Wrote this about a month or so ago (action)(16k words) - Writers Forum

Randomthought31 · 12-22-2007, 12:22 AM

CHAPTER ONE: Never Again

Ryan walked into the living room and fell onto the couch. He was tired, and it was only 7 o'clock. He decided to take a short nap. As his eyelids began to feel heavy he stared at the green numbers on the cable box. They read 7:02. As his eyes began to go out of focus and he could hardly keep them open he looked over at the window to see a bird sitting on the sill. As the bird flew off, Ryan could see every flap of its wings. To him, those five seconds had just seemed like five minutes. At this point, he could no longer bear to keep his eyes open; they closed, and the world around him seemed to vanish.

What seemed like seconds later, the world seemed to slowly come back into view. Ryan sat upright in a sweat. He appeared confused as he looked at the clock on the cable box again. It was flashing 12:00, as it always did when the power had gone out. He looked at his watch and noticed that it too had stopped. He walked outside, into the rain and let the water run down his face in order to wake him up. As he stood in his driveway, staring up to the sky, he heard the loud crack of thunder and saw a tree across the street tumble, on fire, to the ground. The fire, as it always did began to mesmerize him. He stood there, staring at it, with a look of fear upon his face. It was only 10 seconds before he heard another sound; it was the sound of a car screeching to a halt as it began to loose control and spin out in the rain. Ryan looked towards where the sound was coming from. To his shock, the car was skidding directly towards his neighbor’s ten-year-old boy.

Before the car had a chance to hit the boy, everything went pitch black. Ryan was once again on the couch. Cocking his head to look at the cable box, Ryan saw, Just like in his dream, the clock was flashing 12:00. He darted his eyes from the cable box to his watch; also like in his dream, his watch was stopped. This had never happened before, and worry was easily detected on his face. Without hesitation, he dodged the recliner and ran out the door. He saw before he got outside, that it was raining. His heart was pounding as he ran across the driveway and towards his neighbor’s house. The kid had just kicked his ball into the street and he was running towards it. Ryan didn’t bother looking back towards the tree when he heard the thunder once more. He just ran towards the kid and scooped him up as he jumped off into the mud on the side of the road. The very same car he’d seen in his dream was now driving past them.

The kid and he walked up to the neighbor’s door. Before he had a chance to knock, the kid’s mother, a young women, about Ryan’s age, with long wavy dark blonde hair, and green eyes, was yanking open the door and began hugging her child.

“I saw everything that happened,” she cried as she squeezed him tighter.

“C-Can’t breath,” the boy muttered jokingly as he crossed his eyes. She loosened her grip on her child and moved over to Ryan. As with her child, she hugged him as well.

“I can’t thank you enough,” she said, still crying. “I was so worried when I saw him running out into the street. I saw that car coming towards him too. I was just about to run outside when I saw you running out of your house towards him. How did you know?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Ryan said truthfully. “One minute I’m dreaming it was all happening, the next I wake up and it is happening.”

The kid’s mother had a puzzled look on her face. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” she said, eager to get off of the subject. “My name is Karen Byrd.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Karen,” Ryan chuckled. “My name is Ryan Collins.”

“Well, now that we’ve been properly introduced, I must take David, here, to his guitar lessons.”

Ryan looked at the little boy. “How long have you played guitar for, David?”

David held up his hands and looked at him before he began counting out his fingers. He held up four fingers and said “Four years.”

“Wow, that’s a long time, well, good luck at your lesson, make your mother proud,” Ryan said as he scuffed up the boys already messy hair and walked off towards his house.

Once back in his house, he decided it would be too hard to get to sleep after that experience, so he washed up, reset the clocks in his house, went into his room, and took his guitar off of the hook. He played the rhythm to “Free Bird”. As he finished the song, his eyes began to grow weary, the notes began to draw out much longer than they actually were being held, and the room began to spin. On the last note, the guitar fell out of his lap and onto the floor with a loud thud as he drifted back to sleep.

