An English assignment I had to write that I figured I could share with you all. Reviews are nice but I won't complain either way. Enjoy; R. Lewis

Empty Minds, Empty Places

He knew that someone was behind him, following not all that far away. Maybe they were a little less than a block behind him while constantly trying to mask their echoing footsteps by keeping in step with him. He knew that they were there, knew that they would eventually catch up with him. His cell phone was dead inside the confines of his pocket, of little use to him now. He mentally kicked himself in the butt for forgetting to charge it the night before. The footsteps continued echoing behind him as he turned the corner and burst out into a sprint, not allowing himself to look back at his pursuer.

His feet pounded loudly on the wet pavement as he ran down the dimly lit back alleys of unnamed city in central California. It had rained the night before; he’d heard it as he tried to fall back asleep after a somewhat disturbing dream. He couldn’t even remember what had scared him about the dream, he just simply had a feeling that nothing good had come of it. His breath came out harshly as he turned another corner and stopped abruptly, hiding himself behind a dumpster just in time to watch his pursuer sprint past him, black coat trailing.

With almost a laugh of relief, Jake climbed out from behind the reeking dumpster and brushed his jeans off. His now soaked shoes squished as he jogged lightly back the way he had come, looking behind him a few times to ensure no one was in fact behind him once again. He was confused as to why anyone would be following him to begin with, but brushed it aside. There were creeps all over the place nowadays, snatching kids of the streets whenever they wanted. It was probably just nothing. He took a deep breath and started off in the direction of his house while stuffing his hands into his pocket. It was nothing, really.

The door slammed loudly behind him as Jake finally arrived home. He chucked his shoes into the hall closet and grabbed a bottle of water from the case on the floor. He called out to his mom as his dog, Barley, greeted him happily and lapped at his chin. Jake petted him generously on the head as he passed by on his way into the kitchen. Barley barked and followed behind him, nudging Jake’s hand with his cold nose as they went. The television played softly in the family room as Jake walked past it, calling once again for his mom. Frowning, he paused at the bottom of the stairs that led up to his parent’s and younger twin sisters’ rooms.

He knew that Alice and Katie wouldn’t be home from their dance class until at least seven and it was only just after six now. His mom normally got off from the hospital around five and home by the time he got home from his classes. He walked up the stairs with the golden retriever following close behind, almost tripping Jake as he made his way up.

“Watch it, Bar,” Jake commanded, giving a small glare to the loyal dog below him, who simply whined in reply.

The stairs creaked as the two walked up them and the family pictures stared at them from the walls, eyes following them closely. Jake shook his head at the dog and walked down the hall towards his parent’s room. The door was partly open with the lights and television both on. Barley barked loudly as they stopped in front of the cracked door and Jake called in. Hearing no response, he pushed open the door as Barley growled and scratched at the floor with his front paw. Jake glanced down at the dog and walked into his mother’s room quietly, prepared to see his mother taking a nap like she sometimes did after her long shifts. However, the still body on the bed surrounded by a pool of red hinted towards the fact that maybe Marilyn wasn’t asleep.

Jake took a horrified step towards his mother’s peaceful looking body, a hand covering his mouth. Her hands were crossed across her body, hands touching the opposite shoulder with her always comforting eyes closed. She was still dressed in her scrubs from the hospital, hinting that she had only just arrived home before being attacked. Barley growled and circled behind Jake, his eyes glued to the bathroom. With a deep breath, Jake forced himself to walk around the bed and grabbed the phone off his mother’s bedside table. An earful of static greeted him and he cursed before throwing the phone to the ground. Barley barked loudly and he turned, intent on yelling at the poor dog before stopping short at the dark man standing in the doorway of the bathroom, gun in hand.

Neither boy nor man moved for an antagonizingly long few seconds before Jake dived below the bed just in time to miss the oncoming bullet launched from the man’s gun. It hit the wall where his head had been moments before and was quickly followed by more of its fellow comrades. Jake fell heavily to the ground and rolled under the bed for cover. The reign of bullets stopped for a moment and he could hear footsteps coming towards the bed, which as Jake took a moment to think about it, was a horrible place to hide to begin with. The footsteps stopped and all was silent for a moment before Jake yelled as a strong hand grasped his ankle and started pulling him from underneath the bed. He flailed with little success once he was pulled completely from beneath it and managed to even get a few well landed kicks in before the man snapped back into action and Jake found himself face to face with the end of a gun.

“Now would be the time when you take a moment to stop and rethink your next move, boy,” the man said, hand steady as he kept the gun pointed at him. He was massive, not all fat, but a buff and burly man. His dark jeans and leather jacket with the addition of his dark eyes and hair made him frightening and ominous. It took Jake about three point two seconds to rethink his choices. He slowly raised his hands above his head and dropped his feet onto the floor. “Good choice,” Mr. I-Can-Kill-You-With-My-Pinkie-Finger smirked, lowering the gun to his side as he held out a hand for Jake.

He stared at the man incredulously but took the hand anyway, allowing the man to help him to his feet. He refused to turn around and face the body of his mother and instead stared at the space behind the man’s head. Which was a bad idea, because if Jake had rather been staring at the killer before him, he would have seen the fist flying towards his face before everything went black.

Everything is dark underground. If you stuck out your hand an inch in front of your face you would still be unable to see it. There was no light, no way of telling where sound is coming from, no way of knowing when one day melted into another. You lived in a sense of fright and bliss as the world continued to move on around you while you felt planted in a single span of time that never moved, never changed. You lose a sense of feeling when being underground, being to forget what its like to feel and to see. You forget the colors; forget the sounds of the streets above. You start to feel unfeeling. You start to lose yourself in the darkness.

