Welcome to Gaia! ::

Authors Note: I would not like to hear that my writing is good, I want to know if the story is worth writing about. The plot thickens later, this is only the beginning, but I'd like to know if it catches the readers attention. There are other aspects -conflicts- other than what's presented in this first chapter. I know the book would be awesome in its full, but I don't want the reader to feel like it's a drag until three fourths the way through the book. I know there's probably a lot of grammer and spelling mistakes ignore them for now please! They can easily be fixed with spell check later! End Note


Home-

I wonder now if I was just too naive and blind to see then what I saw now. Secretly, I wonder if I had been taken as a fool all along. Maybe it's just my mind trying to protect me from the pain of my closest love, although there's no longer a desire to reconcile with her after the detachment. There aren't many people to have so willfully separate their ties with their own mother.

It was probably the fact my day had run abnormally smoothly, why I had came home in a content mood- which meant cheerful for me. Cheeks concaved my vision, but I had over used my smile to the point where it, even, looked glum. And, no matter how pleasant a day went, coming home was still dreaded. Mostly, I would try to forget the conflict, and pretend that just being happy would suffice, and there would be no more argument.

"Hey, I'm hom-"

"God damn it, Amanda! Why do you have to be so stupid?" I was silent for a moment, afraid to ask what happen until my Mother wobbled out of her room. The way she said 'Stupid' was enough to hint to her frustration; insinuating so much from the short, blunt way it was said, almost as if she were spitting dry spit. "God! You're so-! I just can't-! Why do you-!" I say wobbled because, there years earlier, she had a stroke. When ever she was upset, it was as if a switch when off, rewiring every brain signal in her mind to torment her; she stumbled over he words almost as badly as her right foot. It seemed she was sincerely lost in her train of though.

"What happen?" I repeated.

"Christopher broke the VCR!"

"How is that my fault?" The question was meant to be rhetoric, to get her to stop taking her aggravation out on me. I made sure to keep my voice calm, sincerely listening to her vent; although I far from wanted to hear.

"You taught him how to shove s**t in it." Just as easily as I could have denied this, she could have, would have, proved it.

"Well, why hadn't you been watching him?" She stopped struggling around the room, slowly dropping her fly hands mid-air, to focus a glare at me. To this, I could tell by the piercing look in her eye, my Mother knew she had lost. Not just the argument, but her control over me.

"I was too busy cleaning up your s**t." She lost at the truth, but won the argument. A reclaim of her parental status she would never allow to me. I'd always been polite and reserved my unorganization for my room, which she left for me to clean, and I would expect no less. In fact, she did do a job of maintaining the house in tip top shape, but that was due to her undiagnosed OCD; it was done mainly for her comfort, which just happened to benefit me and my brother as well.

I had made my way past her, but not without feeling a hot essence as I came within close proximity, fuming as I walked off without her permission. (The super natural had always appealed to me, but I never thought myself to be associated with it. I don't, nor have ever, claimed to be psychic, but I have a tendency to, be it my own mind playing things as it would like, sometimes feel emotions rolling off a person. And much like a magnetic force, it weakens the father I am from the said person.)

I closed the door temporarily while I changed into my pj's, left on the floor from when I woke up in the morning. It startled me to see my Mother blocking my exit, strategically, when I reopened the door. Her arms were crossed. She had not dismissed me from the argument, and she refused to let me have the power to decide when it was over. But we both knew there was nothing more to say; I told her by the look in my eyes, eager and near impatient for her to begin. Her gaze was averted not long after, honing in on my book bag on the bed.

"You're room is a ******** pig st- No, not even a pig would want to live here." For having half my belongings packed away in mismatching boxes, advertising beer brands, it was relatively tidy. The only thing the eye had found unfitting was the crumpled comforter, and a few papers on the dresser. Her tone, not so much choice of words, upset me most. She was aiming for something to that extent, saying or doing anything that would bring me to her level. It is very hard to irritate me, much less anger me. Over the years, though, she had learned to press the right buttons in the right order. "Put your book bag where it belongs."

"I need it. I have homework, just going to get something to eat real quick." I highly doubted simply putting my book bag would resolve the orderliness of my room. Again, my voice was kept at a reasonable medium. I found it incredibly childish that she should respond with a fake "Uh-huh" as if she were going along with my supposed fib, nodding her head. I guess I looked past her in a certain way that she understood to be my anxiety to be set free. She was glad to have more ammunition to fire at me. Her own stance shifted, less comfortably away from the wall, and her brows furrowed so that her forehead creased into thick, agely wrinkles that shouldn't have been there for another decade. When her eyes narrowed, I felt again the steam waving off of her again.

"Wipe that smirk off your face," If there had been a smirk, I wasn't doing it on purpose; I had heard this countless times in recent years, and never once figured out how it was I was smirking, "before I poke your eyes out. My parents would have taken my head through a wall. You are so lucky- so unbelievably lucky, do you know that? I don't even think half the parents out there wouldn't have beat you for treating your Mother like you do." And not even a fraction of parents treat your Daughter as you do. was my first in head reply, but I kept it just there. She never lived up to her threats, but I always remained tense when she got to that point, should I need to defend myself. She noticed, and shifted again. "You better watch it," her voice turned low, pretending to be holding herself back from hurting me, and added as she was moving away, "little girl."

I didn't realize until I started to move away, breezed with the cool air that hit my face soothingly, that not only was I hot and sweating, but that I was at home. An obvious observation to anyone else, but my attention had been placed souly on her, my surroundings blacked out with a growing and thickening fuzz. After a quick reorientation of my area, I headed to the kitchen. By now, I was dizzy with anger, and moved around carefully. My expression convey utterly pissed, I knew, and I did nothing to cover it.

