REVENGE
10 April 2008, 08:19 PM
And As The Blood Begins To Stain...
By Lindsey
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I got bored and decided to use the pong icon for those of you wondering. ;P This is the story in which some of you may take part in, and hopefully it will be fun to read knowing that some of your friends or yourself are included within the text. PLEASE DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED BY THE SIZE - don't act is if a little reading might hurt you, you may find that you'll like it. If I make any mistakes of your appearance, please forgive me; I'm doing my best. :] With that, let us begin.
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Chapter 1 - Page 1
Chapter 2 - Page 1
Chapter 3 - Page 2
Chapter 4 - Page 2
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------
Starring (In order of appearance):
Ziek
Snoopy4life
Dannyboy
Cras777
TnT
(Will be updated as story progresses)
------
Chapter 1
Nothing makes sense anymore, not without you here with me…
The sun cut lightly through the trees and cast shadows around Lauren as tears snuck down the sides of her face, sometimes dropping lightly onto her clothes or the forest floor. Even though the accident had happened two months prior, she was still feeling the hollow sting in her heart that reminded her that her hero was gone – the shoulder that she’d always had to lean on had faded away forever. There, in the forest where she sat sobbing quietly, was where she’d spread the ashes a month or so ago when she’d started to college and had been unable to keep them with her in her dorm room.
Before that point, she’d been hanging onto the last comfort of her mother that she’d thought she had left. After a terrible day at work or school, she would come home and sit on the couch with tears shining upon her frail face, looking up at the jar on the mantel in front of her that held the shoulder she’d leaned on, that held the face she’d loved so dearly. They’d gotten into plenty of fights, just like any other mother-daughter duo – but unlike some, they still loved each other through everything. They had to – it was what kept them sane. Neither of them had really gone to extremes to keep in touch with Lauren’s father after he’d left, and neither of them had had anyone else to trust enough to lean on. They’d gotten hurt too many times to be trustworthy, and after the loss of her mother, Lauren became even more untrustworthy of people.
After finally finishing out the last couple of weeks of high school, however, Lauren had gotten a fully paid scholarship to Rickwood University – just as her mother had wanted. This was also extremely fortunate considering that if Lauren had wanted to go to college without it, there would’ve been no mother to help pay off student loans afterwards. But even the fact that she wouldn’t have to work mowing the campus lawns or painting dorm rooms to pay for schooling couldn’t take away the sharp pain in her heart – soothed it, maybe, but it wasn’t enough relief to drench it completely.
There had been no money for a funeral, only cremation; Lauren’s father, Mike, had agreed to pay for it. That too, had been a blessing. She’d worried about that at first as well, wondering how she would possibly afford to do anything at all for her mother, even a simple cremation. Apparently Mike still had just enough love for his daughter to help her out in that regard, though when the divorce had gone through he hadn’t wanted to see her every other weekend as was suggested. Luckily, it was worked out so that she was able to avoid that; child support was the only thing he’d had to worry about, and after she’d turned 18, he hadn’t even had to worry about that. Perhaps that was why he’d paid in full for the cremation; he felt a bit guilty for having nothing else to do. Lauren doubted he cared enough to be guilty, but it was a nice thought in the least.
She’d chosen the forest to spread the ashes mostly because of a form of greed; no one had wanted anything to do with her mother, Rebecca, when she’d been breathing so why would they have the honor of knowing where she was in death? The forest Lauren had found was a random one that she’d found in a series of woodland area, only about an hour away from the college she attended. She’d driven randomly down the highway the Sunday before classes started, turning down the dirt roads that weren’t gated. She’d come to several houses before finally finding one trail that simply led into the forest which was unnamed, save for a series of numbers, and had spread the ashes several yards to the right of the trail as the sun set. Lauren had marked this spot by tying a red ribbon on a branch of a tree that hung down where she’d gone off the trail, and tying a second just like it around the branch of a tree where she’d spread the ashes themselves.
