phantom4life

    Our story begins with four children, Caleb Ryder age 16, Billie Joe Jones age 15, Steven Kendrick age 17, and Loren McInnes age 13. Each child with their own special disease, or curse if you will; and each with parents willing to die to fix them. To society they’re broken, odd, and different; but to them they were just your average teenagers with a yearning to fit in with everyone else. No one understands them, nor do they want to. But now a group of scientists dare to venture into the minds of these children, no matter how sick, twisted, or just plain strange they might be. With the knowledge they hope to gain from this seemingly torturous experiment they may have some slight change of mending these outcasts, but in this trial there is also a possibility of permanently destroying them. Only time will tell whether they succeed or fail.

    Even at the age of five Billie Joe was on her own, no help, no love, no one. With her mother working full time to support her drunken father she had little time; but she still gave her what she needed to be strong, through her parents she learned to rely only on herself and trust no one else. Eventually though, what little time her mother had with her went away as both parents slipped into a struggle and spiraled into drug addiction. Little Billie Joe was on her own and understood it. By 12 she was on the streets with 2 jobs and nothing to show for it. She seemed happy at school, but it was only a mask, often times she would cut herself and cry herself to sleep. Her parents wondered and worried, but never enough to save her. She was alone, truly, utterly alone.

    Loren was never really all there, people said she was “missing a few bolts”. Her parents always knew deep down that their child wasn’t right, but their pride would never allow them to admit it, not even to themselves. They never spoke of Lorens fits, but everyone knew about them, no matter how much they tried to hide them. “Loren please! You know better than that, there is no such thing as monsters, and no, I will not listen to more of your excuses” her mother would say. Loren knew what she saw, she knew she was right, but why wouldn’t they listen to her? Why did they call her a liar? She never understood, until the day she had an outbreak in class. Mr. Reidburn had tried to attack her, it was self defense! How could she get in trouble for hitting him when she did nothing?  The fact is, no one attacked her, it was all in her head. She was later diagnosed with schizophrenia.

    The next individual in our line of specimens is Steven, his hopeful personality made him a specific interest in our research. His story began when he was about 2 years old, being diagnosed with autism destroyed his parents. At school no one even acknowledged him, they just tossed him aside like a piece of garbage. He was the bullies favorite toy, they taunted him non stop. No matter how hard he tries he never seemed to be good enough. At home he dreamed about being normal, just fitting in with everyone else. But who were they to judge what normal is?

    Last but most certainly not least, we have Kaleb Ryder. Being bipolar made him an emotional wreck, a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. His outbursts made him impossible to handle, he just couldn’t control it. He went from angry, to depressed, to happy; he could be a completely different person in the blink of an eye. Being a single mother was hard enough, and having a child with such issues made it even worse, but never the less she tried everything, nothing seemed to help though. The medication that the doctors prescribed him only made him feel worse. All he’d ever really ever dreamt about was to be like everyone else, with normal emotions and thoughts.  

    The room was cold and dark, but it also had an ery sense to it. It was lonely and depressing, it was almost as if the walls were whispering their demented thoughts in hopes of receiving life and color. Shiny metal machines were lining the every face of the room, and in the middle there were four delicately placed pods with bright lights and wires, each just perfect to lay a body in. Tall shady men in crisp white lab coats walked around them with their clipboards observing the strange contraptions and taking notes on them. Every inch of the pods were covered by eyes, some suspicious, some anxious, and some just purely amazed.

    The children were placed one at a time, to carefully ensure that they wouldn’t meet one another. Dr. Remington reassured each of the children that they need not worry about the other patient’s identities because it might distract them from their task.  None of them asked any questions, partially because they didn’t understand enough to even conjure up any ponderings.

    Once the children were inside their individual pods the scientists went to their stations. Switches were switched, knobs were turned, and blinking lights lit up the room like Whoville on Christmas. Everyone beamed with excitement as they watched their maniacal scheme play out even better than they could’ve ever imagined. Everything seemed so perfect to everyone, everyone except Dr. Remington. “Don’t get soft on me now boys, the party has only just begun.” One scientist proclaimed “But Doctor, look! It’s everything we’ve hoped for, years of trying to create this machine has finally paid off! We’re finally done.”

“How dare you even insinuate that we’re done! You ignorant fool, this is just the tip of our research. these four children determine the fate of our careers, so don’t you dare tell me we’re done. Now get back to work.”

The first to come to was Billie Joe, she was slow to get up, her head was spinning. The moment she sat up she saw a town ridden with sadness, it was dark and desolate with few people out. Billie Joe started to walk, she soon realized that the stone houses lit by dim torches and candles could only be one thing; she was in another time. This was obvious now, but when? She approached a young man cautiously

“Pardon me, what’s going on? Why is everyone inside?”

