After Images [[aka Closer or Left in the Dark... also OUT of the Dark]]

[ContagiousPaige]

Haha, I'm lame and can't come up with a good working title, almost had my temp title as 'Of Jelly Beans, Movie Monsters, Falling Plates, woes of the Military and the Strength I've found consecutively in NEVER FORGETTING TO LOVE'

lol, nice huh?
Don't think it's get published like that ><

Anyway, so far i'e only got a bit typed, but I thought I'd share it nonetheless n.n

So with no more adue, as much as I have typed so far of 'After images' [[aka... you get the point n.n]]



Characters
Past:
Sora - Zane&#8217;s friend
Light hair , light complexion, green eyes
Danica - Zane&#8217;s friend
Dark hair, med complexion, brown eyes
Remus - Zane&#8217;s friend
Dark hair, light complexion, blue eyes
Present:

Seth
Normally on the quiet side, he tends to be the peacemaker. His parents are of high social standing and he has a hard time getting to hang out with the rest of the trio because he lives in the middle of nowhere. Struggling from inner turmoil he tries his best to not let it show. He&#8217;d hate to worry his friends.

Danni
A hyper kid, she skateboards, loves rock music and sushi. She comes from simple lineage and sometimes feels outdone by the others, but she keeps in on the DL. With a tendency to take things the wrong way she can put herself in more trouble then actually necessary.
She wants nothing more than love and can&#8217;t seem to find it.

Reese
Hyper all around, in a very calming way. He loves to know what&#8217;s going on and can come off as rather nosy. Otherwise he&#8217;s very laid back and the temperament rubs off on whoever is in the vicinity. His father whom he lives with, his mother dead, thinks him soft and puts him through cruel treatment to toughen him up. The violence he keeps hidden from his friends, except from Danni, whom he&#8217;s share the world with if she&#8217;d let him love her.

Zane
The starting point of the story, his past holds secrets he&#8217;s still trying to hide from himself, and although he tries he can&#8217;t suppress them forever. When his father left he and his mother he tried desperately to keep her sane, failing as he too -after being witness to a violent accident that &#8216;stole&#8217; his friends from him- went slightly mad himself. Trying to hold it together he made his mother move so the two of them could try to start over. It didn&#8217;t work, keeping her new found alcoholism after the anguish she keeps down her self destructive path&#8230; and is unknowingly setting the stage for Zane to follow.