Sarah could feel herself starting to get lost in the darkness, could feel herself start to forget how things used to be. She didn’t know how many days she had been in the dark, how many days it had been since anyone new had been let into their dark cell, she wasn’t sure of anything anymore. She didn’t remember even what she looked like, didn’t even trust her mind enough to recognize herself if she was ever given the chance to look into a mirror again. Everything she knew or remembered was just a blur or smear inside her mind. She didn’t know the last time she had showered, but she was sure that it had to have been at least a week. The last time she’d eaten anything more than the small bread loaf she shared with Liam was long lost inside her confused mind. Everything was lost to her, nothing made sense anymore. Everything was just a blur.

“I miss birds.”

The voice to her right, or least Sarah thought it was her right, brought her out of the melancholy thoughts of her muddled mind.

“I miss birds and the way they sing when the sun comes up in the morning,” Liam continued, a note of sadness in his voice. “I always used to get angry at the birds in the morning, I always wanted to sleep in and they never let me. Always twittering and singing at the crack of dawn. It’s funny how now I’d give anything to hear those annoying little brats again.”

Sarah could remember birds to an extent. She remembered when she was younger; her older brother had had a parrot that learned to repeat everything they ever said in front of them. She couldn’t remember the parrot’s name, only that sometimes he was the most bothersome bird on the face of the planet. But now, she would give anything to hear those words coming from him in a squawky voice that made her laugh. Yeah, she missed birds too. She missed a lot of things.

She was about to reply to her fellow captive when the sound of metal on metal quickly shut her up and look eagerly in the direction of the noise. Beside her she heard Liam move closer and brush past her leg in excitement. They both shied away sharply as the door to their room was thrown open and light streamed in. Sarah felt tears come to her eyes as she was forced to turn away, half in pain and half in shame. By the time she gathered enough courage to turn back to the light, the door was slammed shut and a loud scrapping on the other side signaled that they had been once again locked in. Sarah felt the tears stream down her dirty cheeks as Liam pounded on the door and shouted at the men outside. She waited too long, now she’d have to wait even longer to see the light and gain back even a smidgen of her sanity.

Jake could practically feel his brain trying to claw its way out of his skull as he slowly came to. It took him a few moments to realize he was actually awake as everything around him was dark, darker than anything he had ever been in. This was nothing like walking out in the country late at night where at least there was the moon and stars to provide light. In this place there were no stars or moon, or any leak of light coming from beneath a door or through a window. Everything in the room was blanketed in pure black. He moved to get up but stopped, dozens of horrible scenarios blasting their way into his mind, all of them involving his death upon movement. He hadn’t a clue of the layout of the room, no idea of whether or not there was a hole he could fall into a die at the bottom of. Maybe he was blind, maybe that man had blinded him out of spite, and maybe this was all a dream. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Nothing was certain down here, wherever ‘down here’ was.

Just as he was about to completely freak out and have a mental breakdown the sounds of whispering reached his ears. He moved his leg abruptly, his jeans scratching on the cold pavement and the hushed sounds instantly stopped.

“Hello?” he voiced waived slightly as Jake looked around desperately in the darkness. “I know you’re in here. I can hear you. At least, I think I can,” he added to himself, hoping desperately that he wasn’t going insane and starting to hear voices inside his head. His weak calls met silence and he held his breath.

“Don’t worry, you aren’t crazy,” a girl’s voice said softly, somewhere to his left. “Not yet at least.”

“Jacob Peter Smith, if you do not get your scrawny little butt out of bed right this moment, I’ll ground you till the next decade!”

A pillow smashed into the side of Jake’s clouded mind as he fell out of bed in shock. With a snort he hit the ground and leapt to his feet, shock written on his face as he stared at his mother, who stood in the doorway of his room. She was dressed in a pair of purple scrubs and looked overly angry at the sight of her half asleep son. Jake, ignoring his mother’s ranting about skipping an entire day of school just to sleep, walked over to her and pulled her into a rib breaking hug. Marilyn’s rants stopped almost instantly as her seventeen year old son hugged her like she’d just come back from the dead and slowly, her face softened and she wrapped her skinnier arms around him in a return hug.

After a few moments, Jake pulled back with a cough and smiled sheepishly.

“Do I even want to know?” his mother asked, resting her hands on his shoulders gently.

He looked into her eyes, trying to remove the image of her dead body from his mind and shook his head with a weak smile. “I’m just going crazy is all.”

His mom nodded, trying to look like she understood, and patted him on the shoulder. “I love you, Jake.”

“I love you too, Mom,” he replied, images bouncing back into his mind.

“But if you ever skip an entire day’s worth of classes again to sleep, I won’t hesitate to ground your little butt until the end of time, you hear me?”

Jake couldn’t help but smile and nod his head. “Yeah, I promise it won’t happen again.”

“Good,” his mom said with a return smile. She let out a sigh and brushed off a piece of lint from her scrubs. “I need to go change and take a nap of my own. Don’t burn down the house.”

“Will do,” he replied, closing the door behind his mother as she left his room for her own. He leaned against the wood door with a heavy sigh and rubbed his forehead. He needed sleep, he felt like he’d been run over by a semi truck. He kicked off his shoes, which he’d apparently fallen asleep with on, and dove into bed. He said a silent prayer for better dreams and closed his eyes. Silence fell over the house for a few hours until Jake awoke to the sounds of Barley growling and barking from his mother’s room. His eyes flew open in horror and he scrambled out of bed, yelling for his mother as he went.

“Don’t worry, you aren’t crazy,” a girl’s voice said softly, somewhere to his left. “Not yet at least.”