That was where she sat now, tears rolling silently down her face as she stared into the setting sun. Painful memories seemed to arise everywhere, even during classes – driving to the spot where she sat staring into the sun had become a daily routine, save for the days where she had night classes or when she had to work late on the weekends. Nearly all of the money she made working in Barnes & Noble went strictly to gas for her silver Volkswagen Beetle and the car payment that went with it – she hardly ever bought food or drink for herself.
Most of the time, her roommate and friend Anna Webb was the only reason she ate anything. Lauren would follow Anna to the food court sometimes between classes, and most of the time Anna wouldn’t let her leave without eating something. Generally, she even bought it for her which Lauren couldn’t thank her enough for – the fact of the matter was that she didn’t have the money to eat anything when driving to the forest every evening, and she’d subconsciously decided that it was worth starving for. It was the only form of comfort she had left to cling to.
My heart is becoming as flexible as glass; what happened to talking to my friends? Soccer? Why don’t I gossip with Anna like a normal 19-year-old?
Lauren asked herself these questions often, but she never bothered to answer them in return. The answer was obvious, but it still felt slightly reassuring to ask the questions all the same. It made her feel like she still had her inner sanity, made her feel like she might actually be able to branch out again and do those things in time; but she knew better. Her heart was like glass now, overly fragile and hard. She’d lost her shoulder to lean on; she’d lost the face that kept it soft and beating.
When Lauren had been planning for college, she’d wanted to be a creative writing major and had been incredibly enthusiastic about it; now, she struggled through all of her classes and was barely able to turn in her work on time, which was very unlike her.
What happened to looking on the bright side of things? What happened to your benevolent attitude?
She normally despised hugs, but for the last month she’d wanted nothing more than one last hug from a person who would never be able to give her what she longed for. A person that was gone… a woman who had been stronger than any other person her daughter had ever witnessed to. An everlasting friend that had faded away without warning, leaving only a sunset behind for comfort. Everything’s alright, she would’ve told her daughter. Everything always works out in the end, I promise. Yet as Lauren sat on the forest floor, blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and her bluish-green eyes staring almost unendingly into the sunset, she doubted that everything would be fine and work out for the first time in her life.
I want to be strong like you, so strong… but I can’t. Not without you here to guide me… I keep breathing just to watch everything go by.
“Beautiful isn’t it?”
Lauren turned, startled, to see a young man standing behind her with a slight smile on his face. He had long dark hair that was pulled into a short ponytail, and behind his glasses were eyes of deep hazel. He looked to be about the same age as Lauren, maybe a year older, and was staring almost longingly into the sunset, as if he wished to be somewhere far away against the horizon.
“What… what are you doing here?” Lauren asked as she began breathing steadily again.
“I could ask you the same thing.” He replied, not lifting his gaze from the sun.
“You could… but-“
“But I’m not going to.” He smiled, and for the first time, looked Lauren in the eyes. “Stop looking as though I’m going to attack you – I only came to look at the sunset in a more… beautiful environment. It isn’t the same looking at it through the dorm room windows at Rickwood.”
“You go to Rickwood?” For some reason it didn’t surprise Lauren that she hadn’t noticed him before; it was a medium sized college campus, and she’d become a very drawn back person. She hardly noticed anyone at all; save for Anna and the teachers – sometimes, she had to remind herself to even notice those people, much less the strangers who circled around her on a daily basis.
“Yes… otherwise I suppose it would be a bit odd to be complaining about their window view, don’t you think?” He continued smiling, as if he knew a joke that she did not. Lauren turned away from him, resting her chin on her hand as she started to stare blankly into the sun until he left; unfortunately, this stranger wasn’t of that nature.
“Hmm. Well, since you don’t seem to want to introduce yourself, I’ll do the honors… I’m Danny.” He held out a hand to Lauren’s back, and after a few seconds, put it back down again. “Are you always so anti-social or am I just overly friendly?”
