Emerald

Chapter 1 - The Article

Unknown POV:

I shivered under my blankets. The wind blew through the dark and empty streets of Madagascar. Wait, no. I'm not in Madagascar. I'm in... err, Brisbane? Wait, I'm in Australia? Pfft, I have no freaking clue. All I know is that I am cold, and hungry. Aww, man. I could go with some MacDonald's right about now. This park bench isn't getting any cosier. Not that it was ever cosy. The blankets currently cocooning me with its pretend warmth had gotten worse for wear over the years of being exposed to the harsh weather. It had even begun to mould around the edges. Like bread. You know the type that I normally eat. I'm actually surprised I haven't got hypothermia or anything life threatening yet, due to my usual diet.

That's it. I've been sleeping away my life. Time to unravel my sheets and greet the morning sun and its people. With a new found determination, I leaped from the park bench, my eyes wide open and viewing the city in all its morning glory. My legs were kind of shaky from disuse, but I could fix that.

Out of nowhere, something smashed into my face, blinding me. I couldn't see what it was, but I did see white, with tiny little letters printed across it boldly. My legs wobbled unsteadily, and I attempted to rip whatever had attached itself around my face off. The wind blew harder, molding it into place, and I tripped backwards onto solid ground.

Now, I haven't come out of my cocoon in a while, but from what I remember, not to mention hear every day, there was a commonly used road where I now laid sprawled across. I heard cars whizzing by me in a rush to get to wherever they were going quickly. I finally peeled back what I now realise is a newspaper from my face, to see cars zooming straight for me. I dived onto the left side of the lane, narrowly missing getting run over by a red car, only to throw myself under what resembled a school bus. I heard the screams of children before I heard a horn being blown from said bus. Frozen, I watched it approach in horror.

The school bus swerved out of the way, only to flip over and roll into a toy store. One second I was standing there, the next, and there was fire billowing from the store windows, people screaming, looting (one guy even walked out with a trolley filled with goods), genocide, and overall pandemonium. Children smashed the bus windows from the inside with their shoes in an attempt to escape. Some guy pointed a gun to the heavens and fired. All of a sudden, a stampede of people in a crazed frenzy to get to safety ran by me, coming concernedly close to ramming me down.

I escaped to an alley in between a bar and a Thai restaurant to safety before realising that I was still grasping the newspaper in my hands. With nothing to do other than wait out the world around me, I read the heading.

Tim-Tim is Gone-Gone!

19/1/14 AhrimadYullh

LONDON- BREAKING NEWS! The prestigious Marrara-Lee High School was invaded last night. Two robbers armed with a Glock, several kitchen knives and a brick broke in and stole an entire computer lab, money raised for comic relief and a kid. No joke they literally stole a kid.

The kid's name is Tim-Tim (17). He was returning to school to get the spider-man comic and homework book he left in classroom 2A. He is a short ginger with curly hair. He was last seen exiting the school unconscious slung over the shoulder of a hooded man. Tim-Tim was wearing his favourite purple dinosaur onesie pyjamas. If you see him contact authority's immediately.

The janitor, Phil Mendickle (81), who was cleaning the toilet at the time was mutilated with too many gory injures to count let alone mention without making this article R18+. He was found dead this morning in the girls toilets with his head shoved in the 3rd cubical toilet bowl. A ransom note was left with his body containing the reason Tim-Tim was taken. It read------

"Meow."

I looked up from the paper that I was currently reading and saw a black speckled with grey kitten, staring at me with its single emerald eye, inquisitively. The newspaper now forgotten, I bend down, arms outstretched towards its scrappy malnourished body. It cautiously took a step towards me before looking back and running down the alley. Realising I had dropped the newspaper, I turned around to watch it blow around the corner, I ran after it.

The chaos and pandemonium that had once held the road hostage had dissipated. Everything was back in place. People milled around on the street like nothing had happened, cars continued to zoom by in hast to get to their jobs in time. The toy store that I had watched burn was untouched by flames, not even charred. Happy customers walked out hand in hand with their smiling children. The windows that were smashed by the bus just a short while before were whole, no cracks visible to my eyes. No skid marks tattooed the road. It was like it had never happened. Like it had all been a figment of my imagination...

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A/N.

Hey guys. This is our first story on Wattpad to grace the world with it's presence, so please, only constructive criticism (don't be arse hats). Next chapter will be in Tim-Tim's POV, as will most of the others. Please keep reading, We promise you won't regret it. Picture of unknown POV to the side. Oh and don't forget to go check out @BOOKSNOB this chapter is dedicated to her, she's really awesome! So please go check her out, you won't regret it!

J.J.