Jude
The extra. He&#8217;s an old friend of Seth&#8217;s who met up with him again at an art convention. His troubled past and quick temper keep you on your toes, and Seth never knows what to expect from him. As both boys begin relying on each other more than they&#8217;d like they realize how much they need each other. Jude tends to be hyper, rather excitable and quick to be the first to make light of dire situations. He tries his hardest to keep things simple and hates himself for often making situations the most complicated

~~~~~

&#8220;Did you ever realize pickles don&#8217;t exist?&#8221; Danni asked with a soft smile, cocking her head to the side, portraying the picture of innocence. Her history teacher, Mr. Liskney, looked up from almost starting a lecture on some past war. He pushed his frameless glasses up higher onto his beak-like nose and scratched his head, &#8220;Excuse me?&#8221;
Danni smiled as two boys, sitting in desks behind her, chuckled. This had been a class tradition since the sixth grade, distract the teacher from the last couple of minutes in class and get off with one of two options. Either A) You got off with no homework from that class or B) You at least got a good laugh before heading off to next period&#8217;s class&#8230;to do the same thing. If you were lucky, you got both.
She started up again, &#8220;It&#8217;s true, pickles are just rotten cucumbers!&#8221;
Mr. Liskney scratched his head again ruffling his graying hair. &#8220;Danni this is not going to work this time, I&#8217;ve seen this trick to many times in the past for it to work again. I know the trick now. It&#8217;s been three years, you can&#8217;t still expect me to fall-&#8221; the bell rang. Mr.Liskney smiled, &#8220;Okay, Danni, you win. No homework tonight!&#8221; he spoke loudly in order to be heard above the sound of twenty-some students rushing to get out of the history classroom and to lunch.
Danni stopped, the two boys who had been chuckling stopped with her. One (with short spiky light brown hair wearing a black shirt with a screen print of the name &#8216;Balto&#8217; over a screen of a howling cartoon wolf) put his hand on the old history teachers shoulder, &#8220;Sorry Mr. L, but hey you know we love you!&#8221; he said with a playful look of grief. &#8220;Oh yes Mr. L,&#8221; added the second boy wearing a red shirt much resembling an &#8216;Independent Skateboards&#8217; shirt but which instead read: Dependent On Christ. &#8220;We love ya from the bottom of our wee little hearts!&#8221; he said with a mock sob. The teacher smiled and gave the first boy a slap on the back, &#8220;Seth you little mongrel!&#8221; He began. Then turning to the second boy he said, &#8220;Reese, you Danni, and Seth are the only ones who can get away with the same trick for three consecutive years.&#8221; He sighed. &#8220;From ninth to eleventh grade and I still fall for it!&#8221; The odd trio laughed and headed out of the classroom, each giving their own good byes and started on their journey to every student&#8217;s favorite bell, lunch.
&#8220;Danni, that was classic!&#8221; Seth chuckled accenting every word with a jab at her with a piece of chocolate chip cookie. &#8220;&#8216;Did you know that pickles don&#8217;t really exist?&#8217;&#8221; He chuckled again, &#8220;Classic!&#8221; He took a sip of tea. He always complained of being hungry, but then as soon as he had food, he ate very little of it and was fine&#8230;at least for another thirty or so minutes until he was hungry again.
Reese threw a pen at him as he frantically tried to finish the math homework assigned the night before, which sadly, was due next bell.
&#8220;Hey it wasn&#8217;t as classic as your last distraction. Pretending to be retarded!&#8221; Reese started as if he were extremely hyperactive and said in an odd high-pitched voice, &#8220;You come to my birthday party! We play twister, and eat hotdogs, you come, you come!&#8221; he laughed and then realizing that he had thrown his only good pen, jumped up knocking over Seth&#8217;s tea and ran to retrieve it from across the cafeteria.
Danni slowly recovered from Reese&#8217;s impression of Seth&#8217;s last end of class stunt and said upon Reese&#8217;s return, &#8220;You know what, Reese. You have not preformed a distraction in quite awhile&#8230; Next bell&#8217;s all yours!&#8221; Seth had gotten a new glass (and another cookie) before coming back to help Reese mop up the spilt tea. Seth had been taking another sip of tea when this was suggested and laughed with the drink halfway down his throat chocking on it. Reese just chocked on nothing. &#8220;Are you insane?&#8221; Seth mumbled through alternative chocking and laughing. &#8220;Mrs. O&#8217; Connell will kill him or any of us if we aren&#8217;t careful in there. If you hadn&#8217;t noticed, we&#8217;re not really on her favorites list!&#8221;
Danni sighed, &#8220;True. However, we might be able to pull one off. If we&#8217;re careful. We have to make it slick, we have to&#8230;Hey isn&#8217;t everyone in the cafeteria?&#8221; she asked with a distracted look at the entrance door to the café o school.