Lauren sighed, and upon seeing that he wasn’t going to leave, turned back to face him again. “A bit of both, I suppose. I’m Lauren.” She held out her hand, and Danny took it happily in a handshake.
“This is more like it. Now, I’m assuming you go to Rickwood as well? Otherwise, I suppose you wouldn’t have had interest in my attending there.”
“Yeah… I guess you could say I go there. I’m not as … ambitious as I thought I would be about my classes though.” Lauren diverted her eyes to the forest floor uneasily.
“Well, sometimes the first year isn’t the easiest. My first year was hell.” From the way that his tone dropped drastically as he said this, Lauren thought for a moment that something even more tragic than the loss of her mother must’ve happened; yet his voice bounced back as he spoke again. “Everything will be fine, though. Everything always works out in the end.”
“What did you say?” Her voice sounded almost offended, angry even.
“Just that… everything would be fine? Did I say something wrong?” A slight hurt expression crossed Danny’s face.
“No… no, sorry. Just… reminded me of someone.”
They both paused for a moment, and then Danny spoke hesitantly.
“Do you mind if I have a seat? Just to watch the very last of the sun.”
Lauren looked to the sunset and saw that the last rays of the sun were almost gone completely from the sky.
“No, I… I don’t mind.”
As Danny sat down, he began speaking again, talking of everything between what classes she was taking to what her favorite foods were. He never mentioned that he had come to Lauren’s place of tranquility by turning off the path at the red ribbon, why he had been in the forest just to watch the sun set in the first place, nor the fact that he had been standing behind her for nearly twenty minutes, just standing there watching her, before introducing himself. He never mentioned any of this, and Lauren never had the mind to ask – perhaps that would’ve made all the difference of what was to come. Perhaps it would’ve saved lives, perhaps it would’ve eliminated the possibility of friendship between them – but it didn’t. Unknowingly, Lauren was now on the pathway to destruction, and all because she had spoken to the strange male who had seemed so harmless.
Her fate was now intertwined within something that no human had ever lived to escape – and she had not the faintest idea of what now awaited her.
By Lindsey
------
I got bored and decided to use the pong icon for those of you wondering. ;P This is the story in which some of you may take part in, and hopefully it will be fun to read knowing that some of your friends or yourself are included within the text. PLEASE DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED BY THE SIZE - don't act is if a little reading might hurt you, you may find that you'll like it. If I make any mistakes of your appearance, please forgive me; I'm doing my best. :] With that, let us begin.
------
Chapter 1 - Page 1
Chapter 2 - Page 1
Chapter 3 - Page 2
Chapter 4 - Page 2
------
------
Starring (In order of appearance):
Ziek
Snoopy4life
Dannyboy
Cras777
TnT
(Will be updated as story progresses)
------
Chapter 1
Nothing makes sense anymore, not without you here with me…
The sun cut lightly through the trees and cast shadows around Lauren as tears snuck down the sides of her face, sometimes dropping lightly onto her clothes or the forest floor. Even though the accident had happened two months prior, she was still feeling the hollow sting in her heart that reminded her that her hero was gone – the shoulder that she’d always had to lean on had faded away forever. There, in the forest where she sat sobbing quietly, was where she’d spread the ashes a month or so ago when she’d started to college and had been unable to keep them with her in her dorm room.
Before that point, she’d been hanging onto the last comfort of her mother that she’d thought she had left. After a terrible day at work or school, she would come home and sit on the couch with tears shining upon her frail face, looking up at the jar on the mantel in front of her that held the shoulder she’d leaned on, that held the face she’d loved so dearly. They’d gotten into plenty of fights, just like any other mother-daughter duo – but unlike some, they still loved each other through everything. They had to – it was what kept them sane. Neither of them had really gone to extremes to keep in touch with Lauren’s father after he’d left, and neither of them had had anyone else to trust enough to lean on. They’d gotten hurt too many times to be trustworthy, and after the loss of her mother, Lauren became even more untrustworthy of people.
