There’s something in that building. The puzzle piece I’ve been looking for. But I can’t seem to find it. Maybe it’s not time yet, maybe I’m not ready, or maybe I’m not suppose to. Whatever the fact is, I leave the building feeling more lost then when I entered the kingdom of questions.

As I continue through my routine day of “hunting”, I find myself on the town border. The one thing I’ve never found myself brave enough to venture across. Once I cross it, I’m alone, more alone then I am now. My routine of the day fades. And whether or not I return is left to the imagination. I stare across the road for minutes, hours, I don’t know. Time seems to be oblivious to me. Every day I say to myself that I will cross, but everyday I turn around and hit the rewind button on the remote control of my life and find myself going back over my tracks, entering the front door of my home, eating dinner, and going to sleep. Then the next day I repeat my system.

Looking in the mirror I see a bright eyed, midnight haired seventeen year old girl. Looking at the date on my computer, I see the date, May 21st. Well happy 23rd birthday Alana Anastas. If only it felt like it. What I wouldn’t give to be celebrating with my friends and family. To have the one I love not in this mindless state. I wish I had some way to snap him out of his trance, before the new society change came about, he was the most intelligent and driven boy I knew. Now he’s playing video games daily and laying around with no ambition. That’s not the one I love, but I won’t give up, especially not on him.

I visit him every so often. Each time is harder then the last. I’m visiting him today. I feel like laying in his arms, even if it is as we watch a movie we’ve probably watched one hundred times, no exaggeration. I go through his front door, no need to knock, what parent is going to yell at me. I look for him, no big shocker, there he is sitting on the couch eating a big bowl of cereal. I wish he knew that I keep his food stocked, I do his laundry, I keep him alive, but of course his mind is too drained to take considerable notice. He just goes on. Not questioning. I look at him and I smile faintly and realize something, when he looks at me, it’s almost like he’s pleading for help from deep within. His eyes are begging deeply. If only I could unlock what he’s completely begging for. I need to go to the high school, I need to figure this out, no more putting anything off. It’s time.

I look around me as I walk to the school. There are teenagers strewn out from parties. Teenagers strewn out from too much junk food. Others that I’m unsure of their ailment, perhaps they’re just to lazy to get up out of their spot. It’s odd to me that none of them have gained any hard core weight. They’re all exactly the same as the day we awoke. I don’t stop though, I keep on trudging on to the building.

Once I enter the building I go directly to my place. My place of sanctuary in this building of solitude. My locker. As corny as it may seem, this very spot, this very opening in the wall, gives me a feeling of safety. I glance at the pictures for the first time since the day of the fiestada lunch. There’s a picture pasted there that was never there. One that I’ve never seen. It’s of a group of people with there backs turned to me huddled around a hospital bed looking down. I stare pondering the picture for a great length of time and then I see something out of the corner of my eye. Another student.
I have to find out who it is. I’m now running after the student, as the student continues to clearly ignore me, without any intentions of turning around, I continue to pursue him. He turns down into the next hallway, I have him cornered now since the hallway is a dead end. “Ha! I got you now! Who are you?”

“Wait, where did he go?” Now I’m talking to myself. Now I’m seeing things. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so desperate and so lost at a point in my life. As I walk down the hall way I turn into a class room, I once loved with a great passion, and scrawled on the board in bright blue dry erase marker is “Alana! Come back to us! We need you!”

I run home. I’m frantic, I’m puzzled, I’m not sure if I even saw what I think I saw. I mean didn’t I just see a boy who wasn’t even there. I need something, I need out. I walk out the door and go to the nearest house with a vehicle. Oh joy it’s a bright lime green motercycle. Well I guess there is a first time for everything. I jump on it. Pray for my life, pray for the first time in all actuality and drive, fast. I find myself at the town border and for the first time I find myself crossing it. I close my eyes for a brief second to let the air blow my hair and I take a deep breath and open my eyes and find myself back at the high school. Did I imagine leaving town? I really am losing it. I need out, I need out! So this time I make sure I am for a fact going, I exit the town, and all I do is blink and find myself back at the high school once again. I try again, and again, and again. Finally I stop. I get off the stupid contraption and sit on the street curb for hours thinking and thinking. I’m ready to go home, I don’t know what else to do I’m at a loss for words, for thoughts. I put my hands in my pocket and find something, a picture. The picture from my locker.

I freak out once again. I know for a fact I didn’t put that in my pocket, I left it in the locker when I saw it. I sit back down and look at the photo closely. There is something so familiar, something so strange about the photograph but I can’t figure it out. I look up and somehow the green contraption of speed and stupidity is gone. I run, I look all around looking for it. It’s no where to be found. I finally see it but someone’s on it at the opposite end of the lane, holding a poster board with the words “I’m sorry!” printed in big words on it.

I go through my mind, deep within my mind trying to figure out what this mysterious person is sorry for. Do I know them? I keep prodding deeper into my mind, I close my eyes and breathe again. This time I don’t see the back of my eye lids though. I see a bright sunny day with teachers and students scrambled around the school grounds, cars dropping off students, students driving themselves. I continue to look, stretching my eyes, not wanting to lose this picture, I never want to open my eyes, then in the distance from behind closed eyes I see that same guy, that same cycle speeding hard core to the school, but I can’t move. My foot appears to be stuck on something and bam he’s hit me. I’m down.

I hear voices shouting, people screaming, I feel intense levels of pain. Then numbness. My whole world shifts into a realm of blurredness and murmurs. A faint voice then appears and speaks softly, lovingly, “Alana! Come back to us! We need you! I need you!” The voice is so familiar. It’s like a distant memory I can’t recall. It begins to speak again. “Alana open your eyes that’s all you have to do!”

I try, I try, I try, and I try once more to open my eyes and this time they open. I find myself in a hospital bed with my love, my boy by my side gripping my hand speaking gently. He shakes and smiles with great intensity when he sees that I’ve awaken.

I try, I try, I try, and I try once more to open my mouth and this time it opens and I speak. “How?” He looks down and gently says, “The guy couldn’t get his breaks to work, he kept trying over and over again to yell at you to get out of the way, but you had your headphones on full blast and by time you noticed, your foot was stuck in the pot hole. Alana, he hit you! You’ve been out for eight months, no body believed me when I told them you would wake up, but you proved me right.”

“By the way happy birthday sweetie.”