Behind The Scenes(ON HOLD)

chapter 2 - Mark

I walked into my house, angrily throwing my backpack on the floor next to the sofa and then  rushed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. I sat on the cold tiles trying to wipe away the stream of tears running down my face. My heart was still racing. As I slowly stood up I looked in the mirror. My eyes were bright red and swollen and there was an enormous bruise forming on my left cheek, right where Harry had punched me. 

As I was standing there, millions of thoughts dancing around in my head, I heard a knock on the door.

"Mark, are you okay?" came my mum's voice from the hallway.

"I'm fine," I said, my voice shaking.

"I know you're not." She sighed. "We can talk about it, if you like."  

"Honestly, mum, just leave me alone, please. I'm okay," I insisted, even though we both knew I was far from okay.

"There's chicken for lunch, if you feel like eating," she said, giving up, as she went down the stairs.

I couldn't let her see that I had been crying and most importantly that someone had punched me. I looked through her make-up products in hopes of finding something to cover up my swollen cheek and found some kind of skin coloured powder. It stung as I lightly dabbed it on my face. I then straightened myself up and walked down the steps. 

I sat at the table quietly watching my mum fill my plate up with food. She placed it in front of me and started  to make a salad. I was starving, but I couldn't bring myself to eat. If I ate, I would just keep gaining weight and would just continue to hate the image I saw in the mirror. Not to mention that everyone would continue to stare at me every time I walked through the school's hallways. I squeezed back a tear as I pushed the plate away. 

"I think, I'll actually go read for a while. I'm not in the mood to eat," I said to my mum, not daring to make eye-contact with her, fearing she would see the bruise I had so clumsily covered up.

I rushed up to my room, before she had time to ask any questions. 

I sat at the foot of my bed, my eyes watering and picked up my old, over-read copy of 'Gone with the Wind'. I had read it so many times, I could recite some of the pages, word for word. I opened it and read a few paragraphs, but my mind kept wandering off. I really wished that I could be slim. Virtually everyone I knew had a six-pack and was fit, except for me. I needed to stop eating so much. That way, people would finally stop judging me.  I closed 'Gone With The Wind' and sighed.

One of my tears landed on the cover of the book and as I wiped it off, my whole room lit up and I started to feel extremely dizzy. Then, suddenly, everything started spinning and a moment later I landed on hard wooden floor-boards. I sat up in shock. I wasn't in my room any more. 

The place I was in looked nothing like my bedroom. In fact it seemed to be some house's servant's quarters. I had once seen a room like that in a film.

After a few moments of complete shock, I staggered over to a small window, which was over a wooden bed and peered through it.  Outside, I saw two women wearing long dresses, walking towards a field filled with what seemed to be cotton plants. Those women really looked familiar. That was when I realized where I was. 

It didn't seem real. It couldn't have been real. It was never possible for people to magically transport into books. This place really seemed to be 'Tara', the mansion from the film of 'Gone with the wind'.

What on earth was going on?

I just stood there, frozen, trying to comprehend this sudden change of events, when I heard the floorboards in the hallway creak. Someone was coming. Then there was a knock on the door.