„Mommy, i did it", I say with excitement written all over my face.
„I know, honey! You did it! I'm really proud of you!", she says looking like she couldn't be prouder. It's just a little accomplishment, but it feels like I just made the world a better place by playing my first chord on the guitar, that I just got for my 9th birthday. It's a black one, because I didn't want to have the regular light brown one. I thought they were too basic to feel about them the way that I do. It's also some kind of a one of a kind, which was probably really expensive.
I start to concentrate again and try to play that one chord over and over again until i recognise that the seat, in which my mom just had sitten, is now completely empty. It's not the first time, she disappeared out of nowhere. Sometimes, we're talking and then suddenly she needs to do something that she totally forgot. I guess I never had a strong bond with my parents and being an only child doesn't make it easier. It was mostly because of hers and dads job. I think they both work together, because most of the time they are gone to work at the same time. Don't ask me as what they do for work. I don't know. They never really talk about their job and what they do.
When I was 6 years old i started to enjoy being alone and whenever I'm in company by someone i rarely know, mostly babysitters, because my parents are working most of the time, I feel like i need to put on a mask, easily because my dad thinks no one likes my real me. The girls back in kindergarten were all in love with their dads because they treated them like their little princess. I guess that's how it's supposed to be. Mine only treated me like that, when we were in public and under people that he wanted to look good in front of. When we were at home, it was like I was invisible and he didn't ask once whether I had a good day or not.
Daddy and Mommy have a lot of money and they say it's because they save the world. I don't really know what they mean by that because superheroes always wear capes in movies, but everytime I ask how they do that without superpowers, dad only laughs at me and completely ignores the question and mom give me one of her genuine smiles and squeezes my hand one time to symbolise to not ask any further. So I guess the answer is something that I'm not ready to hear yet or not able to understand the meaning.
„Callie dear, Abaddon and I are just going to get something. It might be a present for you, so please don't burn down the house and don't open the door. We'll be right back", mom says. Without me having time to respond to her, she closes the door that she just opened and leaves. The last thing I can hear is someone slamming the door downstairs and now I'm alone at home again. You may ask why I said again? They leave me alone almost 3-4 times a week, which shouldn't be said as normally as I just did. Now I look at the closed door, which is decorated with like 50 photos. Most of them are with my best friend. That's because every happy memory I think about, when I get asked „What memories do you think about, when you have to think about your favourites?", is with him.
I'm smarter than most children my age. Wow that sounds selfish. Nevermind, just forget I said that. My favourite thing to do is reading. As a 9 year old I should be reading a book about dogs saving the world in the most unrealistic way possible but my dad taught me otherwise. I am in fact reading books about some highschool love story instead, which is to be honest just as unrealistic as the dog story. Dad always said that loving only makes us weak and vulnerable and that I should trust nobody but myself or I'll be getting hurt in the end. What I find weird about him saying that is that he is literally married. I mean you only marry someone, when you love them, don't you? S0 why doesn't he love mommy or is he also weak?
***
As time flies, I find myself looking at my wrist, trying to find out what time it is, when I realise, that they've been gone for about two hours. But apparently there's something way worse to realise. There's smoke in my room and when I say that there's smoke I mean that I literally can't see anything. I start to feel anxious and feel a tear rolling down my face. If the smoke won't kill me, my dad sure will. I had one job, which was: DONT SET THE HOUSE ON FIRE. Well I guess I just did. Fucking hell.
But maybe it's not that bad. Always gotta think optimistic, right?
It's getting harder to breathe with every second that passes. When I wanted to look, how bad the fire actually is, I tried to escape the house soon after, because I saw flames coming up the stairs, which means I'm seriously stuck. I've never quite been the type that liked being in small places, areas or rooms but knowing there's no way out of here makes it worse. I wish my best friend would hold my hand right now cause he's been my comfort person for the past 3 years. Thinking of him reminds me that maybe I'll never see him again or that I'll never be able to play that one chord on the guitar. I never and I repeat never thought that I'll be saying that but I'll never have to listen to the girls in my class making fun of me again.
Maybe dying isn't as bad as I thought it would be.
My breathing is getting faster and faster and then it suddenly stops for an endless amount of time. I sit on the windowsill, my forehead laying down on my knees, while my arms are wrapped around my legs. I try to stay as calm as possible, trying to find a way out of this situation.
