Grey Eyed Vigilance - A Short Story (Chapter 1) - (Action Short Story/Miscellaneous)

Prologue

* On the day of his birthday 11 year old Ashton, goes missing in the midst of a freak accident but not before drawing a picture of it. On the 3rd anniversary of his disappearance his sister, Octavia Goldsburg wakes up with a startle to find a picture of her killing herself. She dozes off once again, as she  wakes back up she is in a dark room. *

“Can you shut up!” I rolled over to the other side of my way-to-comfy bed onto my stomach. Holding my hands together with my elbows out making a skin felt pillow. “I am trying to get a little sleep here it’s like 6 am!”
“Tavia it’s noon. Get up please, you need to watch your sister while we go into town.” She yelled from downstairs not realizing I could hear her talking so it echoed loudly of the walls.
“I’m seventeen but she’s fourteen and almost fifteen mother, obviously she's fine. Not a baby anymore! Go!” I reached out my hand in an awkward position, slapping my hand all over the bed to find a pillow. When I finally found it I lifted my head briefly to grab it with the other hand and slam it down softly on the top of my head. “F” I assertively stated in a muffled voice range. Showing just how smart I am, leaving me with a pounding from my head.
“Hey! Watch your language I did nothing to give you a reason to speak that way.” She sounded stern enough for me to realize she was serious as my dad said something cautiously yet to quiet for me to hear. “When are you going to learn some damn respect! We will be back in a few hours. Get up!’
How the hell did she hear that? I do have respect but I just woke up idiot. I threw the pillow off my head a spun around to sit up but then was to lazy to do anything so I dropped my arms above my head to either side. a stared at my ceiling. “Whatever!” I screamed but I had then heard the screen door shut, followed by a thud of the door and a little latch. I was actually a little happy they escaped me saying that, I wasn’t looking for another lecture.
I thumped onto the ground fixing my tank top quietly stomping in my slippers to my vanity to look in my mirror. The girl looking back at me was in a tank top too big to hold to her shoulders alone. About 160 pounds with curves at the top as well as the bottom yet proportioned enough for me to look thin. Ratted messy bun with bangs dangling down lazily covering my right eye. My lips sit full in perfect proportion. My cheekbones on fleek and my eyes big and beautiful. Around my pupils shined a grey with squiggles of violet purple. My mother calls me unique, she’s never seen anything like it. They are my best feature and always have been.
After a brief moment I roll my eyes and head down the stairs to reach the bathroom with ripped up wallpaper covering its stained walls. As I washed my hands I ended up with my hands just sitting under hot water in the same spot as I zoned onto the crayon scribbles meant to be covered. My mother likes to rip down it’s cover sheet, made of barley sticky wallpaper from the second hand store.
I turned squeaked off the water faucet and turned pushing aside the door made of sheet out of the way. When I got the the kitchen I grabbed the “Mary’s Berries” cereal off the counter. I opened it and of course- My sister only left a few pieces of the actual cereal and millions of crumbs from how many times it's been thrown around.
I alway seem to think of people who have it worse than me. My life has a lot of shit but it’s mostly just middle class family problems. Well I lied, I used to. When my little brothers last birthday happened about a year and a half ago now. That was the worst day of my families lives, no doubt about it.
I mean the day started off good, my sister and me were hella close. We decided to make my brother breakfast, a special one. We got his favorite foods. Chocolaty Cereal, strawberries, and dinosaur shaped chicken bites. He was so excited with a warming smile. That was his best feature, little bright white smile- missing his left front tooth. Blonde hair sat on his 7 year old intelligent head. Only one (even out of our parents) with light hair. He was an odd kid with his drawings. I mean everyone thought he was weird but he was talented. Always said these ‘visions’ he saw made him need to take it to the crayons. So it didn’t matter where it was, as long as he got the picture down. Got in trouble a few times for how graphic some were or telling the teachers that they were all going to die if it weren’t for those pictures, to them he was wrong.
‘Yet I knew as I walked in his room. Even just the blur of the picture made my food settle to the ground.
He was right.

On days like this I find it so hard to fathom how others can relax. You have the people screaming down below, the heat weighing you down. But that’s what everyone says, that this time of the year is for doing exactly that. I just moved here it Malaysia about two and a half to three years ago, it’s not bad I just didn’t realize how big of a tourist town it was. My neighborhood was quite small usually until they put in some attractions and hotels. You had Mr.Rossen who was the grocery store and gas station owner, he’s brought me many housewarming gifts. Then you have Mrs. Smith who is may I say just the sweet old thing. She has trouble walking quite often I sometimes give her a hand and she isn’t shy to invite me over for some coffee and wise words. I’ve decided I’m going out tonight, for the first time in a week. You may think that’s weird but if you didn’t have any friends other than a store owner and old woman. I’m sure you would understand it’s not that hard to stick it out solo. Now I’m not exactly sure where I’m going to go it will depend on my mood later, it’s tends to change with time throughout the day. Sometimes I’ll feel like breaking into a zoo, walking along the beach to look at the stars, get risky at a casino or get scandalous at a strip club. I’ve been offered a job at one once, I’m a very attractive young woman.Ya know I might haven’t taken up if I didn’t already make enough money. I live in a very open but totally retro condo in Toronto. I get paid for helping the police station.

