Fan Fiction ❯ JJ prophecy ❯ The day that changed tomorrow ( Chapter 1 )

JJ's Prophecy

Chapter 1

The day that changed tomorrow

 

 

The first day of High School, it isn't glorious, it isn't spectacular, it's just another day. And it's only the best experience that I have ever encountered. I lived that day with my friends and enjoyed the freedom and the pure jubilation of its experience. How do you describe such a thing? Each class was another lesson in freedom and I couldn't wait for another. It's hard to describe why this simple pleasure is new to me, but I have lived under foot of a curse my entire life.

 

I can't remember a comparable high, but the second day was a day that I still can't forget. It started out just as euphoric as the one before, but with a single hardly astounding difference. As it would be, one of my close friends hadn't arrived. She was a small rather unassuming girl with blondish hair and large rounded glasses, and I had just met her this prior summer. We met at a camp that I begged my parents to allow me to attend. We both enjoyed reading and shared many of the books we brought with us. She had a simple name and it brought a sense of peace when I heard it. She said it to me in a shy manner with a simple expression, “Midori.” I thought that maybe she was sick or had some other common problem. What I didn't expect was to be summoned to the office by 4th period.

 

It was the beginning of lunch for a fraction of the school and I was hungry, anxious to dig into what my mother made for me with a joy that is in her nature. The crowds were gathering and the lunch bell hadn't rung for me yet. It was a split period and just moments away when the summons came. A teacher's aid arrived, and she informally handed the note to my teacher. She looked at it and motioned for me. I approached, and she handed the white slip of paper over. As I took it, I examined it trying to decipher its meaning and was taken by the prompt authority.

 

“JJ is to report to the principals' office immediately.”

 

I gathered my books and started off to wait in front of the principal's office. As I arrived I noted my other friends that I had walked to school with these first few days. We sat there and asked each other if anyone had a clue why we were all gathered there. We felt ostracized for our summons, but knew nothing as to why we were singled out. We weren't a rowdy bunch, and we didn't pull pranks or engage in any type of behavior to warrant this type of summons. Sitting there pondering our fate, we started guessing like paranoid fools finding someway to figure a plot. We came up with outrageous possibilities right from our imaginations and humored ourselves with the audacity of our claims.

 

One at a time we were summoned into his office, and each time the one before us left that office with a look of displacement and confusion, and were escorted into a separate room by a police officer. Eventually, he came back and looked at me, then glanced at a note pad.

 

“JJ?” he asked looking over his pair of glasses at me.

 

“Yeah,” I responded with a short unassuming voice.

 

“Would you please?” He motioned to the principals' office.

 

“Sure.”

 

When I entered I noticed another female that I had never seen at school before, she was obviously a psychologist or something with her business attire, proper and upright. As I entered the room I glanced around and everyone looked sternly at me. So, I quietly sat in the oversized wooden armchair situated next to the door. It was never a comfortable chair, and made me wonder if it was that way purposefully. The room was small for the four of us, the principal sat at his desk and the woman sat on his desk with her legs crossed. The officer shut the door once I was situated, and I felt as if I was closed off from everything I felt at ease with, my friends were away and I was alone, emotionally naked and feeling more frightened by the moment.

 

I started feeling a little dizzy and began breathing slower trying to keep the uneasiness at bay. I wanted to know the answers to the questions, as I thought they were going to start interrogating me for. My nervousness began to quicken and my heart wanted to keep up. I closed my eyes to try and calm down and asked myself Why? This isn't a wise decision, but my nervousness would take over my consciousness if I didn't try to focus.

 

With my eyes closed I can see my thoughts clearer than when I'm distracted by the glare of others. I pressed my eyelids together to try and keep out the judgmental eyes of the people in this room. Answers always come to me here, and they did. With my eyes closed I could see my thoughts take shape, and slowly they took the shape of Midori. I began to see her lifeless body lying in hay. Her eyes were rolled back into her head with her tongue hanging out, and her hand clinched to something in front of her face. The image startled me so much that opening my eyes was the only way out, but they wouldn't open. I could feel my heart beating in my chest making my fingers hurt as I knew what was happening. I had to get away from this thought, and the more I struggled the more it seemed futile, I was trapped in my own thoughts again. I wanted to cry out, but I shouldn't. Not here, not now. This was becoming too much to handle, and I must find a way to make it stop.

 

“JJ!” I heard an unfamiliar powerful voice snap me to attention.

