The Beginnings - Ian Emery (classic novels .txt) 📗

Chapter 1
There are many things you learn from sitting in your room alone for hours on end with nothing in front of you except your computer. There are also many things you don’t learn. It can sometimes kill parts of yourself when you don’t make the effort to move or even think. When I first started letting my computer do everything, I felt more powerful, in an intellectual way.
My name is Ernie, Ernie Gallows. I am seventeen years old. I am a junior at Fred Jackson Memorial High School. I don’t really remember why it is called that, but it has something to do with Fred and how he fell off the top of the school and died. I still don’t know the story that well and I have been going to this school for three years. It is December and it is the last day before winter break. Oh, how I want out of my Psychology class so bad. All we are doing is sitting at our desks listening to our music. I don’t have a fancy music player and all I have is my laptop and we aren’t allowed to have those out, because about ten years ago Fred Jackson used his laptop and hacked into the school mainframe and changed everyone’s grades so the school would have better state scores. I still wonder how, after Fred did that, the school was still named after him when he died.
“Ernie! Wake up!”
I awake to see my teacher, Mr. Fellsome, staring over me with an angry look on his face.
“Now I know winter break is starting tomorrow, but you are still in my class so you will not sleep!” says Mr. Fellsome while spitting on me.
I look around the room and see at least five other people sleeping and I look back up at my teacher.
“Don’t give me that look Ernie. I can still write you up.”
Mr. Fellsome still has spit falling from his mouth. I wipe off my face and stood up and the bell rings. I gather my computer bag and jacket and walk out of the classroom. I head to my locker to grab my winter coat. On the way there I hear about all of these parties people are going to and wonder to myself,
“What if I was to go to one of those parties?”
Oh well, I can always go to some in the summer after this year. I grab my winter coat and look inside my empty locker to see if I forgot anything. I close up my locker and head for my car. I have a, well I am not exactly sure what it is. There is so much rust and the body has so many different parts from random cars I can’t figure out what it is. I have even taken by the BMV to see if they could run the vin number to see what type of car it is and they have lost the actual make and model of the car because of how many restorations it has gone through. I’m not complaining because it is something for me to drive and something that gets me around.
I get in my car and start it up. It starts up right away which is very unusual for my car because it usually takes two or three tries to get it started. I blow it off as good luck or a fluke. The drive home was faster than usual, but it is probably because I have driven that route so many times the drive doesn’t seem that long anymore. I begin to walk in my front door and witness something I thought not possible in a million years.

Chapter 2
I look straight at the floor, turn around, and walk out the door. I softly shut the door behind me. I take two steps forward and sit down on the step in front of my door. I lay my head down in my hands. I hear a car drive by and I lift my head straight up to hope someone would see me sitting here. The car keeps driving by. I curl up in my jacket and lay my bag underneath my head and fall asleep.
The next morning I awake to the sun in my eyes. I check my watch. It is about noon. I see some snow has set in around me. I stand up and turn towards the door of my house. I turn the knob. It clicks, slowly. I push the door open to see my Xbox 360 on the floor, without the hard drive. Now you would think that a missing hard drive would be easy to replace and that I shouldn’t be freaking out like I am, but the hours of game play I put into all of my games and all the achievements I have unlocked over the years have built me up a Gamerscore of over one hundred thousand. I started to cry.
I look around the house, because I didn’t look yesterday out of worrying about my Xbox, and see that the rest of my house is trashed. I go to my room and see that my locks have been messed with, but haven’t been broken. I unlock all of them and push my door open. I look at my bed and see my dog lying on my bed with the blanket rapped around her. I pat my leg and she comes to me.
I walk out of my room and back through the front room to my parent’s room. I see the door was cracked open. I push the door open and it practically opens itself. I look inside and see the room trashed. I look over at the closet and see that it has been ripped apart. I look inside and see that the wall to the right has been cut through.
I squeeze myself into the closet and look inside the hole that was cut. I look to the left and see some type of stairway. I climb into the wall through the hole. I start to head down the stair-like structure. It goes down for a long while and I am running out of light. Soon I see a chain hanging from the ceiling. I reach for it, and pull. Lights flash into my eyes and something hits me in the face. I pass out.

Chapter 3
I see myself swinging on the tire swing my dad put up for me when I was only four years old. I am about 7 when this happened. I see my dad come out and start to push me on the swing. My mom is in the kitchen looking through the window, watching us play and laugh. My dad grabs the swing and stops it. I look back at his terrified face. My dad picks me up and runs inside with me on his shoulder. I couldn’t see what he was running from because my head kept bouncing from him carrying me on his shoulder while running. All I could make out was three black cars with men in black suits surrounding them.
We get inside the house and my dad hands me off to my mom and she takes me down to the basement. She sits me underneath the stairs and closes the basement door. We sit in the dark and hear some stomping around and glass breaking. I curl myself up in a ball and my mom pulls me closer to her. For one moment things upstairs go quiet and all I can hear at this point is my mother’s heartbeat. Sitting there it felt like forever until things started moving again.
The basement door opens slowly and you can see a shadow coming down the stairs, limping. I huddle closer to my mom and the figure gets closer and stands in front of us. It collapses to the floor. It’s my dad. I jump out towards him. My mom starts to cry and comes over to make sure he is still alive. She turns to me with tears of joy and says he is still alive. He groans.
My mom puts his arm over her shoulder and picks him up. We start to walk up the stairs and see blood sitting in the carpet. Seven of the nine guys standing outside the cars lay dead in our living room. I faint.
I wake up in the hospital in a room with my dad laying in a hospital bed and my mom sitting at his bedside. I stand up and my mom looks at me.
“He is okay Ernie. He should be better by tomorrow. He only has a broken arm.” My mom says while crying a small amount of tears.
I turn around and close the door. I go sit back down in the chair. I start to look around the room at all the windows to make sure they are secure. I look at my mom and wonder why she isn’t worrying about something like people coming in to my dad’s room like they did our house. I turn and lay my head down and fall asleep.

Chapter 4
I come to in a dark room and suddenly a bright light shines in my face. I wince at the light when it hits me. I see three figures in front of me and two over by what seems like a door.