Somebody That I Used To Know

Chuck's got us doing it again!  We're using song titles to write a story... and I love it.  This time, I went onto Youtube and clicked a random song arrangement from 2014... and I got 'Somebody That I Used To Know' by Pentatonix (covered)... very cool... I like their better than the original.

Enjoy!

I’m not sure what it was that caused this problem, but every time I get a visitor here, they tell me they know me.

They tell me who they are.

They’re armed with photographs and wide, fake smiles.

I’m in those photographs with them standing next to me… and it seems as though I knew them at one stage, but …

…I don’t anymore.

After an hour, I’m exhausted by their eternal babbling about what we used to do, what we were together as friends and how we used to be as lovers… as family… as whoever we were to each other… and they leave wondering if they got through to me at all.

But really, who I am is somebody I can’t tell you anything about; mainly because I don’t know who I am.

I woke up here in the hospital and have absolutely no memory of my name, where I was born or who I was to this world.

The doctors have told me that my name is Emily Parstons, but I’m not sure if that’s a name they got out of a baby book or if that was something they found out through my ‘family’ who keep on coming here to see me.

But I’m sure they’re going to give up on me pretty soon as it’s not looking promising. The last time the two older ones came and visited, they left with the woman crying against the man’s shoulder. I heard her as I listened at the door of my room; it hurt me a little inside to know that they’re trying so hard and yet I still don’t know them.

I really wish I did because they’re such nice folks.

I didn’t hear what the doctor said to them, but they didn’t leave; instead a nurse came into my room and caught me out listening.  She stood there smiling in the middle of my room, “What did you hear?”

“Nothing… it was all mumbling.” I replied.

She pulled out a suitcase which looked like it was from the 1960’s and opened the drawers near my bed, “They’re taking you home.”

“I don’t know them.” I sat down on my bed looking at my hands, “Why would I want to go anywhere with them?”

She sighed, her kind hazel eyes rested on my face, “It’s because this place isn’t doing you any good. Each time your visitors leave, you forget them… you need to remember them.”

“But I’m fine…”

“No, you’re not, Emily.” The doctor’s voice said from the door. I hadn’t heard him come in and I turned to see his tall form standing there, “Now, you’re being discharged and you’re folks are taking you home. Now they can help you and be in more control than they can here.”

“This is so unfair.” I muttered as the suitcase was closed and I heard the finality of clips snap shut.

I was going home with two strangers.

Two weeks past slowly and I sat in my bedroom of unusual clothes… of skirts made from denim… jeans and Doc Martens (both of which were far too tight and weird), but they felt good to wear, so I did.

Something about them made me feel like a rebel, so I put them on, looked around my make-up and found the bright pink eye shadow and black lipstick.

As I looked in the wardrobe, I found I was pulling out things at random and matching them to wear every day…

…this felt so familiar…

“Emily, how are you… oh you found your things.” The woman said at the door, “We left your room just as is, you know, to see if you’d remember anything when you came home.”

I turned from the outfit on the bed, “Who was I?”

She smiled walking up to me, “Honey… you were in punk rock band. And Emily is your birth name; it’s my mother’s name.” Looking at the clothes and how I had put on the make-up, she touched my hair, “The main thing is: how do you feel?”

“I still feel like I’m a stranger to you, and you’re a stranger to me.” I said, “But these clothes are familiar.”

Nodding, she turned and walked out of the room. I heard her sniffing as she descended the stairs. Looking around the room, I spotted a Glory Box I hadn’t been through since I returned ‘home’, so opening the lid, I looked at all the pillows and sheets inside it and found a tiny purple box stuffed in the corner of it. Picking it up, I saw a symbol on it of an Eye of some sort on it… this looked out of place in a room such as this; a room which was so wholesome and ordinary.

As I ran my fingers over its velveteen purpleness, I almost heard something from within it: ‘Open Me!’ and without a moment’s thought, I did!

“We’re going to lose her if you do that again!” she said.

“The purple box worked last time.” The doctor snarled at her, “Hold her down!”

My eyes snapped open and I look around me as I pulled against the restraints.

Tears blurred my vision.

What’s happened to me?

“Emily. It’s okay. You’re safe. You opened the purple box, and you’ll remember who you are now.” The doctor on the right of me said, his face hopeful.

“No, I’m not Emily. She is somebody I used to know; but now, you’ve awoken another… who has stayed quiet all this time… her more rebellious side.” I felt a grin grow on my face.

“Where’s Emily? Where have you put her?” the nurse asked.

