Mindless

chapter 1

First Chapter

   The average teenage girl who runs away from her family will come back eventually. Even if she didn't intend on ever seeing them again. But I wasn't the average teenage girl.  It started of simple. As simple as running away could be, I guess. I've been told almost a hundred times that I shouldn't have run away. That it was stupid idea. That I could have avoided everything bad that was to follow that heat of the moment decision. But you’ll never understand what it’s like to live with people who don’t love you, people who don’t care about you. They labeled me as sick and skittish. Because that’s what those types of people do, they label things. But they didn't understand. I've just seen things. The type of things that would scare you out of your wits. Nightmares more terrifying than any of the Stephan king movies.  They were the monsters people couldn't explain. That people couldn't label and that scared them.  So they labeled me instead.

  But the real crazy people are the ones who are foaming at the mouth and begging for Jesus to save them. I wasn't that, I wasn't crazy. I knew the images I was seeing were real, because nothing would make them go away. There wasn't any medication or therapy that even sized their presence.  The community of doctors and social workers I grew up with weren't much help. They’d pack on the pill load and add in extra hours of therapy. Pills don’t make real demons go away. So I went from the frightened five year old girl, who had just lost her family. To the insane Fifteen year old who hadn't stayed in a foster home longer than three years.

  Four days after I turned fifteen I couldn't hack another day in foster care. Walter and Martha Mullen, my latest foster parents had been at work when I escaped. I can’t imagine they even noticed I was gone in the first forty eight hours. I bought a bus ticket with the wad of cash I had been erring since I was ten. I hadn't known what I was going to the use the money for back when I was ten. But it had had come in handy. I had planned that I was going to skip towns until I ran out of money. Then I find a job and go to a public school. I dreamed of growing up to live a normal American suburban life.

  For a straight month my plan was going smoothly. Everything played out just as I wanted it to. Until the bus stopped in River Grove Illinois.  I had paid for a room on the ground floor of the area's super 8.  The room was close to the highway and no matter how hard I tired, I couldn't get the blinds to close properly. It was big room with a queen sized bed and a small television, that sat on the dresser across from the bed. The room was dull with little color. It was boring. The atmosphere of the room had given off this eerie vibe that nothing was going to ever happen in its four walls. It was all just an illusion though.

    I was lying on the bed in the heat of that July summer night only to end up falling asleep without even unmaking the bed. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I remember being asleep. I wasn't dreaming and I could hear the lolling sound of cars speeding past the inn. After an anonymous amount of hours, my nervous instincts woke me up. Glancing around the room for a ghost, I found nothing was there. At least nothing I could see. Crossing my legs on the mattress, I knew there was no way I was falling back asleep. My heart was pumping too fast for me to even close my eyes. Then just as my heart slowed, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was a shadow that had been there and gone again in minutes. As my breathing speed up I tried to convince myself it was a rat.

   But it couldn't have been a rat because the shadow had crawled almost half way up the wall. I didn't move. I was as still as cement that had been set for many years. I wanted to call out and ask who was in my room but I knew even if someone was there they wouldn't answer. I watched the blank empty walls with wide eyes waiting for more evidence of another shadow. After only seconds of waiting, a loud crash came from in the corner of the room. I watched as the glass vase fell to the floor and shattered into a million little pieces. “Who’s there?” I called out quietly. I couldn't help myself I had to ask. But just as I suspected no one answered. I inching my way off the bed spread. Slowly tiptoeing towards the broken vase. Holding my breath almost the entire way across the carpet. I just slightly bent my knees as I went to pick up a shared of the glass. It was like a mirror in the moonlight and I could see my reflection gazing back from it. My layered honey blond hair was tangled and messy, covering my eyesight. The pricing blue gaze I was used to was panicked and more alert than the normal. Out of the corner of the glass I just noticed a dark image disappear out of the reflection.