happened to him, how he became this way.

Tyler savored the victory. Amanda could never kill him. But you see, Amanda would eventually find out that his brother could not be killed, and her plans would change. If she could not destroy her brother, she then would try to destroy everyone around him, every single person that meant something to Tyler would suffer the consequences; they would feel the fury of Amanda.

Every hero story must have a villain, every hero must have a weakness, and every villain eventually learns the weakness of his enemy. 

To be continued......

C.L.S.A