Snapping a glare at her, I pulled on hard on the bars – so hard they shook, “Put her? I killed her… she’s not around anymore, now the eye on the box has set me free.”

Staggering back, the doctor and nurse exchanged frightened glances, as he asked, “What eye on the box? I didn’t put one on there for you to look for.”

“Pity… I saw it there…it said, ‘Open me’ and I did.”

I was the last thing he saw as I ripped through the restraints… 

...the nurse bashed the button for security… 

...as the demon within me transformed me into what they had feared all along!

Revenge Is Best Served Crazy

This week, Chuck gave a dead body... and not just any old dead carcass; no siree, bob! He asked us to write about a dead body, putting it into the first paragraph and taking it from there! 

Enjoy.

It happened so fast that I really didn’t know I was dead until I turned around and found my dead friend from school standing next to me grinning. He stopped grinning when he knew that I didn’t know what happened, “You’re dead.” He moved and I saw my mutilated body on the floor.

“Holy shit.” My hand covered my mouth quickly, “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“Nope.” He shook his head, “You were sitting at home here watching your favourite television show, when that dickhead in the truck outside thought to text to his girlfriend.”

Looking up, I saw huge grill of a MACK truck where my front window should be, “That’s not fair.”

He looked to his feet where the remains of my vintage teapot collection sat in a shattered pile of glass, porcelain and pottery, “I know. You were supposed to live for another thirty-five years, Thea. And I wasn’t supposed to see you upstairs until you were almost ninety.”

Fury welled in my gut as I felt … well, I didn’t know how to feel in this situation.

I was dead and it wasn’t my fault.

A moan emanated from the cab of the truck and we both looked, “He should be dead too.” I said.

“He soon will be.” He nodded, “He has some pretty bad injuries.”

“Injuries my arse.” I snapped, “He ran over me… look at my body! I can’t have an open casket with my head crushed like that!”

He looked at me, “You were planning on having a casket?”

“Well, yeah… but I didn’t want to have people know I was going to be deader than dead.” I walked over to my body, “Just look at me… it’s going to absolutely destroy my folks.”

“What the hell…?” a voice asked from above me.

I looked up through the shattered windscreen, “What the hell indeed! What the fuckin’ hell were you thinking, texting your slut girlfriend while you drove this shit thing through my front fence, into my living room and straight into me!” I stormed up to the front of the truck as the light bulbs in my kitchen exploded behind me.

Bobby flinched, “Holy crap, you have some power… forgot you were a witch.”

I ignored him, concentrating on the bastard driver who killed me, “Answer me, you shit!” I punched the front grill and it caved in as my fist came in contact with it, crunching – crumpling – under my super-energised anger of me.

The driver was more awake now, noticing the few strange things going on around him, “Oh my god…”

“God’s got nothing on you… nothing… you killed me!”

“Thea… let’s go… you can’t do anything now except scare the shit out of him.” Bobby reached out to touch me.

“Touch me Bobby and you’ll find yourself in another dimension.” I muttered.

He pulled his hand back as he swallowed thickly, “Okay, let’s go with the anger thing.”

The driver opened his door, and in turn I threw my hand open-palmed at it, making it slam shut, “No, I want you to stay there.”

“What’s going on?” he called out, “I want to go home.”

Climbing up onto the scratched and destroyed step of the cab, I looked straight at him, at his face lacking understanding of what he had just done, of how much he really didn’t want to be here, “You stay here, you dick.” I whispered softly.

“Who said that?” he shouted tears blurring his vision as he shook, “I want to go home.”

I shoved him and he jumped in his seat, “What the fuck…” he looked around, searching for who just touched him, not finding anyone around, “Who just shoved me?”

My anger became so strong, I wanted him to see me, and for a moment I made sure he did. As he turned and looked out the window of his cab, I was right there in his face, screaming at him, “You killed me!” before disappearing from the door and appearing next to Bobby.

“You finished?” he asked.

Tears filled my eyes as I felt the loss of my own life now.

I wasn’t going to come back.

The doctors weren’t going to be able to help me at the hospital this time…

The ambulance and coroner showed up and removed my body as the police peeled the driver out of the cab of truck.  He kept on muttering that he saw a ghost, that her voice was screaming at him all the time now… it was all he heard, all he saw.

He was going to be useless to society.

Bobby asked me again after all the guys and girls of the emergency services and the news crews had gone home for the day, “Okay, can we go now?”

I looked at him, “Yeah, we can now.”

“Why did you do that to him?”

“Bobby, I was a useful person to society until he killed me. Now, he can’t be useful to anyone because of me.” I said walking into the light with him, “It’s not my fault I’m dead, but it’s my fault he’s crazy.”