After finally finishing out the last couple of weeks of high school, however, Lauren had gotten a fully paid scholarship to Rickwood University – just as her mother had wanted. This was also extremely fortunate considering that if Lauren had wanted to go to college without it, there would’ve been no mother to help pay off student loans afterwards. But even the fact that she wouldn’t have to work mowing the campus lawns or painting dorm rooms to pay for schooling couldn’t take away the sharp pain in her heart – soothed it, maybe, but it wasn’t enough relief to drench it completely.
There had been no money for a funeral, only cremation; Lauren’s father, Mike, had agreed to pay for it. That too, had been a blessing. She’d worried about that at first as well, wondering how she would possibly afford to do anything at all for her mother, even a simple cremation. Apparently Mike still had just enough love for his daughter to help her out in that regard, though when the divorce had gone through he hadn’t wanted to see her every other weekend as was suggested. Luckily, it was worked out so that she was able to avoid that; child support was the only thing he’d had to worry about, and after she’d turned 18, he hadn’t even had to worry about that. Perhaps that was why he’d paid in full for the cremation; he felt a bit guilty for having nothing else to do. Lauren doubted he cared enough to be guilty, but it was a nice thought in the least.
She’d chosen the forest to spread the ashes mostly because of a form of greed; no one had wanted anything to do with her mother, Rebecca, when she’d been breathing so why would they have the honor of knowing where she was in death? The forest Lauren had found was a random one that she’d found in a series of woodland area, only about an hour away from the college she attended. She’d driven randomly down the highway the Sunday before classes started, turning down the dirt roads that weren’t gated. She’d come to several houses before finally finding one trail that simply led into the forest which was unnamed, save for a series of numbers, and had spread the ashes several yards to the right of the trail as the sun set. Lauren had marked this spot by tying a red ribbon on a branch of a tree that hung down where she’d gone off the trail, and tying a second just like it around the branch of a tree where she’d spread the ashes themselves.
That was where she sat now, tears rolling silently down her face as she stared into the setting sun. Painful memories seemed to arise everywhere, even during classes – driving to the spot where she sat staring into the sun had become a daily routine, save for the days where she had night classes or when she had to work late on the weekends. Nearly all of the money she made working in Barnes & Noble went strictly to gas for her silver Volkswagen Beetle and the car payment that went with it – she hardly ever bought food or drink for herself.
Most of the time, her roommate and friend Anna Webb was the only reason she ate anything. Lauren would follow Anna to the food court sometimes between classes, and most of the time Anna wouldn’t let her leave without eating something. Generally, she even bought it for her which Lauren couldn’t thank her enough for – the fact of the matter was that she didn’t have the money to eat anything when driving to the forest every evening, and she’d subconsciously decided that it was worth starving for. It was the only form of comfort she had left to cling to.
My heart is becoming as flexible as glass; what happened to talking to my friends? Soccer? Why don’t I gossip with Anna like a normal 19-year-old?
Lauren asked herself these questions often, but she never bothered to answer them in return. The answer was obvious, but it still felt slightly reassuring to ask the questions all the same. It made her feel like she still had her inner sanity, made her feel like she might actually be able to branch out again and do those things in time; but she knew better. Her heart was like glass now, overly fragile and hard. She’d lost her shoulder to lean on; she’d lost the face that kept it soft and beating.
When Lauren had been planning for college, she’d wanted to be a creative writing major and had been incredibly enthusiastic about it; now, she struggled through all of her classes and was barely able to turn in her work on time, which was very unlike her.
What happened to looking on the bright side of things? What happened to your benevolent attitude?
She normally despised hugs, but for the last month she’d wanted nothing more than one last hug from a person who would never be able to give her what she longed for. A person that was gone… a woman who had been stronger than any other person her daughter had ever witnessed to. An everlasting friend that had faded away without warning, leaving only a sunset behind for comfort. Everything’s alright, she would’ve told her daughter. Everything always works out in the end, I promise. Yet as Lauren sat on the forest floor, blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and her bluish-green eyes staring almost unendingly into the sunset, she doubted that everything would be fine and work out for the first time in her life.
