The Phoenices Volume 1 - Expired

Chapter 1 - Reilly

The Zero Chapter will be the whole NaNoWriMo version of the story, all on one chapter if you would prefer to wait until it's finished to read, but there's nothing to say I won't take it down and continue writing this, at a slower pace of course, but maybe continue. Last chapter has the whole thing, if you'd like to read it. It's not edited, but it's done.

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I woke with a start, sitting up straight as a ruler before relaxing back into my bed, slamming my palm against my alarm clock as I fell. I slowly reached up to rub my eyes, putting one foot on the wood floor and quickly retracting it from the cold, I was trying to wake myself up but it didn't seem to be working. I eventually gave up, climbing out from under the warm comforter into the chilled room. I threw a sweatshirt on over my bra, and pulled a pair of dirty, torn combat boots on my feet before brushing my teeth and heading out the door.

"We're getting later and later by the day," my dad remarks as we pull onto the bridge downtown, tapping the tip of his finger on the clock. It read 7:24 AM.

"Actually, yesterday we were here at 7:32, and I still made it to school with time to grab a coffee before going to bio," I retorted, resting the heels of my boots on the dash, as my backpack and flute case took up the floorspace in the truck. I pulled my sleeve up to grab the hair tie off of my wrist, tying my hair into a poufy, knotted ponytail, when the date tattooed on my arm caught my attention. November 23rd, 2017. "Dad it's almost the 23rd," I sighed, holding my wrist out for him to see, " Do I have to go to school? It's not like it'll actually matter if I get good grades or not, I'm not even going to graduate."

"Shush, you don't know for sure that your date is correct, there've been people who lived past their expiration," he commented, a hint of desperation in his voice.

"Yeah, 3. In all of history." I replied, shaking my head as I pulled my sleeve down as I checked the date on my phone's calendar, it was the 1st. "I heard Christmas music was supposed to start playing on 100.3 today," I reached out to change the channel, trying to change the topic of discussion with the stations. My father didn't answer, instead staring straight at the road in front of him, his knuckles white on the steering wheel and his jaw clenched to hold in the unsaid truth: I was going to die in 22 days and there was nothing anyone could do about it. I tripped on the curb as I climbed out of the car, catching myself before I fell flat on my face. My face towards the ground and my hands in my pockets, I headed into the prison system the government called school.

"Hey buttmunch," I affectionately called to my best friend as I tossed my backpack onto the lunch table we sat at every morning while we waited for the bell to ring. "Do you wanna go get coffee with me?"

"Yeah, sure," Natalie replied, heading past me to the cashier at the cafe.

"Coffee with caramel and chocolate sauce, extra whipped cream?" asked the lady behind the register, I had begun to refer to her as coffee lady, due to the fact that she knew my order and had it ready by the time I could punch my payment code into the machine. Natalie came over to me with a cheap plastic cafeteria lid and as we walked back to the table, the coffee sloshed over the rim landing on the sensitive skin on my wrist. I hissed, setting the steaming cup on the table before wiping the liquid off and inspecting the damage it did to my skin.

"Reilly," Natalie mumbled, gesturing to my wrist, her face as white as a ghost. I didn't know what she was talking about until I saw which wrist I had exposed, more importantly the year tattooed permanently into my skin.

"Ha, I got you," I laughed, pulling the sleeve down. "I covered my real tattoo with tattoo concealer and used eyeliner to write on 2017." I lied through my teeth, a fake grin spreading ear to ear as I sipped the scalding caffeine. She didn't believe me, but she didn't push the subject any farther.