For trying to calm down, I try to distract myself. Being busy while waiting for someone to safe me might speed on the time, that feels like it doesn't go by at all. I start to daydream about all the moments where I genuinely felt happy or things that reminded me of something good, doesn't matter what it is. I think about my best friend, the goodnight song my mom always sings to me, while her arms are wrapped around my stomach from behind, my favourite meal, reading my favourite book for the first time and rereading it for the hundredth time, my favourite song and favourite movie. All of these listed things bring me so much joy and I couldn't live without them.
There's this electricity going through my body, a feeling that I have never felt before.
A feeling that is not able to be put in words.
A feeling that feels like I'm living between death and life.
A feeling that if I'd continue living, I'd never want to feel it again.
It feels like I've been stuck in this room for years, still not being able to think of a solution to get out of here. It's like all my braincells have been taken over by anxiety. Maybe that's what actually happened. Maybe that's the electricity I've been thinking about. Aren't people that are dying reliving the best moments of their live? If yes, then I think I'm not dying for now. Well to be fair I did relive them because I just thought about my happiest moments in life but that was because I was the one that wanted to, so that does not count.
I cough, the flames almost arriving my room. I'm not usually the one to pray, go to church or to believe in things, that aren't proved with any kind of undeniable proof, but now I need all the help I can get.
„Hey God", i whisper, feeling incredibly stupid for actually praying and not trying to run away and out of the house,"uhm I don't really know what to do but please, send me air to breathe and let me live a little longer. I still need to find out what superpowers dad and mom have. Maybe I'm even living in a book and nobody would read such a short book so please, let me fill out the pages that I have let cause I'm just at the beginning. I'm basically at chapter one and that wouldn't be a book that's worth reading now, would it?
I wanna be the one I'd look up to right now. I wanna make mommy and daddy proud. I want to protect my best friend from all these girls, because they're not good enough for him. Nobody is. Someday, I want to write a song, produce it and maybe show it to the people that mean the most to me. I wanna make those people proud, but most importantly I want to make myself proud. So if I'm meant to do any of these things and if I'm meant to deserve and someday receive happiness, let me stay alive. I don't wanna die, no not yet. Like can you imagine him surviving without me? We're like a locker and a key, not functioning without each other. Please, I'm begging you. Let me survive. I'm a survivor not someone who gives up that easily."
For a second, I thought it was working.
For a second, I got the enthusiasm and the hope, that I lost since I saw the flames on the stairs, back.
For a second, I thought that I'd be able to hug him again.
But then all of the sudden it got worse. I guess god wasn't listening or praying is as useless as I always thought it was cause breathing started to become a thing, that is usually so easy to do but now a thing, I can hardly do. It's like the world stops. I'm shaking, like I've just been thrown into snow with just shorts and a top on. Whenever I feel bad, my mom stops everything she's doing and takes care of me but now she's not here and she probably doesn't even know that I'm in danger. Who am I kidding, my dad wouldn't really care if I'm gone but I'm cool with that. I know that I shouldn't talk about my dad like that but I wouldn't wanna know what he says about me behind my back. He would probably just say shitty things about me but when someone blames it on his education he gets offended. I mean we're not really talking about his education anyway, because how would he educate me, when he's never home? I could list a million people that took more care of me than him. To be honest, mom would probably cry for a day and then she'd go on with her life, because Abaddon tells her to. I do want her to be happy, so I guess he's doing a good job for once.
The only person who would probably be heartbroken, when I would die, is my best friend. And on the other side, he's the one I would miss the most. I would miss his hugs, his I love yous (we only say that as best friends), his jokes, the sound of his laugh or him protecting me in front of the world.
He has a ship out of wood in his garden and it's massive. How cool is that? I'm always playing a pirate and he is the captain. Everytime I go to his house, we decide where we want to travel to. I think the last trip we did was the best one we ever did. We even did a picnic on the boat, which his mom has prepared. There were strawberries, grapes, chocolate (don't tell my parents) and watermelon. It didn't quite had to do anything with being on a ship but it was so delicious.
I'm staring at the door, watching it slowly burn down. I stand up, walk to the other corner of my room to get my guitar really fast, which I left there, after my fingers were hurting of playing that one chord over and over again, cause my guitar has to be the only thing I would want to save. Just looking at my guitar in my hands makes me relax a little. My mom always plays a little song on the guitar whenever I have a hard time falling asleep and her voice sounds like heaven. If I had known that I might never get to hear it again, I would've appreciated it a little more last night. Last night she sang „if you love her" by Forests Blakk and she told me that she would want to sing that to the boy that's gonna marry me, when the time arrives.