 

My body shook as if it found itself falling asleep, and my fingers felt clammy and stiff from gripping the chair. As my eyes come back into focus from the blackness I started to see colors and then shapes. Eventually the people in the room came into focus as I noticed the psychologist quizzically looking at me. I blinked back. The tone of the room had become more uncomfortable as the three of them shared glances trying to figure out what I was doing.

 

I released my grip on the chair and my fingers ached while I put my hands in my lap. I stared at them averting any extra attention I may have brought to myself. “Yeah sorry, I'm just nervous.”

 

“You have nothing to be nervous about. We just want to ask you some questions. Is that all right?” The psychologist asks.

 

“Ok”

 

The officer sat down next to me and put his notepad in his pocket, “Do you know someone by the name of Midori?”

 

I felt sweat forming on my body as I looked at his knees and nervousness pulled my attention to a pile of dust under the principal's desk. “Yeah, she lives in my neighborhood.” I say in a further withdrawn manner.

 

“Your friends all have high praise of you,” She interjected.

 

“What I was wondering, was what you and Midori last did together?” The officer retorted giving her an eye of “frustrated I'm interrogating, do you mind,” look you see adults exchange from time to time.

 

She doesn't flinch giving an “I know, and I am doing the same thing,” cynical eyebrow raise response.

 

“We walked home, but we didn't see her this morning. Has something happened? Is she ok?” I looked up at the principal, who to me seemed to be the only one capable of answering that question. He had been quiet so far.

 

“She hadn't shown up for school today,” he answered “when we called home we discovered that she had apparently been missing since sometime last night.”

 

“We were hoping you could tell us if there have been any strange individuals that she has spoken with in the past few months?”

 

“No sir, we haven't spoken to any strangers. Who killed her?” I managed the question with a quivering of my voice. A tear started to roll down my cheek and I looked at the officer, my mouth open and my eyes watering up, something inside me was terrified at what it kept seeing. I have never had a picture of someone so close to me.

 

“We aren't sure if she is dead. She's still missing JJ.” The psychologist said getting down fro the desk approaching me and placing her hand on my shoulder. She knelt down putting her other hand on my cheek, pulling at it so that I would face her. “If you know something you should tell us.”

 

“I, I don't know,” was all that I could muster as an answer as I pulled away. Everyone in that room exchanged looks that sent a chill down my spine. The last time I saw an exchange like that was when my parents were talking to each other about putting me on the drugs, to help me with the things in my head, that my psychiatrist prescribed a few years ago. I slowly maneuvered my hands out of my lap and grabbed the chair again.

 

“Would you walk with me JJ?” she asked as she stood up holding out her hand.

 

The principal was looking at various papers on his desk further organizing them from the clearly un-disheveled stat they seemed to be in, and the officer rose up from the chair next to me. I looked back at her and she smiled in return, it was a warm comforting smile. So I nodded to her and reciprocated. She then walked with me out of the office drawing closer to my friends. They noticed and looked over at me leaning over each other to pear through the open doorway with questioning eyes. They were anxious, hoping that I could provide the answers that they weren't given. I was anticipating being in that room too because sometimes my friends were the best security I have, but as we approached she ushered me into the nurses office and told me to sit down for a moment, she would be right back. I heard my friends shuffle about; one cried, “hay!” in an attempt to gain her attention. We were stronger as a group and alone… I was, not.

 

I was nervous again because I hated this room, and I hadn't sat in the nurse's office since I was in grade school. In the past I would have been sent in here because of things I would say or when my mind would show me pictures that would be more frightening than I could bear. Sometimes they were so bad I would throw-up at my desk in a shear-cold-panicked sweat.

 

Old memories swelled up again, memories of this place came back to me. If I said the wrong thing they would ask me to talk about those pictures in my head again. I didn't want to tell anyone else about those damned things. I stared at my feet, and watched them as they began to fade away and another image came about me. At least this time I was alone.

 

It was Midori again, but she was alive. I asked myself Why, why am I imagining these things again? Why the torment all over again? “MIDORI!” I cried out hoping to get her attention. I don't know why, but I don't like it when this happens. I guess I hoped to take control somehow, like my last psychologist told me, hope as I might its all been futile. Midori looked panic stricken as she hovered above the ground suspended by a dark entity that wouldn't let me see who it was. It was taller than anyone I have ever known, and it brings Midori higher apparently strangling her as her little sandaled feet kicked about franticly.