Authors Note: Okie dokie. I will take that into consideration, but it actually doesn't foreshadow as much as you might assume. For now, it'll stand as is >< until I became um-lazy enough to fix it up. Here is part of the next chapter, I do intent to lengthy it. I heavily edited the original (it was too much "tell" and not enough "show," again) I'm used to writing in third person; this is actually my first in first.


Continuance-

A ramen cup was my dinner, the usual, and I ate although I wasn't hungry. Five in the morning was too early for breakfast, lunch lines were too long, and by the time I got through them, I'd have only five minuets to scarf down my food, and make it to class on time, so dinner was my biggest meal of the day- Only snacks all day. It wasn't healthy, as I tried to be, but it was often better than not eating at all, or the sweet alternatives.

I wasn't physically active either, aside from rushing around to classes with a twenty plus pound book bag, and a freshmen year of gym. I would have liked it otherwise, but there was simply no safe place to exorcize. Most of my time was spent online, or working.

The computer was housed in my Mothers room, despite how cramped it already was, with the crib pushed against the back of my chair, with a wall to my left. Two huge, fake cherry wood dressers were to each opposite side of the room, one of which was a foot from the computer, with the surge protector separating them. The bed was between the two dressers, queen sized. The golds, reds, and greens gave a kid of royalty feel to the room. I remembered painting it a few years back; first we did a layer of dark green, then padded down the walls with a sponge the gold and deep red. In some places, you could tell it was done intentional, and no where near professional.

The chair was frail, and somewhat broken, but dealable. One of my legs was bent outward, the other seated normally, so that I could rest my books on the thigh and do my homework. I was, in fact, logged onto the Internet, but it didn't provide any detraction. My attention wouldn't have been diverted for an atomic bomb. Outside noises didn't registered in my mind, either, and I didn't hear. I couldn't always get into my work, like today, but I always finished. The light emitting from the monitor was my only source. The windows were shaded with a thin bamboo twigs wove tightly together, which hindered all sun light, save for a few stray streaks that lit that same wall. Whenever the window was open, it felt like I was being watch - likely just my own paranoia.

My back began to feel a bit numb after a while, arched over. It was barely enough to break the concentration, but I realized later I was stiffer than I thought. Taking a break, I scuttled out of the dim room, turning left twice, almost in the same movement, to get to the kitchen. Contrary to the Mothers room, it was brightly lit, from the cheaply tiled floor, mixed with grains of light blue, black, and white, as if someone accidentally spilt thousands of tiny paper fragments, to the baby blue and white theme.

Kitchen wear was held on the table in open boxes, from strainers, to pots and pans. The appliances still cluttered- well, I shouldn't say cluttered; the orderliness of them on the counters was near frustrating. Though, of all the rooms, this one felt most spacey.

On a toe, I released the fork from two claw like fingers, letting it clatter against the metallic sink. The Styrofoam cup, a paper towel wedged inside, was thrown in the trash opposite. The moment I turned for the door, I found my Mother fusing with the VCR. Her legs had been folded under her, eyes thin like when she yelled at me, in concentration. I think she was just trying for a pity act, but new it wasn't working when I walked straight past to let Ebbie in; distracted, I forgot to feed her first thing when I came home.

"You could be helping me." For the first time today, my Mother sounded somewhat civilized. But her voice still had an edge to it, almost as if wanting to continue to argue.

"Oh, I thought you had it." Only when I turned around, I saw she had completely stopped. I always wondered if she was even able to see when her cheek bones were that high, from giving me that look of disgusted amazement. "Let me see."

"No!" Her hands flung in the air, for no other reason than to ward me off from close proximity and, as if I didn't understand the first time, she repeated, "No. No. You don't want to help your own Mother. I find that selfish, truly and utterly selfish, Amanda. It's always about you. What about me? What about your brother?" Ah, yes, the brother card. The whole time, he had been contently playing with his toys behind her. How the newly induced toddler was strung into the conversation, only probably to be of some more ammunition. I felt no need to spend excessive time, yet, with someone who couldn't talk. That's not to say that I've never chased him around the house, or picked him up and flung him in circles like an airplane. There wasn't much else to do, and after a while our own Mother would tell us to shut the ******** up so she could watch TV. "You listen here, and you listen good, don't roll your eyes at me, understand? I am your Mother, and I will always be. I love you. Or do you not know what that means? You do, I raised you." Her words struck nothing, as if she'd never said them. Every time the word love was brought, the rest of her context seemed to liquefy, then evaporate into a thin surrealistic fog, and I would wonder if she'd really said them. I was listening, though, always did, but it was always the same, prerecorded speech. "Do you hear a word I'm saying?"

"Yes," She fidgeted. I wasn't supposed to answer the question, and especially not interrupt her. I was careless to answer so quick, though, and she mistook my fast, military like reflex. The thick lines in her forehead began to crease again.

"Don't give me that tone of voice, you understand? Or I'll tear your throat out. My parents would've put me out on the street for back talking." She pantomimed throwing a bundle of something out with needless force, then waved with a smug smile. Her voice, too, changed, a bit more high as she pretended to be throwing me, and my stuff out on the street. "Good bye!" I sighed, inaudibly, but she could see my chest slowly lift, then drop. "What? Nothing to say? Exactly. Selfish." She snapped back to the VCR, the butter knife in her hand entering the video slot while she spoke in a artificial nonchalant voice, "Just go away. Shoo! Go. Go!" I had already disappeared into the hall, but her murmuring didn't end there.