This is the first story that i started solely to put on fanfiction. it's based on a dream i had one night, and i tried to put as much reality from my life into the story. The names aren't the same but they have a definite relation.

In home life, people will tell me i'm a good writer and stuff like that, but i don't always know if they're just biased. So, itll be good to have an outsiders opinion! :)

“Ready?” my impatient partner asked from outside my bathroom stall.

“Patience is a virtue,” I snarled back.

“We don’t have time to be virtuous, Danielle!” she shot back. And I could tell from her constantly moving shadow and the rhythmus beat of her tennis shoes across the tiled floor that Lou was pacing… and she was upset.

I flushed the toilet and stepped through the door to find a very nervous train wreck before me.

“The bus won’t leave without us!” I consoled her, “Pastor John does a head-check before he takes off.”

“I know,” she said before doing an antsy jig across the bathroom floor, “I have no clue why I’m so nervous!”

Lou sank into the metal couch with a couple cushions thrown across the top with her head in her hands. She shook her head causing her short, blonde hair to brush against her rosy cheeks.

“We’ll be fine,” I went on, “We always are. Am I right?”

“You’re right,” she agreed with a depressed sigh, “But why am I like this?”

I shrugged as I ran my slightly wet hands through my lengthy, brunette hair. I watched myself in the mirror as the fluorescent light danced across my blonde streaks.

“Maybe you’re having a psychotic breakdown,” I joked.

“Ha-ha,” she laughed robotically.

“Come on,” I invited while reaching for the door handle, “We’ve got a bus to catch.”

“Do you think visitation will go long?” she asked as she stepped through the door I held for her.

I rolled my eyes and did not reply. Visitation was the highlight of my awful week. For starters, a hefty gossip chain was circling about me having watched a horrible movie (in the school I was at, this was worse than clean-up duty), my boyfriend had dumped me for a full-blown nerd in Kansas, my favorite teacher was thinking about moving to North Carolina, and my pet gerbil had gone to the big, squeaky wheel in the sky.

My best friend and I stepped outside to be met by the warm, swirling breeze of autumn.

“It’s too warm,” she complained while rolling up her sleeves.

I again ignored her and strode towards the fifteen-foot bus crammed with teenagers before me. How on earth we all managed to fit week after week into the stuffy vehicle still determines to be discovered. But, the important part, was that we did fit.

I climbed into the front seat beside Pastor John. It was my reserved spot because I was the assigned one to get the gospel tracts ready and together for people to pass out at every house we went to.

“Remember,” Pastor John called to the rowdy kids behind him, “Visitation is not what you can get out of it, but what you put into it.”

I smiled softly to myself at his words. This man was meant to be with teenagers and everyone knew that. He always knew when it was appropriate to be serious and when it was needed to be crazy. He did both just as well as any mature teen.

“You’re late,” he growled with sarcasm.

I grinned sheepishly.

“Sorry. Lou’s guilt trip for being late wasn’t as strongly worded as usual.”

“Yeah. By the way, what’s wrong with her? She seems rather… upset today. Is everything all right?”

I sighed and gazed out the front window thoughtfully for a moment before replying.

“I think she’s just wired up on caffeine, or something.”

Pastor John turned his intense, azure pupils away from the road briefly to study me. He did not reply and I could almost hear him saying inside, “It’s not good to lie, Danielle. You want to tell me now and save yourself from a lecture later?”

He drove on in silence, accepting my answer. That was always the affect he had on me: whether or not I had actually committed a crime, he could always make me feel guilty about it. Any other normal person would have hated him for it, but me… It only made me want to hang out with him more in that Christian sort of love.

“We’re here,” he informed the busload behind him as we entered a lonely street with giant oak trees more plenteous than the grass beneath them.

I attempted to read the name of the street, but was foiled when I discovered that the sign had long since been covered with vines and ivy.

Pastor John seemed to pick up on my curiosity.

“Springer Lane.”

I turned briefly to him and then back across to the unkempt, dank street before me.

“Yeah. That fits like a glove,” I mused sarcastically.

And before I knew it, the bus had rolled to a halt at the curb.

“All right, I need one girl group and one guy group to get off here!” he called to the teens.

I set down the box of tracts behind my chair and signaled to Lou that we were getting off.

“Be safe,” Pastor John called to me in finality as I stepped from the front seat.

I smiled back at him and replied, “No problem.”

I slammed my door closed and stepped up onto the sidewalk beside Lou. William and Taylor stepped from the bus behind her. My heart skipped a beat as William flashed me that gorgeous grin of his. He had been part of the reason that David had broken up with me to begin with. David had gotten jealous when he caught William around me all the time.

William flicked his head to the side causing his ginger hair to glimmer in the dim sunlight. His gray eyes penetrated mine as easily as they always had.

“Hey, Danielle,” he greeted me, “Want to sit with me tonight at dinner?”

I nodded my head with shining, green eyes.

“As long as you promise not to bite,” I teased.

He elbowed me playfully in the ribs.

“Yeah, right… you know I only do that on Sundays.”

We both chuckled.

I noticed in delight that Taylor seemed annoyed with our flirting.

“Oh, well,” I thought, “He had it coming.”

And it was true. Taylor had had his chance with me and blown it up like a nuclear bomb. I had dated him for about a month and he had constantly jeered and taunted at me, and not in the teasing way, either. I had ended it and that was that.

“We’ll take this side of the street,” Lou informed the boys.