Seth frowned and replied, &#8220;Yeah, why?&#8221;
Reese glanced behind him as Seth ate another piece of his cookie. Reese looked toward Seth and said, &#8220;You need to lie of the cookies, you freak out with sugar.&#8221; He pushed Seth&#8217;s head to the side with a finger placed firmly on his jaw. He smiled snatching the cookie away from a protesting Seth. A boy dressed in grey carpenter shorts and a shirt that said in an odd neon green color &#8216;Veritas One&#8217; on its front. On the back Reese knew it said &#8220;Hangman&#8217;s Curse&#8221; he had the same shirt.
The boy had dark brown hair and seemed to be one of those punks who would do anything to be as different as possible. But on closer inspection of his eyes, his face, a totally different story was told. One of happiness that had been cut off too soon, of hurt and untold strength. He told wordlessly of a want to be a friend, a companion, to be the person you pass by in the hall and want to say hello to even though you have no idea who he was.
Nevertheless, all over he had the appearance of one thing. Reese&#8217;s smile got wider as he took a bite out of his stolen cookie, &#8220;Guys, I think we ought to go over and welcome our new peer!&#8221;

 

[ContagiousPaige]

The halls were silent; nothing moved. There was no one in the halls to witness the one student traversing the halls in the middle of fourth period. Every classroom door was shut tight against possible hallway distractions as teachers within rambled on about subjects their students rarely gave their full attentions to. Nothing was new; it was a normal, typical school day. Then the doors opened, and one new life entered, about to be twisted into shapes and painted into colors that had never existed before that moment. Moreover, the sad part is, he had no idea.
Zane ran his fingers across the slick cold surfaces of the lockers lining the halls. He tugged a thin sliver of pealing blue paint from a locker hosting a handmade sign that read something to the tune of ‘Sink those threes’, complete with a poorly drawn basketball swishing through a net. It was childish, immature, not really something he was used to seeing littering the surfaces of a classmate’s locker. He smirked, flicked a couple of glued on plastic sequins from the corner of the childishly mad sign, and continued on his long walk through the empty hallway. He approached the glass screened doors of the of the school office and leaned against the wall in between two rather large windows used in order to overlook goings-on in that particular hall. He glanced at his watch, he had time. About five minutes time until his official enrollment into New Point Academy, about five minutes until his life would be taken by another school , another group of people, another hurt.
He toyed with the silver chain hanging from one belt loop and leading into his back pocket, he jerked up on the metal links and in a simple movement pulled a wallet from the pocket of his grey carpenters. He flipped it open, examining the pictures held within and wishing, not for the first time, that he had not stopped to look at them. He ran his thumb across the glossy surface of one of the pictures. A photo of two boys. One with spiked hair, wearing a Volcom shirt, and the other sporting naturally dark hair, and unusually bright blue eyes. In between them stood a girl wearing a gold and silver jersey, a basketball under her arm. Despite her breathless appearance and the rugged features of her dark hair pulled back into a pony-tail she was smiling happily. All three of them were, walking across the cold-browned lawn of the school gym captured behind them in the photograph. With the boys arms resting on the girls shoulders the three of them were frozen forever. A loving memory.
He flipped the picture over, a caption on the back read in Zane’s flowing handwriting ‘January 5, Sora, Danica, and Remus leave one of Danica’s games. Dan got the game ball.’ He remembered vaguely, at seeing his neat scrawl on the back, that on more than one occasion Sora had scolded him for writing ‘like a girl’. Zane smirked, his expression tight, the memories were painful. He sighed, flipping the wallet closed again and slipping it back into his pocket. He looked at his watch, just a few minutes left. He pulled the collar of his jacket against his neck and stood straight, stretching his back from leaning against the wall. He turned and opened the office door, stepped inside and heard the bell sound out in the hall as he stepped across the office to the desk of one of the secretaries. The secretary dressed in a bright blue pant suit, smiled kindly at him and said in a bubbly voice, “Oh, hello there! You must be the new student, Mr. Riley, right?” Zane nodded slightly, caught off guard by her sing-song manners. “Good, good! I’m Mrs. Willsberry, the principal’s secretary. I’m so glad you could make it to your introduction day! I’ll let Mr. England, he’s the principal, know that you’re here!” Zane smiled, he could tell he was going to like this woman. “Thank you Mrs.Willsberry.” He said softly.