Taking my hand, he smiled, “Remind me to never piss you off.” 

The Whispering Lockbox

Chuck had this planned for us last week, but it stuffed up... so here it is this week.  It's an X meets Y.  We got to pick out our titles, and then make a 1500 word story out of it.  Mine's a little shorter, though.

Enjoy!

I had been warned – but I didn’t listen.

No, I didn’t – but I wish now that I had.

Life working with Fox wasn’t easy. He was ridiculed for being a strange asshole at the best of times, but the things he showed me were amazing.

We talked to all kinds of people who had seen all kinds of things, and had experienced stuff a lot of people just wouldn’t believe.

Well, let me tell you – nobody would ever believe me now if I said anything.

Not even the bar-flies in this place.

But you’re here to listen to my story about that lockbox, right?

Right.

Now, what kind of shit do you want to know about it? Hang on, I’ll tell you what I know, that’d be better.

We found it in Canada – the coldest part of it – under about twenty feet of snow. It was bright red and felt very warm to touch through our gloves; which was unusual, seeing it had a coating of ice around it.

Fox looked up at me as though he had found the Holy Grail, “We found it… it’s pulsing… isn’t it beautiful?”

I remember stepping back, not sure of it.  The scientist side of me not wanting to know, “I don’t think we should touch it.” But it was too late, he was running his hands all over it as though it was a precious gem, “Fox, I really think we should put it inside the case and wait until…”

He spun, greed reddening his eyes, “Until when?” he growled, “Until the government hides it away on us, like they have everything else?”

“No.” I glanced at its brightness in the glaring snow, “I mean, exactly what do we know about it?”

He shoved me and I stumbled, “We know enough to keep it away from the government and that it’ll be safe with me.”

After that I barely saw him without the box under his arm.  It was as though he was attached to it.

It was within reach of him when he was at his desk. He took it home every night. And when I visited his messy apartment, I noticed it took pride of place on the coffee table – as though it had been in his life from the very beginning, when really it hadn’t.

I became very worried about him, so I talked to our boss, “I really don’t know what to do about him.”

The portly, bald man I had admired since I started working for the FBI five years ago leaned against the folders on his desk, “Keep an eye on Fox, he’s getting in too deep with that lockbox. He’s letting it sway him.”

“Okay.” I rose from my seat, “But it’s difficult. Whenever I’ve tried to talk to him, his eyes turn red and he’s become violent.”

He sighed, running a hand over his shiny head, “Shit… it’s too late. We have to take it from him by force.”

“Sir…”

“Yes?”

“What’s inside the lockbox?” I asked, “It’s small, red and very warm.”

Half a smile pulled up the side of his face, but it didn’t stay there for long, as it turned into a grimace, “I’m not sure. Nobody is.”

“Is it from here?”

“Close the door.”

I knocked on Fox’s door and he answered it immediately. I wasn’t surprised to find him away at 3am, as he rarely slept, but he was also still in the same clothes as he wore on the day we found the lockbox.

“Hey, Fox. How’s the investigation going on the lockbox?” I smiled, “And… donuts?” I held up the ‘Krispy Kreme’ donut box for him to see, “I got two of each of your favourites.”

At first his face soured with suspicion, then he smiled, “Of course you can come in… after all you have donuts.”

“Sorry I turned into the scientist before… it’s just me.” I said placing the box on the counter in his kitchen. I spotted the box on the coffee table. It was still bright red and still warm – as it had melted a nearby candle, “Where’s your coffee?”

“I’ll make it.” He volunteered shuffling past me, “And it’s going well. The box is talking to me.”

Turning, I didn’t know what to say, “Talking?”

He smiled, “Yeah… go and have a look.”

I walked to the lounge, sat down and looked at the box.

From within it, I heard a faint whispering reach my ears, but I couldn’t make out exactly what it was saying…

Fox Mulder walked into the psych ward, signed in, attached his ‘visitor’s pass’ onto his pocket and turned to the doctor, “So, tell me, will she ever be the same again, doc?”

The man gave him a worried look, “Well, Mr Mulder, like I told you last week, and the week before, I don’t think so.” The walked to the door of the room, looking through the window to where Scully sat in a chair looking out a window to the wet, cold Winter’s day, “Can you please tell me what happened to her?”

“Sure… we were in Canada investigating a meteor sighting. When we found it, it turned out to be a lockbox – a red one.  It wasn’t very big and it was alive. I told her not to touch it; as it was warm and began to whisper to us.  The next thing you know…”