When she said that,I stared at her in disbelief. Just thinking of being with a boy grosses me out. Like I mean why would you want to kiss a boy? „I don't wanna marry anyone besides you or mr.doodle" I told her, looking down at the white tiny bunny in my hands. She just smiled at me and told that I'd change my mind over the years. I still don't believe I will ever marry.
I'm at the point now that I'm thinking of running through the flames to survive, at least that's the only thing, that I could come up with.
The nexts thing I do is to stay up. I'm a little shaky on my legs and it feels like the world is spinning around right now, but I stabilise myself with grabbing the top thing of the chair, because that's the nearest thing to grab and I walk towards the fire, which is now halfway through my room. I take in a deep breath, which wasn't a good idea, which is why I cough a few times before I step into fire. It's not hot at the beginning but with every second that passes, it starts to burn on my skin more and more and I feel sweat dripping down my face.
As I run down the burning hallway, my guitar catches fire so I need to let it go. It was like with letting go off my guitar I let go of my life and everything. It is like I now have lost all I had left. But I had to let go off it because it would have hurt me even more than I'm hurting at this moment.
My house is like labyrinth, everywhere I look there are doors to new rooms, that I have never seen before from the inside. I don't dare going into the „vorbidden rooms" now either, because even if it would be the only way to get out of this building, I would be scared for what would happen if dad finds it out and what the consequences would be if I would survive. Would I still be alive after that? Might be better to die without all of the torture that would come along with dad finding out that I broke the most important rule that he put up.
I finally reached the stairs. They look like they're not far away from falling apart and smashing down, so I walk the stairs down step by step, looking carefully, that I don't step onto something dangerous.
Only one more staircases to go. I got this!
On my way I look at all the pictures on the wall. We look like a family on all of them. We seemed happy.
As I reach the last stairs, I squeeze mr.doodle one last time, which looks just as scared as I do probably but I didn't want to leave him up alone all by himself. Just like I did with the stairs before that, I take step by step, still trying to get enough air into my lungs. I look in front of me at the last stair, while something falls down on me. It feels like it is some kind of wood or something very similar. Nonetheless I'm not able to stand up. Whatever fell onto me weights more than I can carry. My head starts to hurt and I have the feeling that there's a wound somewhere at the back of my head. Thinking of something that could safe me is getting impossible and I just want this all to be over. Where is everybody when you need them for once?
Time goes by in slow motion and I start to feel more dizzy than I felt before.
Suddenly everything turns black and all I can hear are sirens. „Callie! Callie! Hold on for a little more. We're gonna get you out of there now!" „Can you hear me, Faith? I'm sorry I am so stupid for letting you alone. We should've played with the ship today. I even have had a special place to visit in my mind. I love you!" „Callie please tell me you're alright. Please tell me you're not dead. You're a survivor! You wouldn't give up on life that easy." „Don't you dare dying now. There will be consequences little lady."
They are being said by different people but I can't seem to identity to who the voices belong.
There are a few more words that have been spoken but everything fades and I cant hear them anymore.
„I love you, captain incassable", I whisper, with all the power that I have left in my body.
„Wake up, Callie! Darling, it's just a dream. Everything's okay" dad says. It was all a dream. I've been having this exact dream multiple times these past years. My dad, Calian, is looking worried at me and then wraps his arms around my back. My parents are the best I could've ever asked for. Avabelle, my mom, is the most caring person I've ever met and my five year old sister, Aurelia, is my best friend. Oh and then there's my older brother but lets not talk about him at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I love him with my whole heart but he's a little overprotective... a little too overprotective.
„Do you want to go downstairs? Breakfast should be ready. Mom made pancakes before she went to work" he whispers into my ear. I nod and stand up and go to my bathroom. I shower quickly to get all the sweat of of me, that happens to be there everytime I wake up from having this nightmare, brush my teeth and then I go downstairs and follow the smell of pancakes and coffee.
——————
Im really excited but also nervous for you to read the first chapters!
It was kinda hard for me to find a fitting beginning but I'm quite proud of how it came out :)
Really hope you like the chapter as much as I do (tbh Im unsure whether this is good but we'll see how it goes)
My twitter account for this book is armsofastrange2 so if you follow it you'll be the first to know about when I'll update and obviously we can talk like besties there as well ;)
All the love, Soph <3