Random Story: Escape!

GRAY RUN!

I woke up with a start, cold sweat dripping down my face. What was that? I looked at the clock and it showed 6:00 a.m., so I decided to get everyone up and going. I got out of bed, and looked at the other three, who were still sleeping. They knew we didn’t have school anymore, but that didn’t excuse them to sleep in. I rang the bell next to the door, and they all moaned.

“Gray, cmon,” Jessica said, her hair a mess and her red streak in her face. “Do we really need to wake up this early anymore?” “We will today if we want to get done with spring cleaning.” Everyone groaned again, not wanting to get out of bed. “Gray, we can do that without waking up at six in the morning.” Jackson stated, crawling out of his bunk just enough to see me. “Well, it’s better to start now, cmon, get up, we also need to train today.” They all let out one more groan until they got up and started getting ready. Gray changed into a gray tank top and sweats, Jackson changed into his black sweatshirt and jeans, Jess changed into shorts and a plain shirt, and Georgia turned into a tank top, shorts, and an orange bandana on her head.

We all then got to cleaning, and decided to do the kitchen first. We took out all the food we stashed, and found there was a rat. Georgia found it first, and screamed. I ran in from the bathroom to see what happened, but Jess grabbed it and threw it out from the sliding door. I laughed, because my sister was on the counter, screaming her head off, and I had to be the one to get her off. I dragged her off the table, but she clung on to me. It wasn’t until Jackson came in that she let go of me, and jumped onto him. He shook his head, and dropped her on the floor.

“Hey! What was that for?!” Georgia said, rubbing her back. “One, you need to stop being a baby about a tiny little mouse. Secondly, I want to show you what I found.” With that, he started up the stairs, and Georgia followed. I looked over to Jess and she just shrugged, and we went up the stairs. Jackson then turned around and pointed up, we looked up and there was a door to an attic that was too high for any of us to reach. Georgia was going to ask Jess what to do, but she already was ready. She shot a red beam at the door, and it slammed opened, a ladder coming down. We looked at each other, unsure who went first.

“Jackson should go, he’s the one that found it first anyways,” Georgia answered unsurely. “No, I’ll go, it’s not that bad anyways,” I commented, walking up to the ladder. I grabbed onto it, and started to climb. Once I got to the top, I looked down, which was a bad idea. I was up to the ceiling, and the three were as small as figurines. I shook my head, getting over my fear, and went inside the attic.

Once I was in there, dust flew up all around me, making me cough. I gave everyone a thumbs up, and Jess started climbing the ladder. After everyone was up, I grabbed a flashlight I found and flicked it on. We looked around and saw all the treasures. There were boxes of pictures, clothes on racks, dusty books on shelves, and plenty more. It looked like an old place to hangout, but ended up being filled with things the Futures didn’t need.

I forgot about the Futures until now, and what happened to them. I was glad I wasn’t awake at the time, and they had to tell me slowly what happened to them. They were good people, but I don’t want to end up like that. It’s funny, if you think about it, that we don’t even question how we got to see our future selves. We just went along with it, but then again, with everything that has happened to us, I wouldn’t be surprised if unicorns and wizards and griffins existed.

We kept looking around till Jess bent down and picked up something. “Hey what’s this?” she asked, opening the piece of paper. A note fell out of it, so I picked it up and read it out loud. We know you can do it :) it said. We got confused until Jessica finally looked at the paper. “Oh my gosh, no way!” On the paper, was a map to a destination with an X on it. The map looked like a normal map, a usual one you would take on long trips. It was ripped on the sides, but the way to get there showed clearly.

“This is cool, but where does it lead to?” Georgia asked. Jess flipped in all sorts of directions, but shook her head. “I can’t tell, but I know the streets, a matter of fact, I think it’s in Texas.” They all looked at each other with excitement, but I shook my head. “No way are we going to go there, what if it’s dangerous? We could all get killed,” I explained, not wanting to be further questioned. “Oh c’mon Gray, this’ll be fun! And besides, there isn’t much left we can do here, I think we were meant to find this map,” Jess pleaded, rolling up the map.

It had been a long time since we last traveled, it felt like forever. I didn’t want to see anyone get hurt, but then remembered I have healing powers. I sighed, “Fine, we can go on the stupid road trip, but I’m driving!” They all jumped up and cheered, and I just smiled. I guess we were going on the trip, and I had to lead them there.

A week goes by, and we finally finish cleaning up the house. The attic looked brand new, and the kitchen and pantry seemed to shine. We all packed up what we needed and went out to the car. Georgia was jumping up and down from excitement while Jackson tried to calm her.

Jackson just got his license this year, and he was in a giveaway for a brand new car, and he won. It was a bright red, 2021 minivan, with gray leather seats and a sunroof that you could stick your head out of. Jackson didn’t have to pay anything, besides gas of course. I brought a wad of money for gas, Jessica brought three for snacks, and Georgia has one for clothing shopping. Jackson and I shoved the luggage in the back, and we hopped in, me and Jessica in the front, and Jackson and Georgia in the back. We needed a new one, because the last one we lost.

