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 Post subject: Outside, Looking In - (AN ORIGINAL STORY)
PostPosted: May 3rd, 2014, 12:45 pm 
Ent
Ent
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Joined: 24 January 2012
Posts: 669
Location: Woodland Realm
Country: United Kingdom (uk)
Gender: Female

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This was a story I wrote for a friend, and posted on FictionPress here. It gets updated much faster on there, if you want to read it through in full.

------

Arianna Sawyer had a hard life. Forced to live on the streets. Always an outsider. All that changes on a bus journey where she encounters a girl, who is more than she seems. She meets six people, Samuel Styles, Marcella Paxton, Farah Newell, Ida Isaiah, Dexter Garrett, Edwin Fuller, and their gargoyle guardian Conor. She might just have more in common with them than she thinks.

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Chapter 1
Bus Journey to Nowhere


Some days I hate my father. Others I think that him marrying some trashy woman from the bar was a good thing. Nothing ever could have prepared me for a life of sleeping on the couch of anyone who would offer, with everything I owned in a backpack.

The money in my purse equalled exactly fifty two pence. I had just spent most of my money on a warm cup of soup and a bus ticket.

I sat at the back of the bus ignoring the glares of the other passengers. None of them wanted to sit near a girl who hadn't bathed in weeks. Who could blame them?

I had no idea where I was going, but it had to be better than this dreary old town, with nothing to offer but judgement.

Houses, shops, parks, even cars and other busses that I will never see again whizzed past the window. All I could feel was the warmth from the engine under me. Even as a child I loved sitting at the back. In winters it was as warm as snuggling under a thick woollen blanket. In the summers I could hide away from the worst of the sun's glare.

One sentence came my way, that shocked me so much, that I had to ask the girl to repeat.

"Mind if I sit here?" said a girl, who looked near my age. Around eighteen or nineteen. On her face she had the most peculiar pock marks, where her skin was lighter than the rest of her.

"Yes," I said, bewildered. Why would she possibly want to sit near me? No one ever wanted to be anywhere near me. I wasn't even called my own name anymore.

She sat down right next to me, not even bothering to squirm to make sure we didn't touch each other. "Something wrong with your back?" asked she.

"No," I replied. "Stomach cramps."

My arms rested firm over my stomach, hoping that the cramps in my stomach were just travel sickness. Hunched over hoping that the excess saliva in my mouth was because my meal was liquid. The colour drained out of my face. Don't be sick, don't be sick, I repeated over and over in my mind. Not here. Please.

"Do you want me to open the window?" asked the girl.

I shook my head.

Opening my mouth might cause my first meal in a fortnight to projectile coat the chair in front of me in vomit. All I had to do, was wait until the bus left the town, then I could get off an vomit in the privacy of a bush or something.

I focused on anything I could. How the girl beside me's hair reminded me of a blonde bombshell woman, in one of those old movies. How it would kink in all the right places, with a single lock dangling in front of her face.

"Got a name?" asked the girl.

I tapped one of the smaller pockets on my rucksack with my finger.

She opened it up, and removed my passport. I only kept it, so if I ended up dead in a ditch, the policeman that found me could ID me. "Arianna Sawyer. Nice name. I'm Marcella. Marcella Paxton—and no, you don't have to say my first name twice." Marcella returned my passport to the rucksack pocket.

I heard one woman mutter to her friend, "You would never see me speaking to such a repulsive waste of life."

Suddenly an apple smashed itself at the back of the woman's head. I had no idea where it came from. It was just there. Then smash! The woman screamed, pointing at me, saying it was my fault.

The bus driver pulled over at the side of the road, walking down the aisle towards me. "Get off, we don' allow troublemakers." He pointed a threatening finger at me, as if he were considering throwing me off himself.

Cautiously, I reached for my rucksack. I was no stranger to people portraying me as a troublemaker, to make the bus driver kick me off.

Marcella placed her hand on my shoulder, and pushed me back into my seat. "Just look at her. If she had any food, she probably would have eaten it, rather than wasting it on that stuck up socialite wannabe." Marcella removed her phone from her pocket. "You kick her off this bus, I'm phoning the depot, and telling them that you harassed an under aged girl, and threw her off because she wouldn't sleep with you in exchange for a ticket."

A cocky look spread across his face. "And, how would you prove that?"

"I heard him say that," said a man, who got on three stops after me.

"Me too," said a girl sat in the disabled seats.

"Me too," chorused from a few other people.

How was this even possible? Marcella had made it up, but everyone backed it up.

That wiped the smirk right off his face. "Alright fine. Any more trouble, and you can both get off."

Marcella stayed with me for the rest of the journey. Long after everyone had gotten off. My stomach cramps eased. Maybe there was something in that mental mantras thing. If I honestly believed something about my own body, it would happen.