“The Black Death kills all, there’s no where to hide”

    Billie Joe stumbled back, “The Black Death”, she had read about this once in class, it was the Black Plague. She was stuck somewhere in Europe between 1348 and 1350. She thanked the man and continued with her coat over her nose and mouth, careful not to make contact with anything. Then it happened, an old woman came from out of no where and grabbed her. She panicked and shoved the old woman off; she stopped, those spots on her meant she had the disease, and it was bad. Billie joe couldn’t think of anything but to run.

She ran and ran, she turned back to look at the woman, but the woman wasn’t a woman anymore. She had transformed into creature, black and cold, it had a skeleton-like figure shielded entirely by a dark torn cloak. In his hand lay a blade sharp enough to slice through any substance with ease. The face was non existent, no eyes, no nose, only a slit where a mouth might have been located. Shady and mysterious, it held an hour glass in his other hand which had seemed to have run out of sand at the top.

Billie Joe shook with every step the creature took, she wanted to just give up and let it win, But she couldn’t. She ran towards it and tried to ignore the sorrow and fear that lay deep within her heart. One swing of the mighty blade dodged, another, and another. Then she went for it, all in. She grabbed the hourglass and smashed it on it’s head, but that wasn’t enough and she knew it. She kicked it in its ribs and went for his blade. With one great swing it was slain, and its head lay on the ground like a rotting apple. Billie Joe cried out in victory, but she felt very weak. Boom. Down she went.

Caleb was next. He woke up in a haze, not really sure what to think he stood up. He was in a motel, cheap and dull. He walked to the nightstand, there was a newspaper, the date read april 2 1960. “Out of all the times they could’ve put me in, they chose 1960. What is this, Psycho?”. He couldn’t help himself from thinking it, he felt like he could relate to that movie, confused and misunderstood. He layed down and stared at the wall wondering where to go from there. Slowly he drifted off into sleep.

When he finally opened his eyes he wasn’t touching the bed, he was floating in air. Then he dropped and a face appeared from the wall parallel to him “There’s no escaping me, I’m your own creation, brought in by your mind to destroy you”. The face stepped through the wall and became a full entity. Caleb had never been so frightened in his life, he started to think about everything that’s ever made him scared, then the ghostly figure grew in strength and size. “That’s it!”

Caleb tossed aside all his negative thoughts and focused solely on the happiest thought he could think. He utilized everything, from childhood memories to his crush, no happy thought was cast away. The figure began to shrink more and more until it vanished completely. Caleb released a sigh of relief and smiled,for the first time he was overwhelmed with only one emotion, pure, untainted happiness. Boom, he went down just as Billie Joe had done before him.

Loren awoke to a blood curdling scream she jumped up and heard the splash, then more splashing, she darted toward it. There was a middle age scrappy looking woman trying to stay afloat, everyone around her was shouting “She’s a witch! she floats, so she’s a witch!”. The people fished her out of the water and Loren understood all too well what was happening. She ran away, unable to handle what she was seeing, unable to handle an execution. She knew what time period they had sent her to, but why here? Why now? The year must’ve been 1692 or 1693 and it was the Salem witch trials.

Loren cried, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do anymore, or if any of this was even real. She stopped dead in her tracks, unable to move. She turned around to see the woman speaking in a tongue that she’d never heard before, the witch  began to shake and her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Then like a scene from some horror movie, the witch broke her confinements and took to the air. Loren wanted to run but her legs wouldn’t let her. The witch came toward her with certain intent on harming her.

Loren grabbed the torch beside her which had been illuminating the street she was on.

Loren now knew that this thing coming at her was real, not just her imagination, and she had to defeat it. The woman spoke “No one can save you from yourself Loren, I am you, and you are me. You are dark and evil, no one wants you. Let me do everyone a favor and rid you of their cruel judging eyes”. Loren hesitated and thought about letting her, but after everything she’d been through she could do it.

The witch made her move, she cast a spell and a bolt of lightning came hurling towards Loren. She swiftly dodged and advanced toward the woman, now was her chance. She Lit the witch on fire and jumped back. The woman let out another blood curdling scream and fell to the street dead. Loren dropped to her knees feeling dizzy and tired, then she fell over just as the others had.

When Steven came to he saw a room filled with bright vibrant colors. He got up slowly, too unsure of anything to rush head on into it. The colors and decor practically screamed the 80’s. He walked into the living room of the moderately sized house, no one was home. odd. He needed to get out of the house now, before whoever lived there decided to come home.The front door was jammed and there didn’t seem to be a back door. Steven turned around, what was once a house now was simply a tunnel, but where to? He had no clue.

Steven decided he had no choice and ventured in, he found the other 3 children asleep on the ground.

“Wake up! Wake up!”

as they awoke Loren spoke “Where the hell are we, and why were you the only one awake?”