It was strange, he’d never fallen asleep like that before, but for some reason, he just felt more exhausted all of a sudden than he’d ever felt in his life. As with before, he woke up in a sweat and the time was 11:42. He put his guitar on the hook and went outside to see if the Byrd’s’ were home; they weren’t. He was now very worried, so he got in his car and pulled off towards the only guitar lessons in town he’d ever known about, Dan’s Quality Guitar. Dan was an old friend from high school, the two of them were in a band at one time, which is how he knew that Dan owned was the only one who taught guitar lessons within 20 miles. He also knew that Dan always closed shop promptly at 10:15, never any later. It took only 18 minutes to get to the shop, and by that time, it was 12:12. Dan’s and Karen’s cars were both still in the parking lot, but the lights were out. Ryan parked his car and got ready to run into the shop. However, just as he got out of his car, a man came running out of the shop and dove to the ground. Ryan didn’t get a good look at his face, but he didn’t care at the time. As he ran towards the building, the car clock hit 12:13 and the building spewed flames into the air as he was thrown back towards his car. Before he could hit the ground, however, time slowed down, and he could feel every heartbeat pound into his head. Soon, everything faded away and Ryan found himself back in his room, in his chair, at 11:42, once more.

As it had already happened once, Ryan didn’t want to take any chances. He sprinted out of the house without putting his guitar back on its hook, and was pulling out of the driveway before 11:44. He was already 4 minutes ahead of his dream; he’d saved time by leaving his guitar on the ground and not checking to see if his neighbor’s were home. Since it was a life and death situation, he was going 20 miles over the speed limit. Unfortunately, there was a cop who’d set up a speed trap right near his house. Not wanting to take a chance, he pulled over. As the cop walked up to his door and asked him the routine question, ‘do you know how fast you were going?’ Ryan tried to explain what was going on. Unfortunately, this cop was stubborn and didn’t bother listening. Without answering the cop’s question, Ryan put his car into drive and slammed on the gas. He quickly hit 50 miles per hour in the 20 mile per hour zone. The cop was unable to get to his car before Ryan was already half a mile ahead of him. Ryan didn’t care at the point; he knew that if he could save two innocent lives from imminent death that everything would be fine. He knew that no cop would keep the charges if he were deemed a town hero. At 12:03 he was in downtown. Forgetting that altering things such as placement of an object at any point in time could alter that object, Ryan got into an accident. He was T-boned by a car, being that he ran a read light. The man who had hit him immediately got out of the car and started screaming at him. Not willing to waste another second, he climbed over the gearshift and exited the passenger side door. The man was making his way around the front of the car as he ran off towards the shop. This guy didn’t want to give up, so he chased after him. At 12:05 Ryan made it to the shop, however, since he had to stop to open the door, the man caught him, and flung him to the ground.

“You wrecked my car! You’re going to have to pay for it!” The man shouted at Ryan.

“Well, right now, I have to get into this building,” Ryan said calmly as he stood up and reached for the handle. The man slapped his hand away and pushed him back.

“You’re not going anywhere until I get your insurance information! That is a bran new, 2012 model! It cost me a fortune!”

“Sir, calm down, I’ll pay f or it, but right now, please, let me get into this building,” Ryan was trying to remain calm, while at the same time forcing his way into the building. Once again, he tried to get by the man and open the door. This time, the man punched him in the stomach and pushed him back.

“I don’t think I deserved that. I said I’ll pay for your car, now just let me get into this building, before it explodes!” Ryan was getting frustrated with the man. He stood up and, again, tried to open the door.

“You…deserve…everything…I…do…to…you!” The man said, punching him in the stomach between every word.

Without saying another word, Ryan straightened up to his full height and elbowed the guy across the face. He went out cold onto the ground and Ryan stepped right over him and opened the door. With the time wasted, it was now 12:10. Luckily, the building was only one story tall. Unfortunately, there were 3 rooms: The main room, with all the guitars for sale; then there was Dan’s office; and finally, there was the practice room, which was a small room, like the office. There was also a secret basement to which the door that led to it was concealed by Dan’s desk; Ryan didn’t know about this room. He quickly searched all three rooms and found no sign of anyone. The time was 12:11 now. Worrying that he might have overlooked something, he began calling their names, after the first call, he heard a response.

“We’re down here,” Dan shouted, with his deep, hoarse voice as the man Ryan had seen in his dream gagged him. This guy quickly opened a suitcase full of c4 and set the timer to three minutes. Ryan and the others were lucky that he was running late by a minute due to the commotion he’d heard outside of the building. Ryan quickly ran into the office and saw the man from his dream in there. He grabbed him by his collar and flung him against the wall. He would deal with that guy later. For now, he had to get down to the basement. He pushed the desk over and crushed the bombers legs, then climbed down the hidden compartment into the basement.

