The lost souls

Chapter one

Chapter One
"Vennesa!" Today is our book report at school. Oh no, I don't want to go up there. It's Stella's fault for picking the number that Mrs. Barbara wrote me down as! I slowly rise from my seat and shuffle toward the front of the room. I freeze. The entire room is staring at me. I shiver slightly and look at my note cards.
Slowly, I start my report. "The Stars On The Other Side Of The Universe is a book about a girl..." My voice trails off in my mind but I know everyone else can hear me speak. I'm shaking. My chest tightens and I feel as if I'm on fire. "I liked how Stephanie was described so clearly and that..." My voice trailed off again, but this time, it wasn't just in my head. I completely stopped and panicked! What do I do?!
I thought helplessly as I stared into the room. Every eye is on me. I can feel the pressure and the tears coming to my eyes. "She was so funny and smart to trick the aliens." I finish my sentence. "I suggest this book..." I drone on about who I suggest the book to and the feeling of relief struck my body, but the relief went away fast. I feel like I'm in a huge, burning incinerator within five seconds after the relief struck me.
"Thank you for that report Vennesa," says Mrs. Barbara. I quickly make my way back to my seat and flung myself into it. Cally and her friends were snickering and taking turns making fun of me. Carina and Cassie were telling me I did a good job but I refuse to believe it. I'm shaking and sweaty with my black hair plastered to my forehead and my neck.
Ten minutes later, the bell rings and we're dismissed from school. I walked out of the building and I completely froze. There he is. Scott, my crush, with his pale blond hair and soft expression. I could feel myself blush, so I hid my face by putting my hood up and walked past as quickly as possible. I made it to my bus and flung myself into a seat.
I pop my earbuds into my ears and turn my music on. After my bus gets to my stop, I text my step mom and tell her that I'm taking a walk. I hate going home after school, even if dad is there. My step mom is super mean and I hate her! She's the reason I wish that I could run away and never return. As I wander into town I realize my step mom hasn't texted me back yet. I call her to see if she's ok.
No answer. I start to panic, because if she's hurt, then so is dad. I call dad, but he doesn't answer either. I turn on my heals and sprint as fast as I can back home. I burst in through the door and call their names as loud as possible. No answer. I start to search the house. "MOM?" I yell as tears rush to my eyes.
"DAD?" I yell a little louder than before, tears now stream down my face. No answer. What do I do? I can't find anyone in the house! I'm completely alone. I fall to the floor, now allowing the tears to come faster than before. "Where are you?" I ask myself as well as an invisible mom and dad.
"Where are you?" I repeat again, my voice shaking from me crying. No, they can't be gone. They can't have left the house to go somewhere. They would have told me, right? I'll go to Cassie and Carina's house! Maybe they know what's going on! So, I start to walk down the road.
Halfway there, I feel a little colder. Is it getting cold out or is it just me? Whatever, I'm at their house. It will be warm inside, I hope their home. What if they're not home? Panic fills my body even more than before! What if I came here for nothing?
What if they can't help me? "Think," I say to myself. "Here goes nothing," I think as I go to the door and ring the doorbell. I wait a little.Nobody comes to the door. I ring the doorbell again and wait some more. No answer. "Oh NO!" They're gone too! This can't be happening!
I have to find out what is going on. So I'm going to head to the woods. Dad always is back there. Maybe that's why he didn't answer when I called him! I feel a ray of hope. So I start the journey to the woods. I hope that he's there.
I'm at the woods and I start to climb a tree when I hear a cry for help. So I jump down and go to where I think the sound is coming from. Sure enough, I find where it's coming from. A little girl with bright blond hair is stuck in a tree! "HELP!" She yells as loud as she could."Hold on I'm coming up to get you." I say loud enough so she could hear me.
I scale up the the tree and help the little girl down. "Th-th-thank you," She says to me as we touch the ground. "No problem, what's your name?" I ask the little girl, longing to know her name and thankful someone else is around. "My name is..." "CHELSEY!!!!!" A boy with purple dyed hair came running through the bushes and shoved me so hard that I fell to the ground. "Back off! Stop trying to hurt my friend!" He says with anger. I'm scared and I crawl back a little so I don't get hurt.
The boy starts walking toward me,rage in his eyes and fist curled tightly. "Brett, stop! She saved me from that tree!" Chelsey exclaims in a shrill voice. The boy stops, dead in his tracks. "Did she now?" He says, "is this true?" He asks me.
