The Outsiders: Before My Time Part III

Brianna Jones

Goldie's POV

I felt like I was just staring endlessly into the sun. My retinas were burning, and my vision was spotting with black and dark green dots. In the instant that the intense light had disappeared, I brought my hands up to my eyes and tried to rub them back to normal.

My first thought was that our parents were going to kill us if we took out the electricity from the entire neighborhood again. The machine wasn't connected to anything though, unless there was some sort of wireless electrical connection to the main power source in the house but the machine looked too old to have that feature.

"Goldie, where are we?" Red asked with a shaky, boating voice.

I stopped rubbing my eyes and I opened them. I blinked hard a few times and my sight slowly restored. I looked around and did not see our dusty old attic. I saw a small room, with a dirty green couch, an off white carpet, and behind me was a tiny kitchen. It looked like an apartment, with the heavy smell of cigarette smoke hanging thick in the air.

"Goldie?" Red said again.

I placed my hand on his shoulder gently to ground him. "Keep it down, little man," I whispered. We were in someone's home. We probably weren't alone.

I carefully tiptoed toward a door off to the side that was left ajar. Peering inside, I caught my breath but kept my face completely blank. A man. A big, burly guy was sleeping peacefully in his bedroom. And we just materialized right into his living room.

I quietly glided back to my siblings. I was terrified that I would accidentally make the floors creak, which would force the guy to come out and investigate. I squatted down beside Candy and whispered, "there's someone else here. We need to leave right now."

Red was going to speak, but he immediately closed his mouth to remain quiet. My protective big-brother instincts kicked in, and I looked around the room for a way out. I didn't see the door, but I saw a large window with a thin, beige cloth drape trying fruitlessly to keep the blazing Oklahoma sun out, but it wasn't doing a very good job. I walked carefully to the window, and it slid open silently with ease. Outside was a metal fire escape. I looked back and saw the man roll over in his sleep, and I exhaled slowly.

"Come on," I whispered.

Red and Candy walked over to the window while I carefully stood on the fire escape, hopeful that the metal wouldn't clatter when we stepped on it. Turning back, I reached in and effortlessly scooped little Red up under his arms. I set him down safely before extending a hand to pull Candy through the window next. "Gotcha. Easy does it."

With Red being our leader, we followed him down the metal stairs. I kept looking back to make sure the guy stayed asleep and didn't come out looking for us. We finally got to the road and we started running until the apartment building was completely out of sight.

"What on earth happened?" Candy shouted while pointing back down the street. She caught her breath and asked, "where are we?"

"I-I-I don't know. I don't know," I stammered. I let out a bubbly laugh as I ran my hand through my honey-brown hair to deflect the absolute terror screaming in my mind.

"You don't think that's..." Candy started, her voice trembling.

"No way," I interrupted. I knew what she was going to say, and I refused to accept it. "No. There has got to be some sort of explaination. Like, I could be in a coma. Yeah, that makes sense. I fell off the attic ladder, cracked my skull, and I'm being rushed to the hospital right now."

"That's a good theory, Sherlock, but why am I and Red having the same comatose dream?" Candy asked with a spit of attitude.

"I don't know," I sighed. I squinted and tried to see if I recognized the road we were on. It looked like our road, but I could not be sure because I did not recognize any of the other houses or buildings around us. "Maybe we are just lost."