Monsters

Chapter Sixteen

I was tired. Studying throughout the day and late into the night. I knew I could pass my tests with flying colors, but that was only because of my adamance on pursuing my studies. Thus, my undying and constant willingness to learn led me to this point.

Half asleep with my head in a textbook. My teacher once said I'd probably die with a book in my hand. What a way to go that'd be huh? I laughed at the thought but it's probably my fate. I don't do anything else but educate myself till my brain is fried. Here lies Luz Noceda, the girl who died in the pursuit of endless knowledge. Or maybe I'd find myself stuck in my head, in a fantasy world that seemed better than the one I had been currently living in.

I was aware of my need for friends as a way to socialize. A way to get out of my own world and into the real one. However, the probability of me gaining a friend had been highly unlikely with all my character traits. The next best thing, or in this case the more likely event to occur for me, would be to go in search of a new hobby.

I wasn't athletic or overly outgoing, at least not in a way my peers seemed to like. Now I have become too busy sticking to myself. Clubs weren't really my thing either but maybe I could get with the nerds like me who liked something I did. It was worth a shot and I had to try either way. I was out of options and the adult figures in my life were out of patience.

With that decision being made within my mind that night I had brought out my notebook and jotted a reminder down for the next day. And it was during that next day I met my best friend Willow in the most unfortunate circumstances. Finally, I met someone who'd been kind toward me and accepting. Then Gus came along and the rest was history. I had found the friends who I had always needed and life became bearable.

Not too soon after I had reached that point in my life the world decided to end and I had lost everything I'd just gained and more. Because the day the storm came my mother had been out in the rain. She had called me in a panic and told me to stay inside and lock the doors until she got there. So I waited with my back against the front door, curled in on myself and covering my ears as I heard the world fall into chaos outside.

I'd covered my ears but that did nothing to stop the sounds of screaming and the screeching of tires. The sounds of begging voices and people slamming on my door pleading for me to let them in. Those sounds will never leave my mind as well as the memories from that day. Soon another pleading voice, my mother's voice, came through with loud knocks on the front door behind me.

I jumped up and opened the door. It swung open with a force yet my mom turned to close it with the same. She locked the door and turned to me with wide, alert eyes and tears streaming down her face. She brought me into her arms and I melted into her embrace scared of what was to come. All of a sudden the glass to one of our windows was broken open and an arm was reaching in.

The arm gripped mine and an enraged-looking man started to bring me towards him roughly as I thrashed around violently to rid myself of his grip on me. He was screaming for us to let him in and I was terrified. He tugged my arm as it was dragged through the broken window, the glass slicing a long line down my arm. Then, out of nowhere, my mother bashed him in the head with a baseball bat and his grip on me disappeared. 

My mother picked me up and started to drag me up the stairs as I held onto my bleeding arm. We found ourselves in her room as she rushed to the bathroom for the first aid kit. We stayed there in her room with the door locked as she fixed up my arm and the world continued to evolve into what I could recognize today as my present. And this continued even as the night fell and we remained in her room too afraid to leave.

We stayed up all night unable to sleep as my mom began to cough. These random episodes of violent coughing continued on and off into the next day and she began to run a fever. There wasn't much we could do to help her. We had just assumed it was from her being in the rain. Later that day she had a fit that wouldn't seem to stop and she had trouble breathing as she began to burn up further. I snuck down the stairs to get her something to eat and drink though a loud noise from our front door scared me back up the stairs before I could get much else.