Not a very good one, but the point still stands.
I love to tell stories; I have since I was a little girl. Last year, on the way home from our school field trip to Chicago, my friend asked me to tell her a story. She gave me a character, a plot event, and a setting. With that to go on, I spent the two hour train ride telling an impromptu tale. By the end of it, half the train car was listening. It was a great story, if I do say so myself. I loved it; I am going to make it into a novel some day.
On Wednesday, we went to Chicago again. I'll make a post about our adventure soon, promise. But before that, I though I'd share the story I told this year. My friends did what they did last year, except they amped it up a bit: they gave me two characters, two plot events, and two potential settings. And with that to go on, I told a story that lasted approximately three hours and contained sixteen chapters and an epilogue. If I had to give it a genre, it would be suspense or mystery.
It wasn't as good as the story I told last year, but I told I'd share the first chapter with you. I'll share more if you guys want it. Keep in mind - it was entirely impromptu, so the plot isn't that intricate. But my friends liked it and a couple people wanted to hear it, so here goes.
It does not have a title.
Chapter One
The rain beat against her
windows rhythmically, almost like a lullaby.
The steady pulse of the drops, however, couldn’t quite block out the
sounds of the city. Chicago was always alive, even at one forty five in the
morning. It had its own clock; one that refused to abide by something as
trivial as sleeping schedules or lack of sunlight.
Julia sat up with a start in her
bed, as if jerking awake from a nightmare, but that wasn’t the case – at least,
not this time. She hadn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t sleep. She needed to. She had to
get up at five for her shift at Paradise. Paradise was a completely ironic
name, really. In reality, Paradise was a grimy, crappy twenty four hour café in
the rougher part of Chicago where she worked six days out of the week. Still,
though it was her second home. Her life revolved around her work there; her
only friend was there. If you could call Marge - the seventy something owner
who let her off sometimes when it wasn’t a busy night - a friend. Julia did, but her life wasn’t very glamorous
to begin with.
The clock changed, its red light
glaring at her through the darkness. Julia sighed; it looked like she wasn’t
going to be getting to sleep anytime soon.
As if on cue, somebody knocked
on her door.
She stiffened, glancing across
her flat at the double-bolted door. That was the only thing she had managed to
change about her one-room flat: the installation of two strong, durable dead
bolts. Everything else about the place had stayed the same since she’d moved in
seven months before: in various phases of disrepair.
The person knocked again, as if
unconcerned that it was almost two in the morning. Who on earth was it? Julia
didn’t know, but, either way, it was pretty sketchy. She swung her legs over
the side of her bed and crossed the flat in three strides. She peered skeptically
through the peep hole, which only showed an empty, dimly lit hallway. The coast
was clear, just like all the horror movies showed.
Julia unlocked the door and
opened it slowly, wondering if she would regret it. She stuck her head out into
the hall. To the left was clear; all her neighbor’s doors were shut, locked up
tight.
There was a small sound to her
right. Julia glanced down and stiffened.
The first thing she noticed was
his eyes – the most beautiful shade of blue. And the look in them: sad and
tired, and old – older than a little boy’s eyes should ever look.
He was blond and pale, barely a
day over nine. A little boy, alone, outside her apartment. He was curled up
against the base of the floor on the dirty tiles. Julia grimaced thinking about
the pure amount of germs he was sitting on.
She squatted down, looking at
the little boy curiously. “Are you okay?” She asked quietly, unsurely.
“Are you Julia?” he asked, his
eyes locked on hers.
How on earth did he know her
name? She had never seen him before. “Yes,” she told him, frowning slightly. “Do
you . . . need help? Are you all alone?”
The little boy looked at her
intently, a relieved look on his face. “I need your help.” He took a deep
breath. His head tilted dangerously forward, almost as if he was about to fall
asleep sitting up. He does not look good, Julia observed; he looked about to
faint.
And faint he did, but not before saying: “You’re the only one who can
help me find my sister. Sara.”
With that, he slid forward into her waiting arms and lost consciousness.
