chapters one and two.

I wrote this last autumn, it's not actually finished, but I figured I might as well finish it. Or possibly just post the new one when WriMo starts again this year.

DISCLAIMER-
When writing for NaNoWriMo, one does not edit, or fix one's writing along the way, because one is trying to write so many words by the end of the day. So critiques on spelling/grammar/inconsistent things aren't needed. x'D

Thanks.





Chapter 1.
It took a second to register what just happened. One minute I was flying, and then. . . I fell? Or did that happen at the same time? And then I hit my head. Was that what happened? But, where was Raquel? I stood up, and then immediately sat down.
“You’ll want to sit there a little longer.” A deep, kind of emotionless voice echoed around in the darkness. I looked around trying to find who was talking.
“I’m fine.” I answered casually, as I stood up again a little slower. “Would you mind telling me where I am?” I asked politely.
“No.” He, I think it was a he, answered.
“Oh. Alright, whatever.” I answered snootily. I gazed around everywhere, looking for some sort of light, because it was incredibly dark wherever I was. Finally after squinting at the same point for about 30 seconds or so I could just make out the smallest flashes of golden brownish something. I took a step forward towards it.
“Ahh!” I yelled, I had felt something on my ankle.
“Wait, you have to go with me.” that deep, flat voice from before said. I started laughing, it was only a hand on my ankle.
“Why should I? I don’t know who you are, besides you’re not very nice to me, scaring me like that!” I answered, still laughing, this was kind of ridiculous. I started walking again, I could feel him stand up and start to follow me. I didn’t say anything, I just kept walking toward the light. Not only was I seriously confused, but my head was hurting really bad. It took a long time to get to the light, we walked in silence, I had nothing to say. Finally reaching the light, we came upon a house, I think. It actually looked more like a barn, but it was made of mirrors as far as I could tell. Not those cheesy types of things like you see in movies. It was really creepy, and shiny, and pointy, real forbidden looking.
“It’s a house of mirrors, wonderful.” I muttered, rolling my eyes. The boy (a boy it seemed like) stepped from beside me, up inspect the house. From what I could tell from behind him, orange hair, skinny- but not gross skinny, a little taller then me, wearing jean cutoffs and a plain white tee. Then I caught a glimpse of him in the mirrors, then I was staring. He straight up didn't look right.
“What...” I muttered in wonder to myself. We just stood there, staring at each other, well his body was turned to face me. His face...how is that possible? I just kept staring. It wasn’t a white face, or just a blank head, it just didn’t exist. It was like every time I looked at him, or blinked, or just thought about it, something was erasing his face over and over.
I shook my head.
“Alright. . . that’s just a little too much for me right now.” I said, staggering backwards. “I need to get the eff out of here.” I was freaking out, what the crap? Seriously. You know in some books, people think it’s "just a dream" when something really surreal happens? Well I didn’t, I wished it was In some ways, but this was for real, and I could tell. I walked slowly to the door, and opened it, still shaking my head. I stared inside, the building was filled with nothing, a black depth of seemingly nothing, that's what it felt like anyways. I turned around, he was still standing there, unmoving.
Finally he spoke. “I know where we are.” He said mechanically, that voice was really starting to bug me. I waited for more, but he didn’t say anything.
“Um, yes, and that is where?” I asked, annoyed.
“We’re in Verloren.” He said.
“What, and where is Verloren?” I asked, getting more and more annoyed, he just stood there.
“It’s where we’re sent, wouldn’t you realize this from looking at me?"