She held down a button on the console on her desk, and spoke into the speaker, telling Mr. England that the ‘new student is here!’ Mr. England replied with a quick and simple ‘Send him on in!’
The secretary turned to Zane and told him to ‘go on in!!!’
Zane smiled and turned to the big door marked Principal, and placing a hand on the knob, twisted it, and stepped inside. The small office was sparsely decorated. A few pictures of the man’s family, a couple teaching degrees, and a few gifts from students. The principal himself was sitting behind the polished dark wooded desk against the wall directly across from the door. The man behind the desk had quite an expressionless face, though he didn’t appear to be cold. “Hello Mr. Riley.” He said softly. Zane nodded respectfully, a soft hello escaping his lips. The man intimidated him, he was nervous. He though back to the times he was with Remus, how the two of them used to play a game where they would match the emotions of the people around them, exaggerating the mood so they would make whoever they were imitating to lighten up. He wanted to try the trick on the principal, but decided such a respected man shouldn’t be tested. He and Remus had used their talent to protect themselves from their schools population of know-it-all bullies, adjusting their moods to become placid and calm, unnerving the prospecting bully and backing them down with no blows shared. The two of them didn’t believe in violence. Zane and his friend had helped many of his old schools ‘weak and weird’ by using their trick. Because of this, they had had many friends, or at least acquaintances, throughout the entire school; except for that special few who chose to have nothing to do with the two friendly guys who possessed the ‘Quiet Charm’, and their group.
Well, sit down son! Don’t just stand there starring!” Mr. England smiled. Zane felt the corners of his mouth curl up slightly in a soft smile; he sat at Mr. England’s gesture in the chair opposite the desk. Zane relaxed, and became a bit friendlier. “Today, you will just be attending the last half of the school day, just so you can get used to your peers. I’ve taken the care to get a couple guides for you, you can head down to the cafeteria after this, and they’ll meet you there.” Zane frowned, “How will I know who they are?” Mr. England smiled, “They know you’re coming, you’ll know who they are immediately. They make quite a show of making sure new people are welcomed.” Zane nodded a bit confused, but understanding nonetheless. “You can collect your textbooks and locker combination as you exit the office,” Mr. England started. “I hope you enjoy it here at New Point.” Zane stood, smiling, “I think I like it already.” Mr. England nodded.
Zane headed out to the front office, met Mrs. Willsberry again, who gave him his locker number, 109, and his combination, as well as a heavy stack of advanced class textbooks. He gathered up the new items, and headed out to find his locker, to drop off his books, and begin his new school life.
He paused before the high oak double doors to the cafeteria. He could hear the random bits and pieces of conversation, pitiful gasps of corny jokes, the latest bits of gossip .He sighed, able to become friends with the principal on his first day and these minor conversations which were not his intimidated him. He placed his hand on the door and cleared his mind of any apprehension, ’They can sense fear’ he thought humorously. Allowing himself a nervous shiver as he pushed the doors open, he thought quietly, ’Whatever lies ahead…no more defenses…Just me…just me’.
A rush of noise.
Overwhelming.

 

[ContagiousPaige]

Reese jumped from his chair with a reckless abandon in his eyes. He loved new students. He found it his self-appointed job to greet them first, but his overwhelming love for these unsuspecting victim-cough-students could be quite unnerving. Astonishingly Reese found himself overtaken, looking at the back of Seth’s Balto shirt and the mess of his tow-colored hair. Seth reached the boy before he did, and stretched out his hand before him, disregarding the look of shock on the boys face. Danni and Reese followed shortly, surprised at Seth’s energy, normally he was the calm one. They began to question the true amount of cookies he’d consumed over the lunch period.
Reese placed a hand on Seth’s shoulder as he began to banter about how ‘awesome it was to have another new student in New Point’. “Easy Killer…” Reese laughed softly. Seth stopped, shocked at his behavior, he glanced at Reese as if he had four heads and then stepped back, calm once again, collected. He shifted his eyes to the alarmed student apologetically, “ I’m not normally like this,” he started. “ I’ve consumed a bit more than my normal amount of sugar…kind of makes me hyper. Sorry.” Danni came forward, “I’m Danni Clements.” She said politely, still astounded at Seth. Zane took her hand gently, slightly surprised at how strong she was, though she didn’t look it. As she dropped back the second boy of the trio, Reese stepped up, extending his hand he smiled, “ Reese,” he offered.