I want to be strong like you, so strong… but I can’t. Not without you here to guide me… I keep breathing just to watch everything go by.
“Beautiful isn’t it?”
Lauren turned, startled, to see a young man standing behind her with a slight smile on his face. He had long dark hair that was pulled into a short ponytail, and behind his glasses were eyes of deep hazel. He looked to be about the same age as Lauren, maybe a year older, and was staring almost longingly into the sunset, as if he wished to be somewhere far away against the horizon.
“What… what are you doing here?” Lauren asked as she began breathing steadily again.
“I could ask you the same thing.” He replied, not lifting his gaze from the sun.
“You could… but-“
“But I’m not going to.” He smiled, and for the first time, looked Lauren in the eyes. “Stop looking as though I’m going to attack you – I only came to look at the sunset in a more… beautiful environment. It isn’t the same looking at it through the dorm room windows at Rickwood.”
“You go to Rickwood?” For some reason it didn’t surprise Lauren that she hadn’t noticed him before; it was a medium sized college campus, and she’d become a very drawn back person. She hardly noticed anyone at all; save for Anna and the teachers – sometimes, she had to remind herself to even notice those people, much less the strangers who circled around her on a daily basis.
“Yes… otherwise I suppose it would be a bit odd to be complaining about their window view, don’t you think?” He continued smiling, as if he knew a joke that she did not. Lauren turned away from him, resting her chin on her hand as she started to stare blankly into the sun until he left; unfortunately, this stranger wasn’t of that nature.
“Hmm. Well, since you don’t seem to want to introduce yourself, I’ll do the honors… I’m Danny.” He held out a hand to Lauren’s back, and after a few seconds, put it back down again. “Are you always so anti-social or am I just overly friendly?”
Lauren sighed, and upon seeing that he wasn’t going to leave, turned back to face him again. “A bit of both, I suppose. I’m Lauren.” She held out her hand, and Danny took it happily in a handshake.
“This is more like it. Now, I’m assuming you go to Rickwood as well? Otherwise, I suppose you wouldn’t have had interest in my attending there.”
“Yeah… I guess you could say I go there. I’m not as … ambitious as I thought I would be about my classes though.” Lauren diverted her eyes to the forest floor uneasily.
“Well, sometimes the first year isn’t the easiest. My first year was hell.” From the way that his tone dropped drastically as he said this, Lauren thought for a moment that something even more tragic than the loss of her mother must’ve happened; yet his voice bounced back as he spoke again. “Everything will be fine, though. Everything always works out in the end.”
“What did you say?” Her voice sounded almost offended, angry even.
“Just that… everything would be fine? Did I say something wrong?” A slight hurt expression crossed Danny’s face.
“No… no, sorry. Just… reminded me of someone.”
They both paused for a moment, and then Danny spoke hesitantly.
“Do you mind if I have a seat? Just to watch the very last of the sun.”
Lauren looked to the sunset and saw that the last rays of the sun were almost gone completely from the sky.
“No, I… I don’t mind.”
As Danny sat down, he began speaking again, talking of everything between what classes she was taking to what her favorite foods were. He never mentioned that he had come to Lauren’s place of tranquility by turning off the path at the red ribbon, why he had been in the forest just to watch the sun set in the first place, nor the fact that he had been standing behind her for nearly twenty minutes, just standing there watching her, before introducing himself. He never mentioned any of this, and Lauren never had the mind to ask – perhaps that would’ve made all the difference of what was to come. Perhaps it would’ve saved lives, perhaps it would’ve eliminated the possibility of friendship between them – but it didn’t. Unknowingly, Lauren was now on the pathway to destruction, and all because she had spoken to the strange male who had seemed so harmless.
Her fate was now intertwined within something that no human had ever lived to escape – and she had not the faintest idea of what now awaited her.