“Is this heaven or h*ll?” I thought to myself. I couldn’t tell. I had a fading aching in my chest as an intense white light at the end of a long, dark tunnel gradually drew closer to me. The light dwindled before l could even reach out to touch its radiance. Everything went black as if a shadow had clouded my sight, and ice cold numbness afflicted my entire body. My thoughts went blank as I went unconscious in the darkness.

I woke up to the sight of nothingness. I don’t know how long I laid there motionless. I probably wouldn’t have moved, until I noticed stiffness in my lungs. Just as I thought I was go-ing to leave this world for good, and death was only a few breaths away. I heard the scraping of shovels and the mumble of voices. Moonlight flooded the once black area that I could now see was a coffin, a grave, and two men stood above me, staring down at me. I slowly rose, taking in the fresh air, and as I did they started to back away. Before I could say anything, they dropped their shovels, and scurried off screaming into the night.

I clambered quickly out of the grave, and once again stood on solid ground. I turned around and saw a tombstone, my tombstone. It read: Celes G. Hart, Loving Daughter and Loyal Friend, Oct. 19th 1994- Jan. 7th 2012. I sat down on the wet grass as I realized, everyone I knew thought I was dead. I tried to remember what exactly happened. It all came back in a sudden flash. I could hear sirens, I could feel the shock of electricity going through of my chest, then the screech of the heart monitor cut through the air as my heart stopped, and then the last thing I heard was my boyfriend, Brad, saying he was had come back to life as the memory dissipated. I had tears running down my face. I never thought Brad cared that much. I just figured we’d break up, and end it like every other relationship I had.

Now I had to get home as soon as possible, show everyone I was alive, and say yes to Brad. I stood up and started to walk toward the exit of the cemetery. I was going to have to find my way home on unknown streets. As I walked down the crumbling sidewalks, I looked from side to side trying to find something familiar, but all I saw were streetlights, abandoned cars, and decomposing apartment buildings. Every street I looked down was desert. A few minutes later, I heard the rumble of an engine. Then I saw a motorcycle turn the corner of the street in front of me, and it flew past me. I continued walking down the broken sidewalk, but unexpectedly I heard the sound of another engine getting louder behind me, and the motorcycle had jumped the curb and squealed to a stop. Before I could react to what had just happened, I had a knife pressed to my neck by the guy who had almost run me over.

With his helmet still on, he said in a barely distinguishable voice, “Give me your money.”

I told him, “I don’t have any money.”

“Do you have any family?” he asked.

“Yes, but they…” He cut me off before I could tell him they didn’t know I was alive.

“That’s good enough for me.” He pulled out a roll of duct tape, snatched my hands, and before I could think to pull away I was tied up. “Get on the bike, or else…”

Then I asked the stupidest question ever, “Or else what?” He grabbed me and put me on the bike. He got on behind me and we rode through the night. When the bike finally stopped we were in a city that wasn’t so deserted, right in front of an apartment building.

Once the guy got off the bike he said, “If I untie you, you can’t try to get away. Ok?”

I had thought about screaming, but I figured he’d just stab me. I didn’t want to die again anytime soon, so I just said, “Ok.” He led me to an elevator, and he pressed the number for the top floor. When the elevator doors opened we came to an empty hallway with only one door. He walked over to the door and unlocked it, but he waited until I was standing beside him to open the door. When I turned around to ask him what he was going to do with me, he was taking his helmet off, as he did a lush waterfall of golden hair pooled around a feminine face. I had to look again to know for sure. This guy was a chick, not much older than me.

She looked at me and said, “So where is your family, cause I’m not going to let you go without a ransom of some sort, whether it’s money or drugs.”

“My family doesn’t know I’m alive. They wouldn’t believe you if I said I was.”

“Great what am I supposed to do with you now? I can’t just let you go.” I just shrugged my shoulders, and walked to a huge window in what I think was the living room.

“Where are we?”

“Culver City. You should go get cleaned up, you smell like dirt. In fact your covered in dirt, and I’m not gonna have you making a mess in here.”

“Fine.” She showed me the bathroom, and left for a room down the hallway. When I looked in the mirror, I saw my brown hair and my green eyes. They were the only things I could recognize. That girl was right, I was covered in dirt. After my shower, I found some clean clothes in the room where the blonde biker chick went, but I didn’t see her anywhere. I went in the living room and she wasn’t there either. I thought she might have left, and now was my chance to escape, but as I came to the door, I notice the lock you normally see on the outside, was on the inside. Wonderful, I was locked in here. I thought since I was locked in a prison with a TV and a couch, I might as well make the best out of it. I sat down on the couch facing the but going to propose as I faded away. I grasped that I
not even 20 minutes later I was asleep. I woke up the next morning to bright lights coming in through the huge window, and the smell of bacon. I looked over the back of the couch into the kitchen to see the blonde chick fixing breakfast.

Being overly sleepy I yelled, “Why don’t you have freaking blinds in here?”

“Because I don’t sleep in here. I see you found the clothes I left in my room.”

“Yeah, thanks. Hey, when are you going to let me go?”

“I don’t know if I can. I don’t know what to do with you right now.”

