Truffle Island

Chapter 1: Before the Crash

"Dezerae! If you don't get up now, you're going to be late for your flight!" My mother called from somewhere outside my room to remind me I had stuff to do yet today, "it's three in the afternoon and you have yo get Journei from school still!"

I groaned. Sometimes I felt like I didn't need an alarm clock because I had my mother to wake me up. I loved her with all my heart, but I was 21 and didn't need her constant guidance. I plucked my iPhone 11 off of the delicate gold trimmed, bronze-legged, hexagon shaped, glass c-table that sat next to my twin sized bed. When I tapped the power button, the screen lit up to display the current time. 3pm.

Alright, sometimes I did need my mother to keep me in check.

I crawled out from under my warm, fuzzy rose gold faux-fur blanket and was met by the sharp chill of the air conditioning. When I got up, I was still so exhausted. I felt like I had only had a couple of hours of sleep.

But that was exactly the case.

I had gotten off of work at noon. I worked at a popular Mexican restaurant in town called "La Bonita" as a waitress. I had only been there for a couple months after quitting the job I had at a bar nearby. I loved working at La Bonita, but being a waitress sure was tiring.

"When does Journei get out of her classes?" My voice was so raspy that I sounded like a dying horse. It shocked me.

"Half an hour! Drink some water!" My mother kindly reminded me.

With a grateful smile, I grabbed the pair of clothes I had set aside earlier for the day, which consisted of a pair of white leather boots, black ripped skinny jeans with a big white belt around my waist, and a pastel pink crop top with white lettering that read "baby girl" in decorative lettering, and went into the bathroom to change.

The first thing I saw when I walked into my modern, rose gold, white, and black colored bathroom was the bags under my tired green eyes and my messy black hair in a tangled mess atop my head. I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair, trying to straighten it out enough to put it up in a ponytail. On the marble sink counter next to me, I placed my clothes. One by one, I picked articles of clothes off the counter and got dressed, brushed my teeth, and hurried down the stairs for my purse. My mother threw a granola bar at me from the kitchen, which hit me in the back of the head. I turned around and picked up the granola bar off the ground and smirked at her. She gave me a playful smirk in return, and I laughed while I grabbed the golden doorknob on the front door of my house and opened the door. "I'll be back with the child!"

"I love you!" My mother called.

"Love you too!" I grabbed my purse on the way out, closed the door behind me, and headed to my 2006 silver Jeep.

The drive to my sister's school wasn't a long one. We lived in a small town outside the city, and the school was a three minute drive from our house. To be honest, I never understood why Journei didn't walk to and from school every day. It would've saved me so much money on gas over the year. It never really did get cold in our part of California anyways, so there was no reason she couldn't walk.

When I arrived at the small school my sister went to, I pulled up behind a line of parked cars full of parents and siblings and children who were waiting to pick up their loved ones like I was. I scanned the bustling crowd of students, searching for Journei. The school bell had just rung, and all the middle school students who didn't take the bus were running all over the parking lot. Some kids stopped at the bike racks to claim their bikes while others began their walks home. There were so many colorful backpacks, that it was hard to find my sister. She had a purple camouflage backpack. Just as I was about to pick up my phone and call her, I spotted her among the crowd.