Chapter One: Down the Rapid Rabbit Hole

Chapter Rated: PG (Future chapters rated R so be careful if you don’t want to read that sort of thing)

Jordan was what most would call a couch potato. Before school, while he changed, he watched the television, after school, while he did homework, he watched TV. He watched it long into the nights, his favorite programs usually being ones with horror themes to them. Once he had been a happy boy with friends and an interest in sports. He had planned to make the football team and become famous, playing the sport for the Dallas Cowboys. Ever since his mother and father’s death though, he no longer saw the point.

He came to live with his aunt and uncle and the annoying dog spot the previous summer, right after the car accident that took his parents lives. Leaving his friends and school behind and loosing his parents had sent him into depression. Now he only found condolence in the television. No one at his school wanted to bother with him. Next year he would be starting his senior year without a friend to his name.

“No one wants a depressed busy body as a friend,” His Aunt Gina had told him after his first week of school at Tadmount High School.

“Buck up!” Uncle Ben said as he slapped Jordan harshly on the back.

After a few more weeks they were already tired of him and resorted to ignoring him and ducking out of the house to avoid his constant mood swings and bitterness. This was where the television came into play. With it, Jordan could forget all of his troubles as he was plunged into the world of make believe. Even infomercials seemed better then living his own life. Sometimes he would even skip school. His Aunt and Uncle didn’t care as long as Jordan would stay out of their hair.

It was close to midnight on a Friday night when Jordan decided to turn off the TV. He set the remote on the bedside table and let his body sink into the warmth of his bed. Rolling over, he tucked a pillow under his head and fell asleep.

Tally was babysitting her brother and sister again. It seemed as though she almost had no life due to her parents frequent visits to the bar that left the seventeen year old girl to take care of her younger siblings.

‘Face it,’ she thought to herself, ‘Even if you could, you wouldn’t go out. You enjoy being lonely... stuck at home feeling sorry for yourself.’

She was sitting in the big leather chair in the den of her home, reading a book while her brother and sister slept upstairs. The book was about a girl and pressures of high school. Her boyfriend was a vampire and his brother also wanted her. It was a good book, but with a sigh, Tally put in down, annoyed that she was spending another weekend at home.

Wallowing in self pity for really no reason, she set her book down on the arm of the seat and looked at the clock. It was only midnight. Her parents wouldn’t be home for at least an hour. Until then she would man the house and make sure Robby, her brother, and Sophie, her sister , were still alive when they returned.

She gave a small yawn, reclined the chair, closed her eyes and fell into a deep slumber.

Loraine was trashed by the time she stepped foot into her house. She spent the night out, getting drunk with her friends. The whole night was a blur to her. ‘Must’ve been a good night,’ she thought, but then vaguely remembered pushing a senior boy named Todd off of her.

She slammed the door shut in a rage and ran upstairs to her room where she fell onto her bed and cried. She need not worry about the possibility of her mother finding out she was late for curfew or that she was drunk because she was out getting trashed as well.

Loraine thought back to the nights when she would stay up for hours waiting for her mother to come home. Many times she would come home with a man. Always a different guy until she met Rodney. Rodney became Loraine’s step father and her mother’s husband until he went to jail for spousal abuse. But her mother wasn’t the only one being hurt. Every night Loraine was hurt mentally, and some nights Rod would come into her room and hurt her physically, doing things to her that she was even too young to know about.

Even when she told her mother, the woman would ignore her and say how it wasn’t possible. “Rod’s a good man. You just don’t want me to be happy.”

The memories that were being dredged up caused Lori to cry harder, pounding her fists against the pillow. They were just memories, but they were also parts of her life that she couldn’t get back. Parts of her life that scarred her forever.

Lori looked at the digital clock by her bed. It was midnight which meant she had a long time before her mother would come home. She would not wait up for her tonight. With that thought, she pulled the blankets around her and went to sleep.

Jordan woke up while it was still dark. He looked for his alarm clock in the pitch blackness of his room. Usually it was sitting on his desk, but now it was no where to be seen.

Even though he was fairly sure he had only been sleeping for a few minutes, it felt like he had slept a whole day. He wasn’t sure he would be able to fall back to sleep. He reached for the remote on the table beside his bed. The table wasn’t there.

“What the hell...?” He said out loud, feeling blindly around his bed on both sides. Where could it have gone?

Jordan sat up, swung his feet over the bed and went to stand. With no warning his bed tilted, pushing him off the edge. He expected the carpeted ground to come into contact with his body, but it never did. Instead he seemed to be either floating or falling. Which? He wasn’t sure. A feeling in his stomach, like a cramp, arouse. It caused him to bunch into a ball. In this position he could make out a red light far beneath him.

The light rushed closer as the pain in his stomach increased until he was sure he would faint. ‘Wake up!’ He told himself. ‘Please wake up!’

Tally had had some weird dreams, but this felt so vivid and different from a dream. As she gazed at the red light in fear she could hear heavy breathing to the side of herself. She dared not make a noise even though she wanted to cry out from the pain in her stomach.

There was no wind blowing against her that would be expected if one was falling, instead she felt nothing but the continuous stabbing in her abdominal muscles. The red light grew bigger and bigger, the breathing heavier and heavier. She was sure she was about to die.

Lori felt the impact of the hard red ground on her whole body. Her stomach no longer ached. Instead, every other inch of her body was buzzing with a pain that would not subside. She was paralyzed for a few minutes until the aching subsided.

She stood and looked around at the redness. She could make out a lump of something ahead of her. Actually, it was two lumps. The one moved slightly and stopped. It reminded her of a predator that was stalking it prey, trying not to scare it away. ‘Too late,’ she thought. ‘I’m already terrified.’

(Thanks for reading. I’m already done with the next few chapters, but I’ll post as I get reviews. This story is going to be headed in the rated R direction, soooo if you don’t want to read rated R please leave a review saying so. If I get a few reviews saying they don’t want rated R. I’ll make a PG version.)