Chapter One

Buzzing.

Buzzing.

This buzzing in my ears was enough to drive me in a frenzy, enough to make me reel my own body back and cliff dive over the nearest building. It sounded off, day in and day out, never ending almost as if it never began. At first I thought I was going crazy when I started hearing it, thinking it was due to the sudden lack of human sociality, the deafening silence that was all but too loud which shrouded me like a blanket 24/7. A blanket of total isolation, what a promising enemy. Or at least, so I thought in the beginning of it.

“Chandler! No!” My hands, abrade and raw with chicken feathers, gently cupped my rodent friend, setting him aside the cutting board as I continued with dinner. The rooster I had caught down a truant alleyway was plump and fully grown, his large breasts plucked of any uncategorized feathers that I had missed on my minor scavenge. “But I don’t wanna go on living, be so afraid of showing someone else my imperfections…” The melody strolled through the innovative room (which was bare except for the bookshelf on the far right wall, the dirty rug in the center, the bed on the north wall and the kitchen), taking it’s brisk time along the notes. My voice rose and fell in precise, well articulated pitches. The words strung together in perfect precision, often going into more exotic pitches. Oh the joys of singing lessons as an adolescent. Memories of yesterday spun through my mind like a record on a record player, mom’s shining face smiling softly as I sang.

The broad horizon of my imagination started to wind up, the sun of remembrance peeking it’s bright head over the dewy grass of the present. On instinct, appendages started tapping to an unknown beat that would seem familiar if I had a piano, my shoulder blades flexing. “And even though I’m trembling and even though my words are stumbling, I will bear it all…” Fingers, slender and slightly pallid against the decrepit wood countertops, touched the counter in a gentle manner, tapping out the rhythm. “Watch me unfold…” The corners of my lips flickered in a minute smile, so small and fast the normal human couldn’t have seen it. The skitter scatter of Chandler’s minuscule claws against the peeling film of the table had goose bumps immersing upon my skin, the hairs on them sticking in different disarrays. I guess some things never changed.

Cleaning up the rooster’s left over contents from the kitchen, I delicately wrapped the chunks of meat in Saran wrap and stored it away with all my other meals. There was enough food in that freezer to last me a decade. “Hey Chandler, lets go out to find some more avocados. I think I saw some in a Wal-mart window display.” A rush of wariness scampered up my spine as I clutched the leather canvas bag from my worn sleeping quarters, it’s rough surface gliding on my thigh. The groggy feeling of dreaming came over my senses as I retention the times where I never would’ve said something about grocery shopping.

The rather serene period in my life where I wasn’t the one with the pet rat as my only companion, I wasn’t the one with the heavy duty .75 Russian made automatic strapped to my torso, where I wasn’t the one having to worry on what to eat the next morning, how I’ll get the food, how I’ll cook it, and if it was first-class or not. Those were all minor necessities for the adult domain that growing up, I had no part nor say in. It was the balance of the universe at the time. Or at least in my memories it was.

Those trivial yet dominating questions entered my daily Q&A, always coming and leaving with no answer discovered. How did the matured humans cope with such strain at the time? Did they merely brush it off as a simple matter that would fix itself or did they put it first above all else, knowing we all had internal clock that was ticking away and could easily stop at any precise millisecond? What had they done that made them so tranquil and level-headed about such? How could they have done it?

These questions, these mere thoughtless drones in my mind were the ones that made me partially insane, the never-ending craving to find the truth behind it all driving me over the edge constantly. Everyone knows it’s not the most enlightening sign when you have to deal with the insistent voices within the mind that never seem to let anyone have one moment of peace. It’s rather frustrating. The click of the door’s lock flittered behind me, my decrepit converse slapping obnoxiously upon the sidewalk. This may have been a wild, crazy, breathtaking adventure for anyone whose never done this before, but for me, this was a matter of life or death and in the end, I would always strive for life.

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“Well, that’s the last of it. We did a good job buddy.” I beamed carelessly at my rodent comrade, Chandler’s emaciated whiskers twitching in a kind manner that only he could do. My mind registered the stiffness in my hips as I stretched to my full height, popping bones here and there. Setting my ashen eyes toward the orange horizon, the small breath within me hitched at the strewn colors of indigo and maroon over the vulnerable sky, the bald eagle cruising that high flame illuminating beauty.

And once more, I felt my battered self drink hungrily the ocean of hope. One day, I knew…somehow…they would come back for me…and I could once again smile not just a smile, but one that was whole.

I clicked my leather carrier shut, the tiny clasp attached to it snapping together perfectly. “Come on Chandler…lets go home.” Scuffing dirt as he scurried up to my side, my lips twitched to a tiny smirk, relishing the feeling of trust between us. I’d first gotten Chandler when I was living in the sewers back in 2015 or what was left of it that is. After the Western Hemisphere was left in utter darkness and horrific fantasy turned real, any recent projects the Government had been working on were immediately left fragmented to evacuate the country.