"Yeah it's true," I say as Chelsey helps me up from the forest floor. "Oh, sorry about that," he says rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment, " I always jump to conclusions when chelsey leaves and I find her somewhere with a stranger." He looks at the ground, his face red with embarrassment. "It's okay," I say as I brush the dirt off of myself. "Are you okay?" Chelsey asks me, looking slightly embarrassed herself. "I'm fine," I say, even though my body aches from hitting the ground so hard.
"So, what's your name?" The boy asks. "My name is Vennesa," I say, "what's yours?" "My name is Brett, nice to meet you," he says as we shake hands. "BRETT? CHELSEY? IS THAT YOU?" A voice calls. "Yeah we're over here!" Brett calls back to the voice. Then three other boys walk through the bushes and walk over to Chelsey and Brett.
"I told you they were over here!" One of the boys say. He died his hair fire red and looked a little pale. "Oh shut up Felix," said another boy. This boy had blond hair and also had pale skin. Come to think of it, all the kids look pale, myself included! "Guys," Chelsey says quietly. "Oh come on Frederick, you knew I was right!" Says the boy with the red hair.
"Felix, I swear if you take another step closer to me, I will make sure you realize that you are weaker than I am!" The blond boy snaps. "GUYS!" Chelsey screams. Off to the side was the other boy. He has brown hair blue eyes and is as silent as ever. Until now.
"Fred, you know you shouldn't be fighting like this," he says. "Can it Freddy, I'm in the middle of something that doesn't involve you!" The blonde boy says crossly. "WOULD YOU GUYS LISTEN?" Chelsey squeaks as soon as she bursts into tears. "Guys, BREAK IT UP!" Brett yells and everyone freezes. "Thank you!" Chelsey says quietly as she wipes the tears off her face. "Guys, I was just stuck in a tree thanks to you and was saved by a nice girl who is a lot more responsible than you four!" Chelsey says with a frustrated look on her face.
"Sorry Chelsey," the boys say. "Thanks for saving Chelsey, Vennesa," Brett says. All eyes were now on me. "So you'r name is Vennesa?" asked the boy with the red hair. "Yeah," I answer, not wanting to start anything up. "Nice the meet you, I'm Felix," The red haired boy said to me. "Nice to meet you," I say. "My name is Frederick and this is Freddy, my brother," says the blonde boy as he points to the brown haired boy. "It's nice to meet you all, but what are you doing out in the woods?" I ask them curious to find out if their in the same situation that I'm in. "We couldn't find our parents and we decided to look back in the woods since they hunt," Freddy said.
"Why are you out here?" Asked Frederick. "Same reason you are," I say flatly. Frederick and Felix look about my age, they're about the average height of a eighth grader. Freddy, and Brett look about two to three years younger. And Chelsey looks about seven. "You want to come with us so your not all alone?" Chelsey asks with a hopeful expression on her face. "Sure, if it's okay with you guys," I say. "It's fine with me," Brett says. "Same here," Frederick replies. "It's cool with me," Felix says flatly. "That's fine with me too," Freddy said. "So it's official, you're coming with us," Chelsey exclaims.
"Guys," Freddy says with a worried expression on his face, " it's getting dark out." Oh no. I hate being in the woods at night because of wolfs and coyotes. "We can stay at my place tonight if you guys want," I say. "Okay we can do that," Frederick says. So we start the journey back. I quickly realize we are being followed by something and we all run for it!
Faster, I think to myself. I can hear the thing that's chasing us grunting and breathing heavily behind us. We finally make it safe into my house and catch our breath. I look out the window to see a wolf slinking back into the woods. "Wow," Freddy says, panting hard. "That was close,"Felix finish's Freddy's sentence.
"Wow," Chelsey says in aw, looking around the kitchen and living room, " your house is amazing!" Everyone turns away from the window and starts to look around as well. I just sit on the couch, open up my laptop and plug my phone in. I go to gmail and start to type out an email to my friends. "Where are you guys? Are you okay? Please send me an email back asap!" I hit the send button and stand up. I head upstairs to my room, rubbing my feet on the silk-like carpet. I walk into my room and grab all my blankets and a couple of stuffed animals and start to head back downstairs, but something stops me.
A couple things were moved out of place and some things were gone or were brutally attacked by something or someone. I'm scared, but the panic leaves soon because I run in, get what I need, and run out. I close my door softly and walk into my parents room to grab some more blankets. My stepmom likes to make blankets and warm ones at that. Then I look over and see a picture of my mom and dad together. I laugh because where they were but I really hurt on the inside. Tears start to create watery ribbons down my face and I fall to my knees. My laugh slowly turns into a cry.