My name is Octavia, I am part of The Retaliation Project I was asked to join back home and tag along to a different country after I started to change more and more and it was getting too obvious. I was working as an underground Rebel before I left because with what I can do it was an easy way of helping my parents out with some extra cash. Though I was young and naive thinking I could just abuse my power fighting people and doing all these crazy things that made me think I was all powerful. In the big picture I didn’t even have the strength to defeat myself, or rather the demons within me. On the outside I had been transformed over time with more beauty and more and more. I’m like 99.9% sure my whole body runs on metabolism now-a-days. I used to be kind of self conscious and my baby brother helped me by comforting me, reminding me that I was beautiful. That cheesy smile is something I couldn’t even think of never seeing again. I miss my parents so much but I am forbidden to see them. Personally banned myself from seeing them, I’m not the little girl they knew anymore I’d be shamed. I will find him, and until my last breath I will search for him. If anyone deserves to live it’s him, his mind is so rare and beautiful. Shit this just reminded me that tomorrow is Ashtons anniversary and that’s when I will go underground to find him. I let myself fall into a deep and dreamless sleep. It was a picture of me drawn in crayon, I was in my old bed; and I had killed myself. I tried to shake it off, but I couldn’t so I just started until I finally dozed off.

The next thing I knew I woke up on cement. This has happened before many time before, I’ll black out and be in really fucked up situations. I first tried to figure out what was going on, when I looked up I realized I had jumped down the the entrance of an underground tunnel. This is the one that leads me to the place I last got a hint of Ashton being around. But why would I jump? Just then I heard a group of feet running and that was my answer. All of a sudden Behind me Mr.Rossen had jumped 20 feet and landed right behind me. That means that I’m not the only special one here, next was sweet little old Mrs.Anderson. What the actual fuck? Is this seriously happening right now?. I was so shocked I almost couldn’t move my feet but I had to. I used all my strength to kick off and the rest was natural. I kept running for miles and miles, they followed me miles and miles. But soon I actually started getting tired, I like NEVER get tired. They had to have been doing something to me, there is no way. Keep moving. Breathe. Now run, run dammit, run! They were closing in around me one by one flooding the atmosphere with their musty wine smell. The blurred underground tunnels racing at either side of me. Every one of my echoing breaths where completely hidden from human sight, well other than these bastards. I couldn’t help but look back, which impaired my running making me stumble each time. At the same time my lungs were burning. Be strong. Run Octavia, run.
Their feet were like thunder cracking behind me with every step, a puddle here and there. Roaring off the dome of cement, the look of tattered canvas. In about 3 miles there is a exit rounding to a ladder leading to ongoing traffic rolling above. 6,600 strides. Left to a metal ladder of 52 steps. Then finally the soft breeze of summer air. As I rounded the corner I tilted my body for a steady turn. Then in the addrenalling and focus on being this close, I heard a snap. I had suddenly stopped mid step. Then as I felt water dripping down my nose slipping to my lower lip. I then felt to sharp pain of the wall’s damage to my now pulsing nose. I stopped racing in my head and stuck my forefinger to the dripping mucus water. I looked slowly as though I were going to combust if I moved to fast. Well that's more red than your average water. I blinked once and saw white specks intruding my vision. Then I whipped around my head back to where I came from and they were speeding towards me one by one single file. Then my shoulders went limp as my head felt bouldering weight. They slowly painted white. Slowly showing bright white as I fell blinded. As they tackled me I couldn’t see around me. Falling straight to me knees. Then the last thing I felt was my hair getting a warm breeze. Then a blunt pain sending me into a deep sleep.

Once I woke up I was in a dark room, Laying down on a pillow top mattress for the first time in years. I took in a big breath of air and it didn’t take me a minute after that to realize; this is me old room. This is impossible here is a candle lit and no sun to shine though the window. After she looks around she cries with confusion. Then a hand touches her back and a familiar voice spoke, but it wasn’t until they finished speaking that she knew who it was.  “Don’t be scared or confused anymore Octavia, you have all the answers now. I tried to warn you with the sketch that you needed to stay so you wouldn’t lose it all, but you did it anyways,” She slowly turns around in disbelief; to find the slightly more matured face of her missing brother, “you’re safe now, here with me.

He slowly started walking to the other side of the room lighting each candle along the way“That bed is were you died and were you crossed over the first time, so that's where you cross over in every dimension you enter. I was new here so I had no power, I had no way to help you. They were so much stronger than me it was not competition for them to pull you to there side. To put you in a utopia after hurting yourself. The people were meant to keep here there, let her slowly self destruct over and over. But you never went out to find heartbreak, you never let go of your strength. You’re tougher than they thought. I’ve pulled you to the other side, a world were only I - and now you- exist.”

“I don’t understand completely. So you’re stuck here? How do we get back home?” I was trying to understand what he meant by me having hurt myself. I don’t doubt that I wasn’t sure why I was changing, or separate me from my parents. “I chose to go there because I was slowly changing into someone they would despise, I had to leave home. It was the right thing to do and that way I could find you.”