Which meant leaving half finished sanitary sewer pipes and abandoned channels underground to the forgotten’s disposal. My breath hitched quickly when I felt Chandler’s footsteps halt below me, the rodent’s drumming heartbeat increasing dramatically in my receptive ears.

“What is it?” That was the only question in my interminable life that once in a blue moon was asked, always sealed away in an envelope in the back of my Fight-or-Flight brain pattern, buried deep within my self-conscious. What was it now? Blood, that seemed weightless and nonexistent in my veins, began to pump in a frenzy through my body, anticipating my modern enemy. Whatever it was, it would die. It would die and I would live. That’s how it’s been for the past decade since my life ended and that’s how it will stay.

Running. The fresh adversary was running towards me. A spasm slithered up my spine as the ears on either side of my head strained to listen, grasping at every sound from miles around. The skitter of rocks under wild animals’ paws, the impatient cries of coyote cubs wanting food from their deceased mother, the soft touch of a ladybug’s legs against a blade of aqua green grass. I heard everything, all apart of the evolution. My evolution.

The muscles embedded into my body tensed, fearing the worst and preparing to fight for the best. Blood rushed faster through my veins, the heartbeat ringing in my ears an eerily dangerous tune. And now another heartbeat. They were getting closer. Only two legs, about six foot four, male, one-hundred and forty-five pounds…and increasing speed. Ashen orbs stared out at the vast emptiness before my fading being, stretching on forever, holding everything and nothing. If only my pursuer wasn’t so intent on killing…

I took a leap forward, cradling Chandler into my bag as I rushed ahead towards God knows where. And it was at these moments, where I was galloping away from the paralyzing grip of Mortality’s lonely hand at uncanny speeds, did I feel whole. Well. I wasn’t Irony Woods, orphaned at twenty-two from a catastrophic pandemonium, that at the time, seemed evadable. I wasn’t Irony Woods, alone and angry, but forced to wear a mask of enraptured steel. I was Nobody and Nobody never had consequences for her actions, never had to worry about the tomorrow, but only breathe for the today.

She didn’t have to worry over how she was going to kill and who she would have to kill, if she was really forgotten by the world and left to die. She had no worries, no life, and no meaning. All of this, simply because she was Nobody. The scenery raced past me like watercolors on thin paper, blurring to make a picture some may consider beautiful…and others hideous.

My newest opponent was gaining.

Grinding my heel into the dirt, I didn’t miss a single beat as my arm shot forward like cobras to the fire escape. I didn’t miss a beat as I carelessly (nearly effortlessly) bounded from one rooftop to the other. Because in that moment, I was nobody. I was a ghost with no memory, haunting the corridors of an empty house called life, flipping through photo albums that were only to be discovered empty. I was the wind, just enjoying the freedom of Purgatory. No past, no memory, no pain. Just Nobody.

Shattered glass.

Pain.

Blood.

My blood.

Fists.

Screaming….my screaming? I hadn’t gone louder than an inside voice in the past decade.

A man.

No…..it’s a mere child.

More fists….

Sinking consciousness….gone….

So here it is. Chapter One. I feel really retarded, since it took me forever to write this. And it's not that I didn't have it going, I was just OCDing on editing and putting in the right descriptions so people would like it AND understand it while also meetin my own....requirements. Some may say I'm too hard on myself, but I call it merely setting goals. BIG ONES. It's 4:12 AM down here and I can honestly say that I REALLY wanted to go to bed early for once. But my mind was so bent on finishing this that I HAD to get it out. I'm sorry for those who've been reading this and it took me so long to update. I'm kind of the perfectionist when I right and I really want this story to blow my earlier stories on other sites out of the water. Unfortunately, I'm a huge fragment/run-on fanatic. THAT is one thing that CANNOT be helped. -_-*

Oh and HAPPY INDIE DAY!!!! :D I hope you guys all enjoyed yours! You know, with the food and the fireworks and all that. I didn't get to see fireworks this year but my friends loved me enough to send me pictures of fireworks on my phone. They're such sweethearts. 3 Uhm....I guess that's it? Comment and give me some constructive criticism. All opinions are appreciated, but don't be spiteful about it. It hurts you more than it hurts me. :) Oh! And i'll try to update faster, promise. I've got two major stories going on, one I'm losing severe interest in and this one, right here. This one is my baby, I went into hibernation as a writer to work on this. Hopefully I can bring it to TX with me on Friday and get my sister's opinion.

Fave and spread the story! :D Commenters, subscribers, fans and readers in general are severely loved and will be given awesome Nightmare Before Christmas cuppie cakes! (^-^) Hug!

Lots of Love always,

Irony M.