“Reese Taylor.”
“It’s nice to meet all of you.” Zane replied, still trying to take it all in, he hadn’t expected such a warm welcome, in all honesty, it kind of unnerved him. He still had Reese’ hand and he noticed the boys’ odd expression. If he could have read the thoughts going through his head at the moment Zane would have received astonishment, Reese had though he was strong, but merely shaking the new boys hand he felt overpowered. Stranger yet, Zane didn’t give off the appearance of such strength.
Zane dropped Reese’ hand quickly, “I’m Zane, by the way.” he said smiling shyly. The attention was really getting to him, he just hoped it would be over with soon so he could sit down, out of the center of attention.
Seth was the one who offered salvation, “C’mon guys, I don’t think he wants to just stand there and get stared at by the entire student body…” He took charge, leading them back to the table where their stuff was and commenced, with Reese’ help to describe the school, its students and their respective cliques. They explained, inadvertently talking over one another how their group wasn’t really a clique, but more of a drifters circle, they belonged everywhere but chose to be with each other, they just clicked best with themselves. Zane quickly noticed the fact that included within the drifters were the punks, and alternative crowd, though none of them were as out there as they’d been in his old school Zane could still pick ’em out of a crowd. It was then that he noticed that the three had a style leaning toward punk, or skater, subtly, but still there, even in there attitudes he noticed it. And he could feel himself relaxing, his worst fear was abandoned… he could fit in here. He smiled, a smile that marked more than just seeing an odd niche different people, but one that if interpreted could read volumes, the drifters brought back memories.
Steering the group into a section of seats Reese picked up the description, pointing out individuals and offering a selection of well based warnings, “That guy over there, the one with the stud through the cartilage in his ear?” he said pointing out another of the boys who gave of a skater vibe. “ His name is Elijah, cool kid, loves art, and can skate like… whoa! Ever seen someone land a hard flip off a twelve stair? He’s your guy.”
Danni joined, “ And that girl there,” she said pointing across the lunch hall to a pretty girl with curly hair and blue eyes. “Don’t let her look fool you, she’s a beast at guitar, let me tell you, her name is Sam.” As the trio offered direction and pointed out more people Zane finally had to slow it down, “ Whoa, overload… I think my brain is going to explode!” he laughed out easily. The trio smiled and agreed respectively.
“ Imagine that…” Reese mumbled, motioning the event of someone’s’ head exploding.
“Gross…” Danni scoffed. “C’mon, Lucky, you’ve got Math with Seth and I next. My England gave us the heads up.”
“Lucky?” Zane frowned questioningly.
“You didn’t have the homework.” Seth grimaced.

 

[ContagiousPaige]

“Uhhh… that totally flew straight over my head.” Danni muttered staring blankly at her notes after a particularly long math rant by the teacher, Mrs. O’Connell. She sighed, “You understand this miss Clements, you have a high B in this class, you ace your homework assignments,”
“But that just flew straight over my head…”
“Danni, I’m not going to fall for one of your tricks today.”
“No, I am dead serious. In order to calculate this equation you have to take the recipracal and then divide?”
Mrs. O’Connell smiled, “ Yes Danni, I told you that you understand the subject!”
The bell rang. Zane stood warily, checking his schedule and wondering if he’d be able to find his way around easily enough. He needn’t have worried though, he discovered that one of either Danni, Reese or Seth were in all of his classes and all he need do is tag along. It bother him at all, he felt comfortable with them , he felt like he’d already made himself a good set of friends, and he intended to keep this set. After school, he said his goodbyes unwillingly, heading off to start his slow trek home. He’d understood most of the lessons being taught and felt very confident that he could catch up by the end of the week. He felt on top of the world, nothing could stop him. His first day and he had a good group with him, as far as he knew, no tricks, no lies, no fear. Even as a light September drizzle began to fall he spread his arms, breathing in the sharp scent of fall, turning his face up to the heavens and laughing. Life was good. The rain grew increasingly harder and Zane perfunctorily adapted a more suitable pose, gripping his arms to his chest to hold in the warmth being sucked viciously out of him by the cold mid-fall rain.