“What are you talking about?” I asked. It was somewhat bizarre to hear someone talk that you're staring at, without seeing the moving lips part.
“Are you. . . human?” he said. OH GREAT. I KNEW IT.
“Yes.” I sighed. It’s just my luck to land on a different planet. Or maybe this kid was just nutters.
“Then it’ll have to be you, no one thought you'd be human.” He replied.
“What will have to be me?” I asked, stomping my foot. Don’t you hate it when someone’s talking about something you have no idea about, and they won’t explain anything, they just keep rambling on? Especially when that person is like this one.
“Yes, a human wouldn’t understand.” He said. “You are my zel. I am your victim. A zel exists to save the victim. The victim exists to be saved by the zel. However, a victim has never been saved before, and a zel has never saved. I have heard stories, every 1003 years, the zeil-deif get hungry, and the only thing to satisfy them are souls." After he said the bit about the soul thing, I laughed. I couldn't help it, it sounded so cliché and stuff, but still, my laughter was nervous and sounded fake. I apologized and told him to continue, it was getting more and more interesting.
"Every time it's happened, they completely decimate a large capital, and take two people as prisoners. They send one of these prisoners to a place called Verloren, after their soul has been vacuumed out, and then, the zel appears. This is what happened to my capital. Like I said, you are the zel who is going to save me, and get my soul back. So if you are done staring, we might as well leave.”
“Uh....” I mumbled. “First off, I'm not some weird savior chick who's getting your soul back, and since we're in some weird planet called Verloren, or whatever, where would you suppose we go?” I said, folding my arms.
”No, Verloren is a capital.” He said bluntly, I rolled my eyes. “The planet is Anorium. I think our best bet to get anywhere, is jumping through the nothing.”
“Oh yeah, that's exactly what I was thinkng” I said sarcastically, but he didn't seem to pick up on it.
“Well, try to find something else then.” He said. I rolled my eyes, and stepped inside.
I plunged into the nothingness, and finally the shock wore off. I was falling, and I just kept falling, I couldn't tell if I was going up or down. I felt a little like Alice in Wonderland. Haven’t you ever wanted to do that? It’s just as much fun as you think it would be.
And then suddenly-
“Hey, wake up! Seriously!” I blinked my eyes, shook my head.
“Jezebel? Are you okay?” A familiar voice was yelling at me.
“Raquel?” I mumbled and sat up, my head was throbbing. I had jumped off my swing for fun, and landed pretty hard on my noggin.
“Are you alright?” She asked again, starting to laugh now.
“Yup, I'm good.” I stood up, rubbing my head. Where was that boy? I realized I hadn’t even got his name.
“You sure?” Raquel asked, patting me on the back. “You did go really high though, I was flippin' out. You were out cold for a couple minutes!”
I smiled at her. “Really dude, I’m fine.” I said. “But my head’s hurting really badly. I think i’ll just walk home. See you at school?”
“Okay, see yah later!” She said as I turned around and started jogging towards home.
~ ~ ~ ~
I opened the door to my two story yellow paneled house, and kicked off my vans. My brother Robert stumbled out of the bathroom, with only boxers on, singing loudly to irish punk music he was blasting from his iHome.
“Ummmm, whatup!” I said laughing to myself. Sadly, I was used to this sight.
“Oh hey Jezebel, don’t mind me.” He said, as if he cared if I minded him or not. I rolled my eyes at him and made my way to the kitchen medicine cabinet. It was always full of odd and end meds., I grabbed 2 Advils and popped 'em with water. I finally made it to my room, and jumped a little.
“Oh joy.” I said sarcastically as I walked into my room, and found him sitting on my bed. Was I ever going to get a few minutes peace today?
“Hello.” He said. “Is this your home then?”