It only takes me a few minutes to stop crying. I wipe my eyes with my hands and I stand up. I take the blankets off of dad's bed and get some blankets out of the closet. I take all the blankets and stuffed animals down stairs. As I slowly come into view with all the sleeping stuff, the first haul anyway, everyone stops what they're doing and looks at me. Then it dawned on me, they heard me crying upstairs. "Oh no!" I think as I give a weary smile as if nothing happened. "Are you ok?" Chelsey asks, her eyes wide with wonder. "I'm fine," I reply flatly but I could tell that they knew I was lying. " What happened up there? We were looking around and we heard a thud," Felix said, his voice shaking slightly.
" It was nothing I tripped and fell," I said. " Well it must have hurt a lot because we heard you crying," Chelsey squeaked. "I was just reminded of something when I fell because I saw a photo and it made me sad," I reply, tears in my eyes. "What was the picture of?" Asked Freddy. At this point I let myself cry a little. Tears streak down my face as I speak. "It was a picture of my mother. My real mother. My biological mother. The mother who became to mad at herself for having me and committed..." my voice trails off and instead of finishing my sentence, I let myself fall to the floor and weep. I put my hands over my face, as I lay on the ground.
After a couple of minutes, I feel a hand on my back. I Look up to see Fred looking at me. His expression was gentle and he had a slight smile on his face. "You ok?" He asked me softly. "I'm fine," I reply, wiping my eyes with my sleeve. I can feel my face blush as he helps me up. I don't know why but it's just something about Frederick that makes me feel weird.
"We won't make you talk about anything you don't want to talk about," Felix said. "I should probably tell you. It will probably help me. Besides if we're gonna be friends, you should probably know. It would probably be better that way," I say. I'm scared. What are they going to think? Are they still going to like me? Are they going to want to be my friends still? I know we only just met but, I feel a special bond that pulls us together and I feel like we are friends already! I don't want be alone again! I don't want them to leave! "Vennesa, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. We understand that you get upset by it," Freddy says calmly. "No. You have to know. I can't keep it from you. It wouldn't be right," I said as I sit down on the couch. "When I was born, my mother, she, well she, she didn't like me but my dad did. So they kept me for a while. A year later, my mother committed suicide. My dad found out what happened, he couldn't stand being alone and started to date other women."
"A couple years after that, he found a girl who he liked. I was five when I met her and I didn't like her at all. I never liked her, but my dad didn't care. He loved her too much to let her go. Two years later, they got married, I got left alone for another two years while they went on their honeymoon. I was on my own and I hated it! I was afraid, but I got used to it. I've been used to it ever since I was seven. I've been taking care of myself for years now." At this point, I'm in tears my face is red and my facial expression, I assume, is a mix of frustration, sadness, and guilt. No one spoke. After what I think was five minutes of silence, Fred finally spoke. "Oh my god, I am so sorry," He said, his voice is gentle and caring.
"It's not your fault my parents don't care about me," I say trying to keep my voice steady. Chelsey had tears making watery streams down her face. "Chelsey are you okay? I didn't mean to make you cry. I'm so sorry!" I start to freak out because I hate seeing other people cry! Especially when I'm the one who caused it! "You shouldn't be sorry! I should be! I feel so bad about what happened! It must be terrible to be alone for two years straight!" Chelsey sobbed. " She'll be okay she just needs to get it out of her system," Brett said, calmly. "If you guys need to use the bathroom, it's right over there,"I say, incase anyone needs to go or if they need a tissue. "I had no idea that that happened to you." Freddy said sniffling. "After hearing all of that, I'd understand if you never wanted to see me again. Most people are like that with me. I had two friends before you and they disappeared along with everyone else." I say with what I think was a guilty expression on my face. "Why would anyone leave a cool girl like you?" Fred asks touching my shoulder lightly. "You made it for two years in a row on your own when you were seven! Who wouldn't want to hang out with you?" "I guess I'm just weird to them," I say. "We won't leave you, right guys?" Felix asks. "That's right," Chelsey says try to taking deep breaths to calm her down. Everyone nods in agreement. "Thank you guys so much! You don't know how much that means to me!" I say smiling. That makes me feel a lot better! I don't know why but I feel as if I will never die as long as I have them. "Well, we should probably change the subject," I say with a weak smile. "Yeah," Brett says, looking down.