 

“Stop,” I cried, at the dark stranger. I looked at it and it appeared to be the evil that sucks away the light that is the beauty of all things around it. Dark and shrouded in its own evil, I cannot see who or what this thing is.

 

“JJ” the same sharp voice jolts me back to the nurse's office. My sight snaps back and I was afraid that someone heard, or worse, saw me. I was lying on the floor, fetal, with my hands over my head. I frantically looked about and found no one in here, the door is still shut. My stomach clenched and I could sense that it was beginning to purge itself. So I quickly went over to the sink just as I expelled the contents of my stomach.

 

I feel exhausted, tired of this sudden emotional swelling. I wanted it to stop when I was younger, and I want it to stop now. I would give anything to be released from this curse. I turned the faucet on and washed out the contents, and then myself. There was a smell that stayed with me, I couldn't tell if it was Midori or me, but it was awfully powerful.

 

Done, I turned the faucet off and I heard voices. Outside the nurses office door I heard the psychologist and the officer talking. I froze in fear, had they heard me or have I been spared that humiliation? Their speech was in low whispers trying to keep silent of prying ears but somehow I could hear them as if they were close to me.

 

“He must know something, his actions prove that.” The male voice says.

 

“I know but you can't interrogate the boy, it doesn't work that way. If you did you could coax a misguided response and never find the truth.

 

I don't think they heard me, but what do they think I know?

 

“His friends said some rather odd things about him. We should continue asking him questions.”

 

“I agree but he seems panicked, lets take him home to his parents. Maybe they can shed some more light, or even help us.” She says pleading with the others.

 

“I will take him back.”

 

I heard them shuffle and open a door, I look around the sink hoping I have cleaned up enough that they wouldn't notice, and I can hear them start their way over to me. Their footsteps against the carpet, muffled flumps against the hard unfriendly surface were numerous. They came to the door and one of them opened it. “JJ,” the psychologist poked her head in.

 

“I don't know anything.” I said with my head still over the sink. “You just don't understand. May I go home now?”

 

She looked confused, but with concern she asked, “Don't know what JJ?”

 

“I heard the two of you talking. Please believe me I don't know anything.” I didn't sound too convincing looking into the sink, and the smell was an obvious give-away.

 

She looked back and down the hall, “How did you hear us? We were in the principal's office.”

 

With that, I looked at my reflection in the sink and vomited again.

 

 

 

After I regained my composure, the officer escorted me home carrying my belongings while he walked beside me in the same manner my friends usually do. He put me in the passenger seat, what he called “His buddy's seat,” and we prepped for the ride home. My friends had gone to their classes and as I left the office there was a short discussion about letting school out. They had decided to hold off until someone knew for sure what happened to Midori.

 

The ride home wouldn't be long, but I sat there staring out the window while the officer drove. A smell came about me, a horrible wretched odor. The smell is unlike anything I have ever known before, the same one that carried with me from the nurse's office. I looked out of the car window thinking there was a dead animal on the side of the road. It was overwhelming so I rolled down the window for some fresh air. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath hoping to take in something besides this foul stench.

 

Flies, I can hear flies.

 

I open my eyes and saw Midori, unmoved from the first image I had in the office. Flies were moving across her body and orifices making their way about their business. Her eyes were swollen and fluid was coming out of her unmoving mouth. The smell, it was Midori. I felt the bile move up again, I had nothing left to give but I swallowed hoping I would not do that in the officers' car. I noticed Midori's hand, it was clinging onto a dingy, old piece of cloth tattered and frayed. It looked like an old and fragile bit of burlap.

 

“Here ya' go kiddo.” A voice echoed in my head as the vision quickly faded away.

 

I was staring at my front door. We came to a stop and he set the parking brake. I opened the car door and staggered out weak and disoriented. My mother came out to check on me, when she did she embraced me and asked, “Are you OK?”

 

I looked up and pain must have been in my eyes, because when she saw it she gasped and ushered me inside ignoring the officer. He carried my belongings to the front door and waited for her on the porch. I rested in my room while she went to the porch to speak with the officer. I knew he was asking about me and she was most definitely telling him about how this has happened before. I just know there is another trip to the psychologist this week. I am not looking forward to that, I want this to be over and Midori to be found so we can all go back to school tomorrow.

 

Normal, life has me cursed to never experience normal. Somehow I doubt things will go how I want them to, the never do. And given the status quo they never will.

