It's Watching Us.

It's Watching Us - Chapter 1

    I sleepily drag my body out of my mom's old, gray Honda Civic, shutting the door behind me. The door slams loudly. the sound of metal colliding with itself echoes in my head. This car is so damn loud. Every small movement in it is like it's being recorded through a microphone pressed up against a megaphone while someone screeches in the backgrounds. I shake my leg, which must've fallen asleep from sitting in the car for 13 hours. I put my annoyingly long, black hair into a low ponytail, just at the base of my neck, using an old, white hair tie I don't remember buying. To be fair, I don't remember a lot of the things I buy. I just buy things without thinking, and then they end up banished to the depths of my closet or my dresser for the rest of eternity.

    "Hey, Saki," My mom calls from the other side of the car, "mind running into the store real quick?" She asks, smiling at me through the window as she messes with the buttons on the gas pump. Her shoulder-length, bleach-blonde hair blows around in the wind, whipping her face as we both stand out in the 50°, early fall weather. I don't want to say yes. I want to get back in the car and lay down on the back seat again. I want to keep watching shitty meme compilations on YouTube while wrapped in an over-sized sweater. I don't want to talk to a random cashier. I don't want to choose between two different brands of water that have the same exact nutrition facts and taste only slightly different. I don't want to walk all the way across the parking lot to the gas station store a few feet from the gas pumps. Especially not in this weather. It's so cold, the sun is halfway down, and multiple of the street lamps are out. It's so damn creepy out here.

    "Of course, mom," I reply, forcing myself to smile as I retire my black, leather combat boots, even though I know she can't see my face from the other side of the car, "What do you need me to buy?" I ask. I wait for her to answer me, as my hair blows into my eyes. I glance over at the sun setting. It's getting darker by the second. I don't like that.

    "Get us a few bottles of water, a pre-packaged charcuterie board, and one of those salads in the little plastic boxes, will you? The ranch dressing one with the iceberg lettuce and those croutons, please!" She replies, before quickly adding "And get yourself something too, 'kay?" She tosses me her wallet and waves her hand, indicating that I'm supposed to go. I catch the wallet in one hand, wave to her with the other, and run off towards the store.

    I try to walk quickly, not wanting to be out here any longer than I have to. The shadows loom eerily from the few street lamps that aren't broken yet. One street lamp is slightly dented, standing at a slight angle. There's a pile of shattered glass, presumably from the light bulb, lying under it. Someone must've hit it with their car or something, I guess. I brush my hair out of my eyes again. I guess putting it up didn't do much...

    I finally get to the front door. I breathe out a sigh of relief once my hand connects with the door handle and I notice the lights are on in the store. I push the door in. Nothing happens. I push the door again. Still nothing. Shit...are they closed? I push the door again, forcing all of my body weight onto it, still, nothing happens. Finally, I turn to give up and walk back to the door, and...there it is. There's a sign. It literally says "pull to open", directly above the "no loitering" and "smile, you're on camera!" signs. I'm an idiot. I pull the door handle, and the door swings open, the metal hinges creaking.

    For a second, I catch my own reflection in the cleanly polished glass of the door. My reflection, slightly warped by the glass, stares back at me with its' dead, soulless eyes. There's bags under my eyes, and my skin is paler than usual. I'm shaking slightly. I must've forgotten to eat recently or something. That's what a 25 hour road trip through the middle of nowhere will do to a person, I guess. We seriously drove all the way from Whiting, Maine to Rochester, Minnesota and we saw not one, not two, but zero interesting things during the entire drive. It was just a bunch of empty fields, small suburban towns, the occasional lake, and one long highway where every other car we drove by carried the overpowering scent of weed. The amount of times I turned up the fan or opened a window to get rid of the smell is infuriating. I hate driving on the highways. Everyone's either high on something, doing something on their phone, or just a shitty driver without even trying. Makes me never wanna get a license. I don't think I'll ever be a good enough driver to survive on a highway with crazy people like that. About an hour ago, I saw a lady steering her car with her knees while eating a Starbucks cake pop. The highways of the midwestern USA are a fucked up place.

    I walk into the store and grab a small, blue plastic basket with a long, black bar for a handle. I swing the empty basket in my hands as I walk around the store, quietly whisper-singing a song to myself. I pick up a random bag of generic spicy tortilla chips. I've always preferred the generic store brand over the more expensive name brands. Not sure why, they just taste better. The texture feels less weird on my tongue, and they taste more like food and less like chemical preservatives. I toss the bag into the basket hanging around my wrist and keep walking.

    I finally get to the back of the store, where the fridges are. I take out one salad and flip it over to read the ingredients. Nope, this one's got nuts on it. Who the hell puts nuts on a salad anyway? Fucking weirdos...I take out another salad and flip this one over. After a moment of reading the ingredients, I sigh in frustration and put it back. This one's got romaine lettuce, not iceberg. What's even the difference? Who even cares? All lettuce tastes the same...at least it does to me. All lettuce sucks. I pick up a third salad and hesitantly flip it over. I begin scanning the ingredients with my eyes. Finally, the right salad. Great. That's one thing off the list. Next up...water bottles. I pick up two bottles of water, not even bothering to check the brand. Every brand tastes the same to me, just like the lettuce. It's all just water...and a bunch of chemicals and minerals the companies put in it. I've never understood adding stuff to water. Just let it be water. Take it from a stream, clean it, and put it in a recyclable or reusable bottle or cup. It doesn't need to be this complicated. Next on the list...packaged charcuterie boards. .

    I walk over to the next section, the frozen meats and cheeses. Why is that a thing? Why can't we just put the meat and cheese with everything else? Whatever, not my problem. I don't even work here. I grab a random charcuterie board off the shelf and add it to the small, neon-blue basket around my wrist. Walking past the rest of the fridges again, I open the last fridge in the row. A rush of cold air hits me like a brick wall, sending a shiver up my spine. So cold...I sigh and grab a can of a Cherry Limeade flavored energy drink from the fridge and shut the door, locking the cold air away before it freezes my skin. Too late. The cold air seeps into my skin, making me shiver. I pull my sweater tighter around my body with one hand as I carry the basket up to the checkout with the other.

    I smile politely at the cashier, my eyes going to the many enamel pins clipped to her work uniform underneath the name of the gas station embroidered on the piece of clothing. She smiles back at me. I place my basket onto the counter and she begins scanning the contents of the basket with the In-Counter Barcode Scanner. She places the things into a small plastic bag with the gas station logo, gently putting in each item one by one. I take my mom's credit card out of the wallet she handed me earlier and tap it on the scanner to pay for the items. The machine prints off my receipt, which is obscenely long for the 5 or 6 items I purchased. She cashier tears the receipt from the machine and places it in the bag with the rest of my things, folding it into even fourths to make it fit in the bag. I thank her politely and take the bag from the counter and walk out of the store.

    A cold gust of air hits my body, like falling into a pool from 70 feet up. I shiver and hold the bag a little bit tighter as I start walking faster, not wanting to be out here any longer than I have to. I look towards the gas pump my mom was parked at, but she's not there. Sitting in the space is a blue Subaru Ascent, which is absolutely not the car I remember being there. Did I get the wrong spot? I look around, trying to find my mom's car. For a moment, my mind is consumed with nothing but panic. She wouldn't abandon me here, right? Right?

...oh. There she is. Parked right there in the parking lot a few feet from the gas pumps. I walk over, breathing a sigh of relief as I approach the car. I open the door to the front passenger seat and get in, sitting on the cold cloth upholstery. I set the plastic bag of things down on the floor as I buckle my seatbelt.