Excerpts From Books that I'll Never Write

Excerpt 101

hi this story is called "i almost failed my english class because i forgot i had a story due so i did this in twenty minutes"   also i still can't think of a title but i think it's fine

-----------------------

    As soon as my foot left the step of the school bus and made contact with the gravel in my driveway, I immediately knew something was different. It might have been the slightly higher octave of the barks issuing from my house or the fact that there was a car in the driveway when my mom was normally at work and my brother was much later arriving home. I walked up to the door and tried the doorknob to find that my key was not needed as it normally was--the door was unlocked. I walked in the house, more aware of my surroundings than ever. "Hi, sweetheart," my mother said, her back facing me, as I walked into the kitchen. "I'm making brownies!" A Yorkie and a Chihuahua jumped around my feet and received glares because they were quite obviously not my big dogs that I loved dearly.

     She turned to face me, and I stared her up and down, starting from her toes and going up to her face, because I knew something was different; and then, right before she turned around, I saw it. Her eyes were green, a bright emerald green that was extraordinarily different from the cool, ocean blue that had colored her eyes until today. They weren't contacts--I couldn't see the rims of the contacts around her eyes. They were real. "Honey? Are you okay?" the lady pretending to be my mother asked me as she raised her hand to my head. "You don't feel warm, but you seem off." How ironic, I thought. The imposter thought I was acting weird. I ran to my brother to see if the whole family was wrong and how different he was if he had been affected. He was in his room, sitting on the bed, and I immediately knew something was wrong when I spotted a book in his hands that replaced the Xbox controller that typically occupied that spot. He's not an illiterate moron; he just prefers his Xbox over books any day.

     I immediately grabbed his head with my hands on either side and dragged his head closer to mine. Instead of a shade of blue that was slightly darker than my mother's eyes, there was a sharp, piercing green that lacked the outline of a contact staring back at me. "What are you doing?" he asked me with a look of confused disgust upon his face. "Checking something," I murmured in reply as I let go of his head and practically ran to my room.

     There were slight differences here too: a few pictures moved around a bit, a couple new pictures placed around my room, a couple books with titles I had never heard of were on my bookshelf, a couple different shirts and pants hung in my closet, new pairs of shoes were there that I hadn't seen before. I sat down on my bed and ran my hands through my hair. What could've happened? Why are things changed? Obviously there was only one reasonable thing I could do without making everyone around me that hadn't changed consider me a lunatic: I had to leave my room, act like I hadn't noticed anything, and find out what was going on.

     I opened my door and walked out with my head held high and an unwavering determination within me. Then, I took a deep breath and was overwhelmed by the putrid smell of broccoli wafting through the house. "The brownies are done!" my fake mother yelled. I'm not a genius by any means, but, let me tell you, when a strange lady who is pretending to be your mother shows up at your house and makes brownies that smell like broccoli, you should probably stay away and definitely do not eat the brownies. "I'm not hungry!" I yelled back. Normally, I would've scarfed down the brownies, but, in this case, I'd rather not be poisoned before I could find out what happened. "Well, help yourself to one if you'd like. I'm going to the store; I'll be back soon!" she replied. That was perfect. I had time to snoop with her gone, and I could find out what was going on. First off, however, I had to deal with the twerp who was pretending to be my brother. Easily enough, I walked to his room and stuck a chair under his doorknob, locking him in the way they do in movies.

     After that, I walked through my house multiple times, furtively investigating anything that could provide an answer for the strange changes around my home. Finally, I saw just where I needed to look: the basement door was cracked open. I hurried down the steps with the flashlight on my phone warning me of what's ahead. The flashlight, of course, was why I saw the foot. A shriek, my shriek, erupted through the basement, and it was followed by other screams, screams that I recognized. "Mom? Is that you?" I asked as I shined my light over to where the voices came from. I saw my mother's face staring back at me through the dark, dusty basement, and her blue eyes met mine. "Yes! And your brother's here, too, but he fell asleep. Get us out of here!" I ran over to my mother and propped my phone up so that the flashlight shined on the rope tying her hands behind the chair. I untied the knot as fast as I could and then moved to my brother. "Leave it to him to fall asleep in a hostage situation," I mumbled. Soon, they were both free--and awake.

     We all ran up the stairs, and the first place we went was my brother's room. I removed the chair and slowly opened the door, unsure of what I was going to see and if it was going to be dangerous. "No one's here," my real brother said as he shoved into his room which appeared to be empty. In fact, it was empty. All the traces of the other boy were gone, all except for a note that read, "we'll always be near." My brother settled in bed to resume his nap as my mom and I walked throughout the rest of the house, searching for lady that had been imitating my mother. We found the car back in the garage, and there was no sign of the green-eyed lady. We were walking back into the house when my phone pinged with a text message. Even though it was from an unknown number, I knew exactly who had sent that message. "We'll be back," the message that glowed on my screen promised.

     I showed my mom, and we went inside. We dialed the police and told them about the freak situation. They came over, interviewed us, and assured us that we had nothing to worry about. They kept an eye on us until we felt safe, and they eventually leaned away and focused on other things. Quite frankly, everything seemed fine, and the threats they left us with seemed to lay among a pile of broken promises. It had been years. It seemed that we were safe, so we chose to live our lives with that moment in the back of our heads. Truthfully, we considered ourselves safe until one day, as soon as my foot left the step of the school bus and made contact with the gravel in my driveway, I immediately knew something was different.