“I’m stuck here being your prisoner. By the way my name’s Celes. It would be nice to know yours or do you want me to call you warden?”

“I’m Terra, and you’re more of an unwanted guess than a prisoner. Prisoners don’t get breakfast, so you’re a guest unless you want to starve to death.” I just glared at her. We ate a soundless breakfast. Neither of us spoke, but she kept glancing at me. I couldn’t help myself from noticing her blue eyes. Later while I was cleaning up my plate, Terra came out of her room with a backpack on, and was heading out the door.

I asked, “Where are you going? Are you just going to leave me here?”

“I’m going out that’s all you need to know, and yeah I’m leaving you here it’s not like you can get out.” She went out the door before I could say anything else. I was alone the whole day, and I watched TV until 1AM. Just as I was about to dose off, I heard the front door slam shut. I watched as Terra stumbled to her room, and I followed her. Terra just collapsed at the foot of her bed. Her blonde hair was a tangled mess, I could smell alcohol on her breath, and when I looked closer, I saw tears pouring from her blue eyes.

My sympathy kicked in, and I asked, “What happened?”

I sat down beside her as she said, “Every person I have ever cared about has left me, my parents, friends, boy and girlfriends… everyone.”

“I can imagine how that feels. I may not have had the same experience, but even though my parents were there through my whole life, they were never really in my life. I went through guy after guy, but I’ve never found anything I wanted to cling to, just things I had to.”

“But you didn’t bring it all upon yourself. I caused every single problem in my life. No one wanted to be around me because of drugs, and the only reason I even have this place is be-cause my parents feel sorry for me.” She tried to stand up and walk to the side of the bed, but she staggered. I caught her before she could hit anything, and guided her to her bed. She laid down and I wrapped a blanket around her.

“Just try and get some sleep.” I said. I walked out the door, and then I went to the living room to sleep on the couch. The next morning she was gone before I even got up, but she came back sober at lunch. For the next three days we talked more and more, about personal and non-personal things. Things I didn’t talk about with anyone, not even Brad. I told her things I never told anyone, like how if Brad ever had the chance to propose to me, the only reason I would say yes was because everyone expected me to, not because he had my heart, and she told me about her relationships, like she was seeing I girl who she thought it might last with, but then I said something I probably shouldn’t have.

“Are you into drugs? Because you said that night when you were drunk that no one stayed around because of drugs”

“Maybe I am, what does it matter? Drugs never hurt me, only people have.”

“It does matter because it hurts you every day you use. If this person you’re seeing is into drugs, and she likes that you’re using, then it’s just bad all around.” Not to mention I was starting TV,
to really care about her in ways I never cared about anyone else. Terra was… different. She just rushed out of the apartment in an angry rage. I didn’t see her for two days. I was woken up in the middle of the night to her bedroom door slamming. I didn’t bother to get off the couch until I heard things start breaking. I went to her room, and inside I found her in a corner and a lamp smashed on the floor. She had a beer bottle in one hand and a needle in the other.

She yelled at me, “Get out!” I didn’t even bother to answer her, I just rushed over to her. She was just about to inject herself with the needle, but luckily I grabbed her hand before she could.

“You don’t want to do this…”

“How would you know? I do want to do this. I’ve thought a lot and decided I’m not enough for anyone, so here’s enough pain medicine to down a horse, enough to kill a human.”

“That’s not true, people do care about you…”

“Like who? No one I know.”

“Like me.” I couldn’t stop myself. I did what my heart told me to do and kissed her. She dropped the needle and the beer bottle, and kissed me back. “Do you still want to do that?” She shook her head no and cried into my shoulder. I just sat there and held her until she stopped. We ended up falling asleep in each other’s arms. That morning, we woke up to the sound of pound-ing on the front door, and yelling. I looked as Terra and saw pure panic on her face.

“We have to get out of here. Now!” Terra said. She grabbed my hand. “Come on!”

“What’s going on?” I asked as I followed her to a window.

“Let’s just say cops don’t really like me, and the horse pain medicine was kinda stolen.”

“Oh great, so we’re on the run?”

“No I’m on the run, it has nothing to do with you. Just climb before you get in trouble for what I did.”

“It has everything to do with me, because I’m not gonna leave you.” She started climbing out the window.

“Come on. We can talk about this later.” She said, so after that I just started climbing.

“Hey, why do you have a ladder out here?”

“It’s a fire escape or a cop escape if you look at the current situation.” We reached the bottom of the fire escape just as I heard the cops bust through the door. Terra ran over to her bike and tossed me her spare helmet. We rode for hours on end, and my butt hurt by the end of it. We ended up stopping at a motel on the out skirts of San Fran Sisco.

When we got in our room Terra asked, “Don’t you want to go back home to your family? I’m bad news. I don’t want us to do this every day.”

“Yeah, but I think they’d hate me. Their goody little daughter is back, and the devil’s perverted her mind. You’re not bad news, and we don’t have to live this way Terra. We can start over. No past, just a future together.” Her eyes brightened when I said that. We didn’t even bother staying in the motel after that. We just rode off into the night into the morning, and I watched the sun rise from the back of Terra’s bike. It was the most perfect moment of my life.