Sometimes I think I'm happy here.

I don't actually need to blog today, but I felt so lost and empty not doing it :)

[Every Day is Exactly the Same--Nine Inch Nails]

Today was a long, slow day. I literally spent the entire day doing homework, specifically my science lab which ended up being about ten pages long. The background section, which is usually the longest section, was mercifully short on this one, and yet it still took me a concentrated five hours. Also, I didn't finish my art project, so no picture today :( I'll take one tomorrow if I can. I assume I'll finish in class, or if I really wanted to, in lunch. Honestly, after starting the lab at 11 and finishing at 7:30--including breaks, of course, or else I'd be insane--I just did not want to spend any more time doing work.

Other than that, of course, my day was boring. I wrote a bit! Haha, I wrote like three pages yesterday and sent it to Silver, and she really liked it! That made me happy :) I'll post part of it here just for the sake of filling space, since I don't have anything else to talk about.

The smell of old books lingered on my clothes. It was not the clean-dust smell of fresh pages, which was intoxicating, but rather musty and sour, the smell of abandonment. I had spent the last hour delving into the hidden catacombs of the back corner of the library, immersed in books untouched for years. I particularly enjoyed the foreign language section, in which I tried to pronounce Yiddish and French and laughed silently to myself.

Now the cool air felt unnatural, and the sunlight blinded me. I preferred the solitude. I could feel the cold metal bench through my jeans, and my bare hands shivered in the breeze, which smelled of the past winter. The temperature had dropped dramatically since I was last outside. I hugged my sweatshirt around me and watched the dark blue tint of the eastern horizon expand. It would be a matter of minutes now, it had to be, before my mom picked me up. The library closed fifteen minutes ago. I watched the workers file out one by one, till only a few were left. Library workers did not like to stay late, I imagined.

Any minute, now. I had called twenty minutes ago. I tapped my foot on the ground, but that got old fast, so I cracked each finger one by one, then counted the flowers in the yard in front of the library. I texted my mom again, and in two minutes she texted back Hold your horses, and I sighed. The day was slipping into evening, and it was cold, and I was alone.

Suddenly, though, I felt a presence next to me—directly next to me. Someone had sat no more than three inches away from on the bench—the nice, long bench, and even another one right across it. My fingers trembled. Do I turn and tell them off? What if it was some old lady? What if I was about to be killed? I turned slowly.

All I could see for a moment was pale brown eyes, like dirt. Then the rest of his face came into focus. His face was a good distance away from me, but his eyes were arresting—large and gleaming and almost silvery, yet brown like the earth. He was smiling slightly, or scowling, and staring at me as if he knew me to the core. He had a generally handsome face—not outstanding by obvious—like a prince, and feathery tawny hair a degree golder than his eyes. All this I noticed in a second; the moment I turned he began to speak.

“Hello, Enna.” He smiled more broadly now, more cordially. “I seem to have startled you.”

I had been gaping open-mouthed at him, and at his mention shut the orifice quickly. The breeze picked up and blew our hair into our face; we ducked and brushed it out almost in unison. He peered at me and smiled genuinely.

I coughed. “I’m sorry. How do you know my name?”

Though I didn’t like to admit it, I was equal parts comforted and frightened by the fact that he was a young, attractive male, and not seem creepy old guy. Not that it mattered. I hadn’t exactly dressed to impress, going to the library. His smiled faded.

“I’m sorry, Enna.” He said my name again, like he was testing it out. Seeing how I reacted. He couldn’t have been used to saying it. Normal people in normal situations didn’t tack people’s names on to every sentence. “Your mother isn’t coming to pick you up.”

“What do you mean?” I started to get nervous now. “She just—”

“You’re not meant to go home tonight.” He glanced behind me, glanced at the sky behind me, and I was too shocked to follow his gaze. My hair blew almost into his face. “Your mother has already forgotten.”

“What?” I leapt up, leapt away from him—he jumped up as well, and held me by the wrists. I screamed. “Let go of me! Where is my mom? Where is—?”

He jerked me around, so I would face the east—and I saw with horror the massive storm growing in the horizon. But it was not at the horizon, it was right before us, growling and crackling with lightning, twisting and breaking apart and being thrown back together. It encompassed the entire sky and air and everything except this little porch outside the library and this guy and me; it hissed like a live thing, hissed a word, hissed my name…

The guy threw his arms around me and yelled some words I couldn’t recognize and threw me to the ground—with a loud crack I fell from his grip, and watched the world twist before realizing that I was not at the library anymore.

Everything was quiet.

The guy appeared behind me and offered me a hand—I was kneeling on the ground, gazing blankly at the world all around me, spinning so greatly it was unrecognizable. I was going to throw up, but I hadn’t eaten in hours, and collapsed on the rough ground in a fit of dry heaves. His hand was on my shoulder, and there were more voices now, like thunder in the tumult of my head.

“Is that her?” It was repeated over and over again. “Is that her? Is that her?”

No, I thought, this couldn’t be me. I was not here. I was at the library waiting for my mom, with a clear sky and a breezy day and a cold bench, and an empty building behind me. I was not wherever this was, wherever this girl was. I was not her.

The guy’s hand disappeared and I thought through the haze that he was standing up. “Go back to your rooms. You’ll overwhelm her.”

I thought they might be drifting back; the world stopped spinning and I began to see clearly. He definitely stood over me, and there were definitely more people in the room—the very large, pale room which I know found myself in. He looked down on me and his mouth moved, into a smile or a frown I couldn’t tell. I could’ve been looking through cotton, for all I could see. But it was clearing up, and when he bent down and pressed his fingers to my neck, just before the world went black I thought I could see the color of his eyes.

So! What do you think?