As he pushed the key into the door of the small, cozy, one story country house he shared with his mother he felt the warmth already returning, the prospect of walking in to a nice warm couch sent a pleasant thrill of gratefulness to his soul. He smiled at himself, only one day at school and already I’m too lazy to walk the hall to my room. Mmmmm… couch. He pushed the door open and stepped inside, dropping his bag by the door and kicking his vans to the corner he walked slowly, leisurely into the hallway.
“Mom,” he called, taking a few steps into the living room he continued, “I’m home!” It was then that he noticed the unusual volume of the T.V., much too loud, and cut to static. Stepping around the turn in the hallway from the kitchen into the living room he sighed.
“So much for a nice, warm couch.” he mumbled.
Crouching down in front of the occupied couch he winced at the smell, one all too familiar by now, it came hand in hand with a scenario he’d repeated countless number of times since his father had left he and his mother alone when he was ten. He removed the television remote gently from his mothers’ hand and turned the volume down on the T.V. before turning it off. He then placed it gently on the table and pulled the blanket off the back of the couch, covering his unconscious mother carefully, tucking it in around her shoulders. He stood coolly, barely even stopping to glance at the bottles he picked up off the coffee table walking resolutely into the kitchen and dumping the remaining amounts of the vile alcohol into the sink. Checking on his mother one last time he went back to the door to grab his bag and trudged down the hall to his room. Collapsing with a sigh onto his bed he pulled a small notebook from between his mattress and box spring and flipped to a blank page marked with another picture of his old friends, this time at their middle school graduation. They were younger, but easily comparable to newer pictures. He recorded in his neat handwriting the days events, how happy he was to have made friends, his hopes for this school… his hopes for his mother. Once drained he rolled over, turning the lamp on his bedside table off and curled up still fully clothed, too lazy at that moment to change. He turned to his back, sprawled out and staring at the ceiling, and he thought.
He normally tired to avoid thinking, with thinking came memories… and memories were bad. He wrapped his arms tightly across his chest, feeling the rough skin on his left upper arm. More reminders.
With thought came pain and pain caused irreversible things, things he’d rather not ponder on. He was beyond those things now. And he’d never go back. No matter how bad things had gotten he’d never go back. But it hadn’t always been like this, Zane remembered a time, before the fights, before the divorce… before the accident… when things had been good. When he and his mother and father were together, when he’d have Danica over with Remus and Sora and they’d just hang out, have a good time. Do teenager crap. His mom cooked a lot, she loved to be in the kitchen, always making something and refusing to let any of Zane’s friends leave without eating something. But then his dad had to ruin it, have an affair and leave Zane and his mother alone, and defenseless. It had put Zane’s mother over the deep end, and though she’d tried, she just couldn’t hold it together. She’d fallen apart, and left Zane on the brink when he’d needed her most. He’d lost it as well for awhile, especially after the accident, and event he tried desperately to keep from his mind. The most painful memory he had, and for some reason the only one that tried to remain dominant in his head. He closed his eyes trying desperately to block out his mental turmoil and slowly drifted off to sleep , grateful he had school to distract him for the rest of the week.

 

[ContagiousPaige]

I split it up by actual Day or time splits...
On my computer it's so much prettier...
It's got a back ground and pics to go with the Chars.
I like dressing my stories up, gies me more incentive to go back and type them...
I've still got over 100 pages to type and I'm not even done writing either...
Hopefeully I'll get more done over the summer, star closing it up...

Then maybe send it off to an editor, it's pretty okay so far...
What do you all think?

 

[ListenerFriendly]

Well, finally I got to it... I loaded it the last time I was on the internet (a week ago ) and read what you have posted. And let me say, it is an interesting read. What I found especially stunning about it is how realistic the characters are, how they can seemingly step off the page. To the depth you go into exploring a particular scene is something modern writing has often abandoned, and I enjoy how you marry that descriptive quality with the effortless, modern English prose you write in. How the plot flows smoothly about the depictions of time and place makes this an enjoyable and also interesting story. So you've baited the hook... I bit and now I want more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ROCK ON

 

[ContagiousPaige]

Hey, I'm postin gas fast as I can type tangible amounts...

Whichc isn't very quickly ><

I'm writting much more than I can type, it's quite pathetic really.

lol
<3