Once at the bottom, the first thing he did was remove the gags from and untie all three of them. As they raced up the ladder Ryan looked at the clock on the suitcase; it read 1.23, and the seconds were rapidly ticking by. He then looked up to the top of the ladder and saw the trap door close. The loud thud of the desk hitting the floor followed soon after. It was clear now, that there were two options; he could climb the ladder and do nothing about the minute they might have left to live, or he could attempt to deactivate the bomb while the others attempted to push open the trap door. He chose the latter. However, being that Dan knew everything about his shop, since he helped build it, he knew of a secret hatch in the basement. He climbed down and yelled for the others to follow. Ryan realized there was no way to deactivate this bomb, so he followed Dan. The four of them came to a wall. Dan picked up a mallet lying next to the wall of the basement. He smashed it against the wall, which crumbled to pieces, revealing a path leading to another shops basement.

There were only 30 seconds left when they all managed to climb through to the other shop. It took them 20 of those seconds to race up the ladder to the ground floor of the shop next door. Luckily, from there, it was a straight shot towards the door. Unluckily, the door was locked. Ryan jumped through the window of the shop with only five seconds left. The other three followed suit and jumped through the now empty window frame. As the timer on the bomb hit zero they were running across the parking lot and the entire guitar shop and the computer hardware store next door went up in flames. The concussion from the blast knocked the three behind Ryan forward; he’d already been diving into the grass and rolled down the hill. When they all came out of shock, they looked around to see the bomber crawling along the ground just outside Dan’s shop. He’d been hit hardest by the blast, which completely paralyzed him from the waist down. As he attempted to crawl away, Ryan ran up the hill and put the bombers arm behind his back and began putting force on it.

“STOP! You’re going to break his arm,” Karen screamed. “We all know he deserves it, but you really should wait for the police; they’ll deal with him; and I’m sure the punishment will be far worse!”

Ryan released the lock he had on the man’s arm when he heard this. And besides, I can hear the police sirens from here, he thought to himself.

That night, Ryan laid awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, he didn’t want to have another one of these dreams, yet at the same time, if he did, it could mean that he saves someone’s life. Eventually, he decided, it was for the better. However, that night, his dream was perfectly normal. Perhaps those dreams are gone, he thought. He walked over to Karen’s house after breakfast.

“Hey, are you alright?” Ryan asked, remembering the fact that she almost died the night before.

“Yea, I’m fine, and so is David. You want to come in?”

“That would be nice, but I just wanted to tell you, I was at the lesson last night because I had another one of those dreams after you left.”

“Did you have one last night too?”

“No, I’m hoping it’s all gone; I don’t want to hold the fate of the world in the palm of my hands”

“Well, it doesn’t seem that bad.”

“Are you kidding me?” He asked. “It’s horrible. Knowing that someone could die and you could have stopped it! But you didn’t have the time! I’d rather it be a surprise.”

“Well, the fact is, you get a chance to stop it, right? I mean, if you didn’t, wouldn’t we be dead?”

“You almost were, and if you three had died in that blast with me knowing it was going to happen, I would have felt a lot worse.”

“There’s nothing to worry about, you saved us, and if you hadn’t had that dream,” she paused, the idea was terrifying to her, “well,” she took a deep breath, “we’d be dead!” “Isn’t that reason enough to be grateful for these dreams you’re having?”

“I suppose it is a good reason. But, what if,” He became silent, “what if next time I don’t get to you? What if next time you, or David, or both of you die?” The fear began to show in his face, and it became obvious to Karen that he truly was worried. “What if I can’t be there to help you? I can’t bear to live, knowing that I can’t help you, and you will die”

Karen pondered on that thought for a moment. “Well, we all have to die some time. When the time comes that you just can’t save me or David, that means,” This idea was more frightening than the last, “It will be our time to go.” She said hurriedly.

“That’s one way to look at it. But, you don’t have to live with my burden!” He regretted saying this, because, a second later, Karen slapped him.

“Never, ever use that tone with me! I may not know how you’re feeling, but at least I’m trying to help!” A tear was now running down her cheek. Ryan whipped it away and apologized.

“I really must go to work now,” Ryan said this as he went to walk away from the door.

Karen grabbed his arm, “Be careful,” she whispered.

“I will,” he declared.

