The Reset (discarded)

Chapter 1

"Goodbye Julie, see you tomorrow Brittany," Isabindi shouted, smiling with joy and a hint of sorrow as she waved goodbye to her friends, who were leaving now that her birthday party had drawn to an end. After giving her last "thank you's" and goodbye's she looked back at the remains of her sixteenth birthday party, and groaned at the idea of cleaning. Despite knowing her parents would be upset when they got up the next morning, she left the room as it was, and got ready for bed before the city's electricity was cut for the night.

After changing into her nightgown and brushing out her long brown hair, Isabindi got out her sketch pad and started another sketch, knowing that by morning she would have forgotten what her inspiration was for the idea. She drew as much as she could by the light on her nightstand. She sighed as she heard the patrol cars starting up on the street, and quickly pulled her covers up and turned off her light, dreading the clean up from her party the next morning.

******

When Isabindi woke up the next morning, she couldn't help but wonder why her parents hadn't yelled at her to clean the mess up. Hoping they hadn't noticed yet, she opened her eyes and was about to get ready to leave when she realized she didn't recognize her room at all. Scared and confused she ran down the hall into an even more unrecognizable house. Upon reaching a staircase, she froze, hearing voices in the room downstairs.

"Issy dear, please stop running around so much up there. You're going to wake up your brother, and I just got him down for his morning nap," a voice called from the lower levels of the house.

Isadindi slowly came down the stairs, and entered the room to her right, trying to find the source of the voice. She looked around in thinly concealed fear and some rather obvious confusion at the room she had entered. It was almost the exact replica of her friends. This realization soothed her a little, thinking maybe she must have spent the night and just forgot. This relaxation ended as soon as she saw the wall of photos set up behind the large gray couch. She was in almost all the pictures, smiling with an unknown group of people. Reaching out, she touched a photo of her next to two older people, and couldn't explain the deep seated pain she felt in her heart, as if she were missing them, even though she hardly recognized them.

"They were so excited when I told them I was having a baby girl. Besides your father, they were the first people I told," the same voice said, sounding sorrowful.

Not expecting someone to come up behind her, Isabindi jumped, and fell onto the ground, thinking that whomever had snuck up behind her might have had ill intentions.

"Sorry honey, didn't mean to scare you" the voice said. Isabindi could now see the voice belonged to a middle age woman, maybe in her late thirties or early forties. She had brown hair, with streaks of blonde, and bright green eyes, with eyelashes long enough they touched her eyelids.

"It's f-fine," Isabindi spoke, surprised by her stuttering voice. "You ju-just s-surprised me."

"I could tell you jumped almost a foot off the couch. Why were you looking at these pictures anyways? Ever since the accident you refused to look at them," she said, looking concernedly at Isabindi.

"What-what accident?" Isabindi asked nervously, getting up, trying to ignore the sympathetic look in the woman's eyes.

"It's nothing sweety, now go shower, and get dressed, I'm going to call the babysitter for your brother so we can have a mother daughter day, how does that sound?" she asked, recovering quickly from the shock her daughter had given to her.

"M-mother and daughter?" Isabinidi questioned, trying to connect the pieces of what was happening.

"I know it's been a while, but we could go shopping and get food together, all on me of course," Isabindis 'mother' replied, hoping her daughter would stop the questioning.