January smiles.

January

January's  P.O.V

7:00 A.M. July second.

The slightly loud Hum of the shops A.C. was drowned out by the clicking on of the shops radio. All day classic rock began to play. The familiar smell of gasoline hit me like a train. Not that I mind. Don't deny it, most all of us kind of like the smell of gasoline.

It's like a drug, you know you shouldn't like it but it's addicting.

Ruby sat in the same spot she always was. I've been working on her for three months as side from doing my actual job ( I secretly get up an extra two hours earlier just to work on her.) If you didn't guess it by now Ruby is my ruby red (hence the name) 1969 Mustang. Got her for free from a client years ago. She was really rough.

Rusted metal and ripped seats were the old ruby.

Uncle Zack used to help me work on Ruby. Key words "used to". He left a few monthes ago and I have not a clue why. The shop gets good buisness, I'm not to problematic. The only thing I  an think of is that his girlfriend ( real gold digger she was) left about a month before he left but he told her to leave. I mean he didn't SEEM broken up about it.

I have no clue.

I try not to think about that though. I'm sure he just went on some buisness trip. No I'm really not. It's just something I tell myself to make the situation seem more like a routine absence.

It seems anymore the only lies I tell are to myself.

I sighed as I propped open Ruby's hood. I just had to change the oil in the car then I would officially have a new Ruby.

After a while of digging around for oil I finally finished the car. A real pride this car is.

If only uncle Zack was here to see her done.

I loudly sighed in a drastic way. I don't know if I'm mad or worried anymore. I'm only seventeen. I don't want to live alone.

I don't like being alone. It brings back a lot of memories that I hate.

Both my parents abandoned me when I was three. I only remember almost two years of foster care until I ran into uncle Zach with a foster family. He recognized me because I still looked like I did when I was three.

He was my only way out of the foster system and even as a four almost five year old I didn't want to be in the system.

Uncle Zach was a great parental figure. He thought me how to read, he showed me how to hit a ball, he showed me how to fix an engine, and most importantly he showed me how to be kind.

Sometimes I think that Uncle Zach is a push over, his girlfriend used him for money then ran off with her landlord when he realized her true motives for dating him.

Uncle Zack was always one to see the bright side of everything.

I did not get that from him.

In fact, I, for some reason can sence when something bad is going to happen. It's like an itch you can't scratch. It's not like I can predict an earthquake, but I just get a gut feeling around or in certain situations that it's going to end badly. It used to be just a feeling of dread, then it became a headache and panic, and now I can see little snip it's of what is about to happen but I never know why I see them or what they are about. I'm like Raven from that old Disney show minus the cool part of it.

I don't want to be this way it just happens to be my fate.

And I can never stop fate.

No one can.
       ***  ****   

I am the owner if this shop right now. It kinda sucks but it's fun to just sit in the secretary area and balance a pencil on your lip and wait for a customer.

Yup, I'm so mature

As I sat there and balanced good ol' Ticonderoga on my lip I saw that the phone showed a message on the answering machine.

Leaning up in the chair and dropping the pencil I stared blankly at the machine.

Maby I was trying to be one with the machine or whatever I just stared at it.

I pressed the play button expecting a message for Uncle Zach or many a wrong number, which we get a lot of. The one thing I didn't expect is to hear growling on the other line.

Yes I said it folks, I said growling.

And not like a person trying to be weird, no this sounded demonic and scared the pee out of me. Metaphorically, obviously.

"What the?" I said out loud.

I pressed play again but nothing played. Just the automated there are no messages thingy.

Before I could try to further figure out the message thingy my head started to hurt, and everything seemed to be looking at me, even that creepy singing fish with one eye and not a single battery to sing its song. I don't know why Uncle Zach keeps that thing. Fluffy needs to go.

My head started pounding then everything changed scene. My body was frozen but I wasn't in the shop. I was on a bridge. I turned my head to see someone running at me with a sword.

My eyes widened and I tried to scream, run, move in general, but nothing worked.

The man with the sword seemed to be covered in a misty cloud so I couldn't see who it was. I tried screaming again but time no avail. About two inches from me the sword stopped. The man turned to a misty substance and the sword fell on the ground with a clank.

I tried to pick it up but I was frozen. I could only turn my head. As in looked around at the vast landscape of water and suspended in time traffic a voice rang through the silence. An eerie noise in an eerie scene.

"Three shall break the curse
Four shall free me
Seven shall save us all
The land of death shall see hope.
If to no avail
Three shall remember
Four shall share the burden
Olympus will fall."

Then it all stopped. It all went back to silence. The world around me melted like a rainbow dissolving and all its colors leaving a mass of streaked colors across the blank canvas sky.

It was beautiful until I came to.

Then I came face to face with something I didn't want to see.

Coatomers, worst yet, teenagers.