“Yes you were changing but that's because you….. You’re already gone Octavia. But it was them who made you think mom and dad wouldn’t love you and that you should just run as far as you can. Normal people can’t just walk onto a Plane to Southern China and get away with it Tavia. Of course they would love you they always will and always have. That’s why they are heart broken you were, well that you are gone.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing or what I was seeing, his voice was growing with time but much faster. Like he grew at super speed until he was a teenager, no longer a child. He looked at me with disparity and pain. Then he looked back up to speak again but as he spoke you could hear the hesitation with every word. “They are in trouble Octavia, I’ve changed too. I know the layout of the world and I never get weak, there’s so much more just like you. I get that too because when we cross over we get a strength a strength that those people who took you either need to work with them or make sure that nobody else gets it. They want our family Octavia.”

We went into the living room where family pictures still stood in their frames. Ashton kept telling me how he was incredibly lonely he tried to reach me but couldn’t. Not until I got closer after that chase down I had with the not so friendly neighbors of mine. Then Ashton grabbed my hand.

“There’s something wrong,” He pulled me in closer and walked with my over to the living room door. It was then that the ground began to tremble and rattle beneath us. Then I could see from across the room that our family pictures were beginning to fall, then their frames shattering to a million pieces. And then I got knocked over by gravity and hit my head, I could feel it throb one second, I watched Ashton fall beside me and then I passed out. When I woke up the first this I could notice was the light, the bright sun shining outside into the windows. But this time I was still at my old house and the family pictures sat beautifully again. I turned around and sure enough, grown up Ashton looked up from the ground.

We shot our heads back so quick when we heard a female voice coming from the top of the staircase in the other room. “I’m almost 18 mother I’m sure I’ll survive, you have to get me some freedom. I need it!”

“Hunny, you can’t expect us to be okay with you going hours and hours away from home when you look at what has happened so far. Please just give it a rest.” The woman's voice was timid, there was know way we could miss who that was, it was mom.

Ashton went first and I followed we bolted for the staircase, they were gone. I could see the tears welling in Ash’s eyes. His tears dropped and were wiped away when we heard mothers voice again, this time in the kitchen. “I’m in here hunny, please hurry.”

“We’re coming mom!” I belted out so she would hear, she wouldn’t run away this time. We both ran, blinded by our own tears. When we got to the kitchen door We saw her and her beautiful eyes and smooth complexion. She had a new haircut though, it used to be long auburn and permed into soft waves. Now she had it short and curled just like Annie which was always our favorite movie. But she didn’t even look at us. “Mom?” I got closer and put my hand on her shoulder. I looked at what she was looking at. She had no expression no tears just pain. It was a memorial pamphlet for me? Holy shit. I actually had committed suicide. I can’t beleive this is happening.

Then she turned away scratching her shoulder “I told you to please hurry Tom we’re going to be late.”

“Donna, I’m sorry I just couldn’t find my watch for the life of me.” He sounded so serene, I was used to my dad cracking jokes or even whistle a little bit. I ran up to him, right in front of him where my eyes met his chin. My tears were just falling and falling. I was right in front of him and I was invisible to them. He then put up his finger and pointed “I found it on your dresser.” He then smiled a weak smile. Unlike his finger pointed at me, his eyes were looking straight through me.

Then they were carried away by wind, as if it were just an illusion that broke apart and blew way in a puff of smoke. They were gone once again.

“When we are on the human plain there time passes quicker than ours.” Ash sounded sad but like he could handle it better than me. But then we both heard a scream and darted up the stairs at top speed.

It was coming from my little sister Katy’s room. When we went inside I just wanted to grab her tell her it would be okay. She was throwing things, tears were smothered across her face, and scratches across her arms. She had gone mad and I wasn’t sure why. Then she went over to a picture of us three siblings on our trip to six flags. She held it close and walked over to the be, go on and curled up in a ball. Then she turned into dust and came back across the room in a the corner, she had broke the photo of all of us. She had a piece of glass.

“Ashton we have to do something! We have to get mom and dad!” I was screaming in his face but he was completely unphased but a tear still fell.

“We can’t do anything! This is how it is, we have no way to help her!” He sat down beside her as we watched the life slowly drain from her body. When she was gone she disappeared in the wind. As soon as she was gone the ground began to tremble and shake just like last time. And just like last time it threw us around like rag dolls, but this time we were so distraught we didn’t fight it. We had gone back to Ashton’s plain right there in Katy’s room. We sat criss-cross on the ground waiting and waiting.

“We are too strong for her not to cross over here right?” I asked insistently

“Of course we are I don’t understand what went wrong.” He was thinking hard and I knew that he knew he was missing something. Then he got it I could see.

“What?! What was it, was it those people who want her.” I started to tear up again.

“Of course not, we are way more….. Wait,” He looked fooled and ashamed “You and I stayed with her until her heart stopped. We would be strong than them unless we weren’t here for the cross-over.”

She’s gone, they’ve taken her and their going for mom and dad next.