To everyone waiting: The stories are coming. I fell in the middle of some personal problems toppled on to a move to a brand new university. So the past few weeks have been hectic. I have the second chapter for Dade, which is a year overdue, the fifth chapter of Magical Essence, second chapter of Aerial Knights, and you are reading the second chapter of Eye for an Eye. Enjoy.
One of the most bizarre feelings happens just after you are woken from a sound sleep. The few brief seconds after the antagonizing alarm sounds on the radio-clock sitting next to your bed. Then the next minute follows the groggy realization of exactly what just happened and for the brief second the brain questions the correctness of the digital readout.
It is much different than waking up in the middle of the night to a blinking red clock instead of the ear piercing alarm that has been synchronized across all brands. The bleeding numbers almost scream aloud, 'Why are you awake at 4:37 in the morning?' For a select-few their favorite station begins playing some crude wakeup music or a morning drive talk show for the working stiffs of the region.
There is a small part of the population that does not said method to wakeup. The innards of their body seem to just know exactly what time to rise out of bed, which could be constituted as almost a superhuman ability to subconsciously tell what time it is. Then snap out of a deep sleep at nearly the pace of greyhound bursting from the starting gates. These people are usually labeled as a "morning person." Dave was exactly that. When most teenagers were sleeping off the prior nights agenda he was up bright and early ready to start the Saturday routine. It was a rare day that he slept in past eight o'clock in the morning. In college this could the time that some students go to bed after a night of power-drinking.
Nevertheless at the strike of nine-thirty-two the shower inside Dave's half of the suite turned on. The majority of college students tend to live in what a person would consider a "normal" dormitory. This would include another student, a half-working or stuck closet, a few pieces of cheaper-than-Ikea furniture, and of course two just-barely twin beds. For the people who wish to spend a little bit more on their housing there exists more quality housing arrangements. These consist of a common-living area, kitchenette, and two rooms to the left and right of the common living area. The rooms are furnished with a little more expensive furniture (this time Ikea got the bid) and each room has its own bathroom. Instead of living with a roommate he decided to front the price for the full-single room.
The events of the prior night consisted of Dave staying up a good portion of the night scratching down his cast with a coat hanger. Every once and awhile he would be sure that his guest of honor did not soil his sheets. After a few successful hours of keeping her food down he decided to call it a night and passed out quickly. Danielle was sleeping off a pint and a half of cheap vodka when Dave skillfully hobbled into his bathroom at ten past nine after writing some sticky-notes with the trusty Black-Sharpie.
The sound of the shower had just finished filtering through the hardened doors when Danielle smelled the unfamiliar fabric softener on her sheets. As she sprung up into a sitting position the sticky-note attached to her forehead caused the natural sense of awareness to click on. She pulled her hands out from under the sheets and reached for the purple piece of paper. The note was written in clean print with a black-sharpie marker, there was only a single sentence.
'Do not worry. We only took the left leg.'
A panic-stricken Danielle reached for her left leg to find that despite what the cruel sticky-note spoke of indeed her leg was still attached. A sigh of frustration emitted from her as she crumbled the note and threw it aside on the floor. She spent the next few minutes surveying the room that she was sleeping in. After confirming that she indeed had all of her clothes on and trusting her body's instincts that her headache was in fact due to her inability to pay more than four-ninety-five for alcohol. She remembered the semi-crippled form of the man she met earlier in that day. The mind reeled through possible names and finally settled on Dave. The walk through the campus and the eventual trek up the stairs led them to where they are at now also found their way out of her short-term alcohol aided memory palate. She could only assume by any natural scientific process that it was his dorm room.
It looked like a normal male college dorm room. There was exactly one computer set up on the far corner, a few posters on the walls, and a television set up in direct line-of-sight of the bed that she was sitting up in. She had never been in one of these "upgraded" rooms and therefore did not understand what the light under the crack of the door directly ahead led to. She peeled herself out of bed and walked across the room. Her hands pushed the door open quietly and peeked in. At first the lights caused her eyes to go through that painful morning hangover transition between a dim-lit room and a properly lit bathroom.
Dave had a towel around his waist and he was shaving at the sink. Danielle's eyes followed the scars down his body from the car crash. Each and every one seemed to almost emit its own aura of pain and carrying a story alongside it. Despite the clothing that he was wearing the prior day she noticed more of his body now. He was definitely in shape. The arm muscles showed the wear-and-tear of using the crutches day in and day out. After a few minutes of staring Dave turned around to see her unexpectedly.
"Oh, I see that you have decided to join the land of the living" he spoke quietly as he reached for his shirt that was folded on the toilet. He looked at her for a few seconds before she realized he was talking to him.
"Yeah...yes" she decided to reply after those few seconds of looking like a bumbling idiot. It was an awkward position for her to be in. She did not exactly know this guy, but he went out of his way to help her.
"And so the silence begins" he laughed at his own crummy joke, "I will be out in a minute Danni."
"Yeah, okay."