 

My mother came back to my room carrying my belongings from school. She placed them on a chair and walked over to me while I was on the bed. She touched my shoulder as she spoke, “What pictures happened this time?” She asked. We talk about them every time, and she never judges them. She tries to help me deal with them the best she can.

 

“Midori, I saw her lying in hay. She was dead, and flies, the smell made me sick.” I curled into the pillow allowing it to embrace my face and my mother reached over to hold me noticing how it affected me. She never met her but I talked about Midori after the camp we attended. She found out that she would be attending the same high school this year and it made it more bearable for me.

 

“I will be right back, Ok?”

 

I looked up as she smiled back and patted me on the shoulder. She left the room and went immediately outside. “The officer!” I cursed myself forgetting that he might still be here. She is telling him what I saw. My heart frozen with fear, what could be so important about that? I can't blame her though, the officer wanted to know and if I told him he would never had listened to me. Besides, the importance of my pictures is still alien to me, they just happen to torture me keeping me from a life that could have been.

 

The officer's car pulled away and I peaked out of my window to make sure it was real. I saw him driving the car down the street and fell back on to my bed. My mother came into my room after a short while with a small cup of tea and a ginger root rising above the rim cut down the middle. It was good tea. She always said it worked best on an upset stomach. Some old home remedy that was “best for the heart” as she put it.

 

“It's going to be ok Jay, I am going to call your father and we will talk later.”

 

“I don't want to see another shrink!” I said into the pillow.

 

“We will talk about it later, and I promise we won't make you go this time ok?”

 

I looked up from the pillow and gave a melancholy smile, saw at the tea and pondered drinking it. It had always made me feel better by the time I was done.

 

 

 

Later in the evening I awoke from a nap to the sound of knocking at our door. I looked at my clock, 4:30, it must be one of my friends. I jumped out of bed and rushed over to the door cutting off my mother who was on her way. I opened it up and saw who it was. Pip! “I am going outside mom!” I said yelling over my shoulder. With that I rushed out and ran to the yard, Pip followed.

 

“Stay close! Your father will be home soon.” She said through the open doorway.

 

I gave her a wave and looked at Pip, he was full of curiosity. The pictures have happened in my friend's presence several times, so they know what to look for. They always took care of me when it did happen and assured me that I was safe. I felt in no way able to lie to any of them. I owe them the truth and wasn't afraid of saying it. Talking to them also made me feel more at ease.

 

“Man, what happened, they said you were sent home. You had those images about Midori didn't you?”

 

“Yeah, it was awful.”

 

“What did you see?”

 

He was excited, as if I was a gypsy giving out his fortune. “I saw her in a pile of hay holding an old tattered piece of cloth.”

 

“Was she alive?”

 

“No.” I looked at the ground and started walking along the sidewalk. I didn't plan on going anywhere in particular but I didn't want to stand still. We started walking and I had my hands in my pockets while Pip walked along side of me. He didn't know what to say, his presence said that he cared about me as much as he was curious about what I saw. “There's more.” I say to him.

 

“What?” He looked over, eyes beady with anticipation.

 

I told him about the dark stranger whom I couldn't see and how it seemed more evil than possible, its height was a mystery as it towered above me while I witnessed its act of cruelty.

 

“Was it as high as a Garthdillian?” He jumped up with his hand over his head trying to estimate the height but missing from our short stature. Pip is slightly over weight and his physical antics were almost comedic as he landed and the rest of his stomach retorted in its elastic nature.

 

“I think, maybe. Taller than the basketballs player at school, that's for sure.”

 

“You never asked her out, did you?”

 

“No,” I said as I kicked some gravel about.

 

We continued talking about what I saw, and Toby eventually joined us. So I told the whole thing over again. We kept walking and the sun had set by the time we made it into town. We went into our favorite store and purchased some tidbits to tide us over until we ate dinner at our respective houses, which by the way we were already late for.

 

We mulled about for a few hours and it made things better for me. We walked back and forth between houses and the town pondering the reality of what I saw. Never before had it affected us in the manner it did this time. It was always ambiguous and concerning people we have never seen before. Moving about like this kept things real for me. I was afraid that I might have another episode and I didn't want to do it in the presence of my parents or anyone else for that matter. The three of us sat alongside the road eating, and fiddling with the ground around us underneath a street lamp.