Jessica opened her phone and started to play music from the bluetooth in the car. We all jammed out, and had a bunch of fun the first day. In the beginning, we didn’t know exactly where to go, but Georgia opened up the map and she and Jackson decided to figure it out. Me and Jess got to talking about the legend of the place we’re going, because she decided to do some research.

“It says here that it used to be a lab, where they used to experiment with humans to make them superhuman…” She stared at her phone, eyes jumping here to there. “One day, they experimented with a forgotten substance, and it seemed to give the human unforeseen powers. She or he broke out, and was never seen again.” Jess scrolled through till she got to the bottom. “It said that the name they gave it was Charm, and that it roams around there still,” she put her phone away and was going to take a nap. “I highly doubt it’s real.”

I thought I would doubt it too, but something stopped me. I could feel this presence, like a ghost maybe? I didn’t know what, but I knew something was following us, and whatever it is, isn’t good. I felt this ever since we started driving. And with only another day to go, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I turned around, and as soon as I did, something smacked into our car, something big. The car spun out of control, and I slammed on the brakes. We sputtered to a stop, and we finally got a good glance at the thing.

In the middle of nowhere, somewhere from Arizona to Texas, there was a bull that rammed into us, and totaled the car. We got out quickly and turned to face the beast. The beast looked like it just came out of a Percy Jackson book, with long horns the size of Jess, and it’s body almost two times the size of the car. It started regaining consciousness, so we had to act fast. Jessica started telling us what to do. Georgia watched for the bull waking up, and if it did she’d put it back to sleep. Jackson had to collect as much water as he could(not the most, because we’re in the middle of a desert), and I had to find out how to fix our car. While everyone got to work, I stood there confused.

We haven’t really worked on my powers yet, so for now it’s limitless. But can healing powers fix a car? I don’t think so. I will still try to of course, because if we don’t fix it we’re stuck out here. I ran over to the car and put my hands on it. I close my eyes and try to focus. Soon enough, I hear metal clanking and when I open my eyes the car is as good as new. It had a slight purple aura to it, but as soon as I got into the car it was okay.

I looked to my left to see the bull awake again, and everyone, except me, was fighting it. Sometimes I felt like my powers were useless. No combat, only healing and fixing cars. I guess I could add that to my list, but it wasn’t helpful in most cases. While everyone was fighting the bull, I made sure the car started, and kept looking over to make sure no one got hurt. Soon, they dealt with the bull, but Jessie passed out, so they grabbed her arms and legs quickly, and brought her to the car. I got out of the driver seat, and went in the back with Jess to heal her. Georgia got in the front, and we acted like nothing happened.

It was the new normal for us, fighting monsters, Jess passing out from over use of her powers, and me having to heal her. She’s been having a lot of blackouts lately, but we’ve been getting more and more monsters finding us. We all ditched our phones, and when we did the monsters went away for a longer while. It was good that the rest of us didn’t over use our powers, because then that would be even worse.

We stopped at a gas station, and left Jessica in the car while we fueled up and got more snacks. We were almost to our destination, wherever that was. Jackson and Georgia were still trying to find the actual location, but so far we can only go one road at a time. I feel more excited about it now, but I couldn’t help remembering my dream from a few nights ago. I close my eyes as I remember the feeling I had.

...Sweat was dripping down my face. We were somewhere by a jungle, a cold, humid, dangerous jungle. I remember feeling scared, not seeing Jackson, Georgia, or Jess. I kept running, I didn’t know why, but I had to. I ran through the thick brush, getting cuts all over, deciding to heal them myself when I was safe. I stopped when I got to camp, thinking they couldn’t have followed me all the way, I was too fast. I stopped to see Jess coming up on the camp as well, fear in her eyes. I felt relieved when I saw her. She looked behind me and her face went pale, looking even more scared than before. I didn’t have time to turn around before Jessica screamed, “GRAY, RUN!”

My eyes popped open, scared I was actually living in the nightmare. “Gray, are you okay?” Jessica asked. She looked at me with worry in her eyes, bright green with a tint of blue, how they’ve always been, unless she’s using her powers. I stared into her eyes a little more, until I realized she asked me a question. “Yeah I’m fine, no worries.” The worried look on her face didn’t go away. I smiled at her with one of my ‘I’m okay no need to worry’ smiles, thinking it would work, but it didn’t. “Gray… did you have another dream?” I feel like she could read my mind, but I didn’t want to worry her even more when this trip was supposed to be fun. “No, of course not, I was just tired, you take a lot to heal, you do realize that?”

As soon as I said that, she turned red. “S-Sorry, I didn’t mean to blackout again, but that bull was hard to face you know! Speaking of the bull, what happened after I blacked out?” I told her everything that I could see happen, and she was relieved she didn’t miss much. “That’s good, oh, Jackson, where are we?” Jackson smiled. “We’re coming up on a national preserve, called ‘Big Thicket’, and it’s the largest forest in Texas. I felt the color drain from my face when I realized these exact woods were where I felt scared, and ran, fast. Just by recognizing these woods, I realized the calming road trip won’t be as calming as expected…

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