Chapter 2.
I was listening intently. My mother and father were in their room, the door was locked. They were talking about me, I could tell by the way my mom was talking in a sobby tone. She always got emotional talking about me, she was just an emotional person all in all.
“She’s only 10 Laura, who knows what age he meant.” My dad said sternly. I moved my head closer to the door to try and hear more.
“I know, I know. . . but what if it was tomorrow? In a week? When she’s 58? How are we supposed to be ready for it?” My mother sobbed.
“We’ll make sure that we'll all be ready. . . you never utter a word about this, to anyone." He replied roughly. "We both promised them we wouldn’t. . ." He trailed off.
“Yes.” She said, her voice was more stable. "Not even Jezebel."
And that was it, I ran back to my room, I didn't want to hear more. I never breathed a word about it, because honestly I didn't know what it meant.
That was 6 and a half years ago.
~ ~ ~ ~

“Yeah.” I said, looking around my room and realizing it was extremely dirty. I started hurriedly picking up my clothes and shoving them in my hamper. He probably didn't care if my room was dirty or not.
“Hurry up with your packing, we need to make it back to Anorium soon.” He said. I stopped cleaning and stared at him.
“Why would we be going back?” I asked.
“You’re my zel, do you remember our conversation? I thought it’d be a good idea to come to Earth, so you may say goodbye, and get your belongings. We’ll be traveling. I don’t know how long it will take us to get to Deifor, but we must find it before 3 years, or there is no chance for my soul.” He said it as if I had already agreed to go on some road trip with him, that kind of annoyed me. Did he honestly believe I was about to up and leave Cedar Falls, all my friends, my family, my comforts; to go traveling with him in a different planet, looking for his taken soul? Well, jeez, he'd be right.
Maybe you think I'm crazy, but honestly, what else do I have to do? I'd miss a lot of school though, and I'd definitely miss my friends. Maybe there's some sort of time gap in between our worlds, or galaxies for that matter, and time is different on Verloren than it is on Earth! Then again, perhaps I'd been watching too many sci-fi shows. But didn't Raquel say I'd been passed out for a only half a minute? And I know for a fact I was in Verloren a lot longer than that. . .
“What’s your name then?” I finally asked.
“I don’t know, do you think it comes with the soul?” He said, in that mono tone voice. That was it for me, I knew it was sudden, and stupid, but I started packing. I felt horrible for this kid. He was so helpless, and he doesn't even know his name. He doesn't even know how much it sucks to not know your name.
I emptied my school backpack of it's contents, and gathered things to put in it. I put in about 4 outfits for different types of weather, a bag of hygienic stuff, and a crap load of tampons. I felt like that was a sufficient amount of supplies on my part. I figured he had already thought about things like food, weapons, and stuff. But what about my hair? It’d finally grown to the bottom of my shoulder blades. It's long, wavy, and an extremely boring shade of brown, but I'd been growing it out for a few years now. I didn’t want to have long hair on a trip where we wouldn’t be able to shower every day.
“Do you think I should cut my hair?” I asked him, zipping up my backpack.
“What’s wrong with it?” He asked flatly.
“It’s pretty long, and maybe it would get in the way on a trip like this one." I said pointedly. "Are we gonna be hiking and stuff?” I asked.
“Do what you think is best, and yes I highly doubt we will always have shelter.” I nodded at this, and walked into the bathroom by my room.
I looked into the mirror. I looked tired, dirty, and there was a nasty looking bruise forming on my left cheekbone. I sighed, and took out my mom’s hair cutting shears. I brought them up and-snipped. Snip, snip, snip. I watched in silent agony as my long hair fell in pieces into the sink. I cut it to my ear lobes. It wasn't that great, but I didn’t care, no one to impress in a different planet right? I took one last look at myself, and slammed the door behind me. I looked around for my dad, and found him in the shed. Me and the victim, or whatever he called himself, walked in to find my dad, painting a chair with wood finish. He looked up, and took a double take. He set his paintbrush down, and sighed, then looked at me.
"Is this a new boyfriend or something?" He asked.
"No, dad." I took a deep breath, I wondered how to explain this to my pops. "It's a victim, no, you don't even know what that means." I kept stumbling over words. "Uh, well, he's got this problem. He hasn't got a soul, and I guess I have to go get it back for him, somehow?" I said, I almost laughed after I said that.
“Are you it then?” My dad asked, turning to the boy. Why was my dad acting completely normal? Didn't he notice the boy's face, or I guess, lack thereof?
“Excuse me?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.
Then the boy cut in with "Yes sir, I am the victim. Me and my zel must leave as soon as may be, do you know where we can go up?". My dad probably thought we were kidding now, he sounded ridiculous.
"Zel?" My dad said. "Then it is you." He turned to me. "Then this is the year that you have to leave?" Silence. "And no, I'm not sure what you're talking about." His voice broke off and he put his hands over his face.
That's when I remembered-
“She’s only 10 Laura, who knows what age he meant.”
"Dad?" I said, with a strangled voice. I swung my arms around him, and hugged him, for the first time in years.
So I've actually been expected to leave, ever since I was 10. I'm guessing pops never thought I'd only be 16, or maybe he did.
“They told us you’d go willingly." My dad said, quietly. They said you would have a kind heart, and that you wouldn't say no. They told us about victims and zels, at first we thought they were crazy, but after proof, we believed otherwise. They said you'd leave, and you'd be gone for a long time. . . Jezebel, they told us a zel has never actually saved a victim." He broke off again.
“But dad, I’m coming back!" I said quickly. "Time runs differently, you could see me again really soon, who knows right? I'm not going to die or anything!” I said. Well, I didn't actually know that.
”I can talk to your brother for you, if you want.” He said, nodding.
"That'd be great, I don't know how I'd be able to explain things." I said.
All of this was starting to feel really weird, but it didn't feel surreal or anything, just weird. Not to mention all of this was happening rather fast.
“I love you Jezebel.” My dad said. "I like your haircut, it's so short though." He said, laughing off the tense atmosphere.
“I love you too, dad.” I said, grinning. I suddenly felt empowered. I turned to the victim, whipping my wet eyes on the sleeve of my sweatshirt. I cleared my throat and asked “How exactly do you plan on getting back?”.
“We go up. Is there a lift or some means of elevation we can use?” He asked dully.
“Oh sure, there’s an elevator in the hotel up the road, something like that?” My dad said hurriedly, pointing the way to downtown.
"Yes." The boy answered.
“Won’t people be a little, uh, confused about your whole appearance?” I asked, and remembered how my dad didn't seem to notice.
“No, no one sees that part of me, except you.” He replied, and started walking in the general direction of where my dad had pointed. I gave my dad another hug.
"I'm coming back!" I said, and with that we were off.
Off on an adventure, I hope.