 

It became dark and the town's street lamps were shining above us. Bugs and whatnots flew within their glow and we started walking back home. As we walked we noticed a sudden hurried rush of vehicles. One after another we were passed by the cars and were left in the preceding dust cloud. We stepped off giving them room when a pair of car lights spotted us and didn't continue on. It pulled over and stopped next to us.

 

“Jay sweetie,” my mother called out.

 

“Son, they found Midori.”

 

I looked at my friends and they all looked at me. We then ran to the car and piled in the back. My father looked at me for a moment through the rearview mirror, a piece of jerky still hanging out of my mouth.

 

“Son, you seem to be doing better.” He looked at me sternly, probably because I took off for so long and didn't stay close as mother had asked. He turned to face forward and put the car into gear. Speeding off no one talked, I know I was nervous about finding Midori and the bumpy road only reinforced my uneasiness.

 

We traveled a while, an uncomfortable few moments. My mother fidgeted in the front listening to us, trying to see if we said anything to give possible clues as to our state of mind. Father sat in the driver's seat intent on our destination, following the trail of cars that had passed us earlier. We sat in the back looking out windows trying to find clues to our destination or evidence of others. Every bump in the road caused us to rise and fall in unison as we strained our heads looking out every window in the car. We were all unaffected by the jolts and kept our eyes focused on the pitch-black horizon.

 

“Hay look,” Toby stated pointing out of the passenger side window. He was pressed against it creating a fog in front of his face. Pip and I leaned over as all three of our faces peered out of that window.

 

We saw the farm where we played at a couple of times, and I remember when we were ushered away. Being children looking for a place to pass the time we we're sometimes adventurous sorts. Now it was painted with the multi colored lights of emergency vehicles and police cruisers. They were all focused on the barn as little figures hurried about magnified onto the barn sidewalls looking like giants moving through the light. The barn doors were open and powerful lamps illuminated the interior with a brilliant flooding light making it more surreal. From this distance we saw shadows against the ceiling and walls, flashes from cameras bolted inside. We were all frozen at this moment, either we didn't want to accept the scene as it appeared, or were just absorbing the moment. To me it wasn't terrifying, it was mortifying and I only hoped she was ok.

 

When we approached, several cars and other onlookers that had assembling obstructed our view. We stopped and proceeded to disembark from the vehicle. As we left the car I rushed out through the crowd closer to the police barricade. “Jay, stay close!” my mother cried to me as I left. My friends joined my side and I focused onto the barn seeing all that I could.

 

An ambulance was parked near the barn doors with its rear doors propped open. Two paramedics were carting a black form on top of a stretcher as the wind shifted blowing the smell of the barn towards us. The smell washed over me and its putrid stench knocked me back. It made me feel dizzy and you could hear the crowd respond with disgust as I realized I wasn't imagining it this time.

 

“NO!” a woman's voice came off to our right. I looked over and noticed a woman in her robe and slippers crying hysterically, running through the barricade and crashing into two officers as she collapsed, sobbing. It was Midori's mother, she had just arrived and her husband followed right after to help the officers calm his hysterical wife. Their large car was still running in the midst of some police cruisers having been hastily parked having rushed to the scene themselves.

 

It saddened me to see her like this and my throat tightened up. I swung my attention to the ambulance and looked hoping to see if there was any more that I could decipher from the commotion in the bar. An officer walked over to the black form that was being loaded into the ambulance and he motioned to one of the men with a camera. They exchanged some words and then unzipped the long dark bag.

 

The officer exposed what was inside and some pictures were taken, the officer then reached in and worked free from the bad an object that he held up with both hands. At that moment the camera operator opened a large plastic bag and held it in place. The officer dropped the object inside and against the light I could see its silhouette, an old tattered piece of cloth.

 

That moment froze for me as I could see the officer slowly close the bag and I could make out each individual strand of fabric. With unwinding strands poking out everywhere it held its shape inside the bag, its dark color hinting at its age. My throat was so tight I could barely breathe and I began to shake. I grabbed the barricade railing to help support me.

 

I was unable to take my eyes away from that area; the officer then turned and walked away, my eyes fixed on the now distorted black form that was pushed into the ambulance. My mother finally made her way to me and grabbed my shoulders holding me close to her. She maneuvered herself between me and the barricades trying to force me away from them.

 

“Jay?” she asked in an alarmed tone.

 

I looked up at her and noticed she wasn't watching the barn, but the crowd. I stood upright and turned around looking at the crowd too. It was just she and I and we were alone in the center of a large circle of people who all had their attention focused on me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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