“See ya later,” William said while winking attractively at me.

Then, the two boys parted and jogged across to the other sidewalk. Pastor John rolled down the passenger window before driving off.

“Just keep going until you get to a four-way intersection,” he called out to Lou and me, “Just stop there and I’ll come and pick you up. Pass on the message to William and Taylor.”

I did. I called over to them, happy for another chance to speak to Will.

“You know you’re just on rebound, right?” Lou asked bluntly when I was finished and we were approaching our first house.

“Yes… I mean, no… I mean… oh, I don’t know! Do you want to do this house?” I quickly changed the subject.

“Sure.”

So she did. It ended up being an elderly lady that went to the Catholic Church a ways from here. She was very stout in her beliefs and I hated to see Lou struggling like that when attempting to speak with her on her beliefs. I threw in whatever help I could, and, after it was over, I was pretty sure we had planted at least some good ideas in her head.

“That was horrible,” she groaned as we stepped back onto the sidewalk.

“It was not!” I argued, “You did the best you could for God and that’s all anyone asks.”

She was silent as I headed up the front walk to the next house.

And that was how it was for the rest of the fifteen our so houses we went to. We switched back and forth of who was to do the majority of the speaking. And finally, we reached the intersection Pastor John had warned us of.

I glanced around for Will and Taylor, but they were quite a ways back due to speaking with a young, teenage boy. They looked pretty serious even from here.

“We should pray for them,” Lou suggested.

So we both bowed our heads and sent up a prayer to God that they would have the right words and be safe.

“Do you feel better now?” I asked Lou as we sat down on the curb by a stop sign.

She shrugged nonchalantly.

“Not really, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve had worse days.”

I grinned comfortingly and looked around me at the houses going down the street behind us. The house that was nearest by that we had not done stuck out to me. I loved visitation and was not ready for it to end quite yet.

“Lou, do you think Pastor John would mind if we did one more house?” I queried already beginning to stand.

Suddenly, a look of alarm flashed across Lou’s face.

“But Pastor John said to stop when we got here!” she quarreled.

“Yes, but, Pastor John isn’t here and that house is so close it’s practically on this street anyways.”

“But the guys are way down there! What if something happens?”

I studied her briefly for a moment.

“What is wrong her?” I wondered silently.

“All right,” I began while folding my arms, “I’ll go do it and you can stay here.”

A look of yet more anticipation, if that was possible, flashed across her features.

“Oh, no, you don’t! I just know something bad is going to happen. Please, don’t!” she pleaded while standing up beside me.

“Lou,” I started firmly, “What is your problem? Everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see. Now, come on.”

And I began walking off in the direction of the house without even checking to see if she was coming. But I did soon hear the steady thump of following footsteps and the gentle swish of her skirt.

She caught up with me when we actually reached the yard which, instead of being in front of the house, was more off to the side.

“Rather junky,” Lou mused.

And she was right. Aside from the rusty, overgrown fence surrounding the yard, it was filled with small, strange contraptions and little pieces of garbage. But the thing that stuck out to me the most was the tall basketball goal standing proudly in the middle of it all with an abundance of ‘Support the Troops’ ribbons stuck to it.

As we strode up the driveway to reach the front door, I noticed a bumper sticker on the back of a dumpy Volkswagen that read ‘Marine- American Army’.

I elbowed Lou.

“Look! Maybe someone who lives here was in the army.”

She shrugged.

“And that makes me feel better how?” she said sarcastically.

“I’ll do this one,” I volunteered, even though it was already obvious.

I rapped my fist four times against the door and then stepped back. I heard footsteps from within and saw a dark figure approaching the door through the oval-shaped glass window in the center of it. The door creaked open to reveal a shorter, but muscular man with a bit of a five-o’-clock shadow. He had sharp, black eyes that perfectly matched his short, jet-black hair which was swept up in a peak-shape towards the front and center of his head. His muscles bulged outward from underneath his wife beater, which was a stark, but attractive, contrast to the baggy jeans he wore underneath. I guessed that he could not have been over twenty-five years old.

He did not speak immediately, so I started the conversation.

“Hi! I’m Danielle, and this is Lou,” I gestured behind me towards where she stood, “We’re just going around your neighborhood today passing out gospel tracts.” It was here that I paused and handed the information packet and tract to the man. I opened my mouth to speak again, but he spoke up instead.

“Wow!” he began while leafing through it, “This is really nice. And you know, because you have something for me, I have something for you too.”

I glanced back at Lou and grinned. She still seemed uneasy. I turned away just in time to see him walk to his right. I barely leaned inside to see what he did. He went straight to a large trunk sitting underneath a bar. A small, brown box was placed atop it and this is what he reached for. And as he pulled the box open, I caught sight of a gleaming piece of metal. I ducked back outside before he could see me.

“It’s metal,” I mouthed to Lou.

I turned back to face the man, and the second I did, he screamed out, “How do you like this?” And then he shoved a pistol directly into my gut causing me to crumple backwards. I gasped for air and stared in utter panic and shock at the man before me.

I glanced over my shoulder ready to tell Lou to run, but… found that she already had. A feeling of complete loneliness and solitude washed over me like a tidal wave.

She left.

The words haunted me.

She left… me.

The stranger sneered.

“Looks like you’ve got a real loyal friend, there.”

Heartbroken and alone, I watched in defeat as his finger began to push against the trigger.

Of the ones that i've posted, this is my favorite. Please, read and review and let me know if my like is in vain.