Ryan entered his car and started it up. The car shop was only 10 miles away, just outside downtown. It took 2 minutes to get out to the main road. When he got to the first stoplight to get onto the highway he began to get the feeling as if he were about to have one of the dreams again. Everything slowed down as the light turned green. Then, rather strangely, everything sped back up and he had his foot on the gas quickly nearing 30 miles per hour. He turned the stirring wheel sharply as soon as he realized he wasn’t already turning. Once he got back to normal, going 60 mph, everything began to slow down again. This time, time didn’t speed back up. Everything was getting blurry as he drifted off to sleep.

Randomthought31 · 12-22-2007, 12:22 AM

As had always happen, he dreamt he was waking up. In the dream he was waking up just before he crashed into a gas tanker. He turned the wheel as fast as he could to the right and he cut off cars in every other lane. When he cut off one of the other cars they slammed on the breaks and skidded into the back wheel of the tanker, causing it to spin out of control until it was perpendicular to the cars. Everyone quickly rammed their breaks to the floor of their car. However, it was too late to do anything; the cars couldn’t stop in time, and 5 of them crashed into the tanker, tipping it over. Ryan got out of his car, which had crashed into a ditch on the side of the road. He ran up to the cab of the tanker and kicked in the windshield. He knew that there wasn’t much time left before the tanker exploded. He tried to unfasten the seatbelt but it was jammed. Quickly, he grabbed a piece of glass and tried to cut the seatbelt. Unfortunately, all that did was slice open his hand. Being a dream, he didn’t feel any pain. The trucker was half awake and pulled a knife out of the lining of his jacket. Ryan took it and began sawing the seatbelt free. It took 10 seconds to cut all the way through. As quick as possible, he picked up the trucker, who was covered in blood and glass and ran as fast as he could, while carrying a 200-pound man on his shoulder, away from the tanker. He set the trucker down and pocketed the knife as the explosion blew cars away. Everything once again slowed down as he watched cars fly backwards, performing flips in the air. Everything got dark once more.

Once it was pitch black, he opened his eyes to see exactly what he expected, the tanker, merely 10 feet away from him. He went through the same actions, and everything happened just the same. However, after landing in the ditch, Ryan went to open the car door, and saw his hand. The hand he’d slit open with the glass in his dream had a nasty scar on it. It was as if he’d cut it open years ago and gotten it fixed. Hesitantly, he reached into his pocket and found, to his amazement, the trucker’s knife was resting there. He knew that there would be plenty of time to figure this all out later, right now, he had to save as many people as possible. He flipped the knife open and ran towards the cab of the semi. Once more, he kicked open the glass. Just like before, he cut the man free from the seatbelt; he didn’t even try to see if it was jammed.

After he got back to the side of the road and laid the trucker down in the grass, he stared at his hand for ten seconds. He only stopped to watch the cars fly once more. All he could do, as he watched them, was hope that no one was inside of them. Of course, he knew, it was a given fact that some people were going to die today. As cars came crashing on top of other cars, and debris scattered the area. There were multiple explosions that occurred after the tanker exploded. Ash and smoke filled the air around them. Ryan’s heart leapt into his throat when he saw people walking towards him from the smoke. This meant that some people had survived. However, he still had a guilty continence; he knew that it was his entire fault that all of them didn’t live. As a tear ran down his cheek, he looked up into the sky and made a silent pact with god, being the religious man he was, that he’d not let anything like this happen again. He’d give his life before he’d let another man die because of his foolish, and unforgivable actions. Without realizing it, he had sunken to his knees, weeping, staring off into the sky. Everything was blurry from the tears building up in his eyes and the smoke and ash in the sky.

Randomthought31 · 12-22-2007, 11:36 PM

By the way, this wasn't really a month ago, it was more like 3-5 months ago. And also I hadn't written in a long time and i figured I couldn't use "said" too much.

Enigmus · 12-23-2007, 12:38 AM

whew... That sure is a lot of writing. And with the "said" thing, been there too.

Randomthought31 · 12-23-2007, 12:53 AM

Thanks for taking the time to read it. Any thoughts?

Destroyer2000 · 12-25-2007, 08:04 PM

That was interesting...you should expand on it. After reading it, it makes me curious as to what causes the dreams, why he had the scar from so long ago, and such. Very good.

Randomthought31 · 12-26-2007, 10:44 PM

Hmm...getting some good feedback here. If I get much more I might have to actually start working on this story.

Randomthought31 · 01-02-2008, 10:42 PM

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