The last stop for me. Just outside of town, a small diner like what you see in those American movies, when they breakdown in the middle of nowhere. Every time there is a little diner.

I planned to wait until it was nearing closing time. Sometimes the kitchen staff of cafes or restaurants had some leftover food, that they didn't want to go to waste. If I looked pathetic enough, someone might take pity on me and give me some of the leftovers for the day.

I didn't notice until I was crossing the car park, that Marcella had followed me.

"Um... did I accidently pick up your bag or something?" I asked. I checked, to make sure that the rucksack on my back was my own.

"Nah. I saw the sign in that window, and fancied a late night burger. I read about this place in the papers. Thought I'd try it out."

"Great," I said. Maybe I'll get to try one of those burgers, come closing time.

"Come in with me."

I glanced at the small diner.

There was no way on this earth that I would be allowed to step foot in there, let alone sit at one of the tables and order something.

"I don't think that is—."

"Don't try to dish out an excuse. Come in and eat. It's on me."

I felt bad about accepting, because the money would go to waste. As soon as she left me here, my body would force me to deposit it into the nearest trash can.

Marcella removed a red apple from her pocket. "I have to make a call on the payphone, my phone is out of credit."

She left me stood at the door. The light from a nearby streetlamp gleamed off the shining red skin of the apple. If this was in her pocket, I would have noticed it sooner. My teeth sunk into the juicy apple. It was the most delicious piece of food, that I have ever tasted in my entire life.

I would die a happy woman, if that apple was my last meal. All my nausea melted away. Hopefully this apple will taste just as good on the way back up, as it did on the way down.

Marcella returned to me, leading me into the diner. Compared to the clean floors, tables and counters, I must have looked like a dirty wet dog, that has just crawled out of a muddy river. Coated down to the roots of its fur. So dirty, that you can't even tell what its fur colour used to be.

We sat down at a booth right at the end. I felt so self conscious. As if a huge magnifying glass were aimed at me, and everyone in this diner was a nasty little kid wanting to burn some ants to death.

Even the waitress sneered at me. Marcella did all the ordering. I wondered who she was ordering for, because she listed off far more food than I could ever eat. Two thick quarter pounder burgers, two creamy chocolate milk shakes, an ice cream sundae with all the trimmings, a slice of red velvet cake, chocolate truffle torte, two slices of honey spiced cake, apple pie, pecan pie, cheese cake. To get me started, she ordered a small mixed seed bread loaf and a bowl of pea soup.

Seeing so much food made me want to gorge myself, until I exploded all over the spotless wooden floor.

I couldn't help wondering what other people were thinking. What they were muttering about a dirty hobo sat with a pretty girl in pink, who made my childhood Barbie doll look like that ogre princess in Shrek, eating enough food to feed ten people.

"Tell me, Arianna, why were you on a bus coming out to nowhereville, at this time of night?" asked Marcella, moving on from the burger to the red velvet cake.

"I wanted a fresh start. Get away from town," I said, as it if were nothing. Or more specifically, away from people.

Two more people turned up, that clearly knew her well. A darker skinned boy, who had a dangerous look in his eye, as if he wanted to murder everyone in this diner. The other was a girl that didn't speak, but she made sure that she didn't go unnoticed. With hair flicks, or mimicking any hand gestures that anyone made.

"Arianna, this is Edwin and Farah. They are my roommates."

I nodded my head, acknowledging them.

Between the three of them, they made their way through a fair bit of the food. I was still determinedly trying eat my soup. I had barely even made it halfway down the bowl.

I noticed strange things about Edwin. Like his beard grew in weird patches. His nails almost resembled claws. The scarf he wore like a turban completely blocked his ears from sight.

Marcella's friends were strangely cautious of me. I expected them to ditch me, when I left to go to the bathroom, but they were still there in the booth waiting for me. Farah paid the bill.

Out in the cold air, I expected Marcella to say goodbye and leave me there. She opened the door of a van. "Get in."

Without hesitation, I climbed into the van. Sleeping on a bench in the car park was not something that I looked forward to.

Everyone else climbed in. Edwin drove. With the warmth of the heater, and the rumble of the engine, I started to drift off.

"Who is she anyway?" asked Farah.

"Some girl I met on the bus," replied Marcella.

"Is she...?" asked Edwin.

"Nah. I don't think so," said Marcella.

I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was in a soft comfortable bed, in a room with no windows at all. My hair was blonde again, and my skin was pale pink. Those dirt caked raggy clothes were long gone, replaced with comfortable pyjamas. Thick socks on my feet.

_________________
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♥ Married to Thranduil, 22 April 2014 ♥

Lónannûniel, Queen of the Woodland Realm ♦


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