There is no question that times are changing. Quickly. No one can deny the way that technology is energizing the social and political fields any longer. Our voices reach further, they are stronger, they are faster.

This week, the cries of the Egyptian people have been echoing in a medial chaos that has covered the whole biosphere. The inspirational uprising has the whole world watching, waiting.

Those voices, amidst bouncing around the YouTube scene, caught my attention in a manner that shocked me, informed me and brought me to tears.

My lungs pounded at the air inside them. Risking revealing my identity, I bounced a glance over my shoulder. It bounced back. The hero was already about seven steps from my rescue.

The far door it was. I leaned toward it and let my left ankle glide behind my frantically limping right foot. The door handle crushed downward beneath my fingers. One swift twist and I was concealed again behind a more conveniently opaque door. My lungs heaved out a sigh of relief and I rested myself against it. My pulse was banging in my stomach.

Voices bubbled buisily from behind the door. I picked out the lady who worked in the office, Laura’s, timbre. It flailed obnoxiously in high pitches. Next came a lower, richer voice. I recognized this one too. It was Plex, probably investigating my dissappearence.

The bones in her body all throbbed at once, with a sensation similar to one that would have been felt if they were breaking.

“Help” the word came out between several miserable thrusts of her chest “m-me!”

Tears came streaming from her face. Her entire body writhed around in torture.

Sucking in once more, her lungs gave a final, bellowing attempt.

“Durus!”

Stella could see nothing, her eyes squeezing shut as she tried to endure it. Much longer, and she knew she would die. The earth started spinning underneath her. Dizzy and confused, Stella’s only companion now was her pain.

Her teeth gnashed together, and she though she might vomit.

The spinning slowed, her breathing stopped, and next came only blackness and silence.

© Copyright 2009

Unconsciously, she clung to his shoulder. The red light sped closer.

Stella’s eyes clasped shut.

“No!” her voice came icy and slow. The sound that was cramming into her ears a fraction of a second before now turned to dead silence. Stella still clung to Durus’s biceps.

A few seconds passed, and nothing happened. Actually, Stella could no longer feel the car moving at all. Her eyes cautiously cracked open, but when she first layed eyes on the scene surrounding her, they widened in astonishment.

The car was moving so slowly that Stella could have easily army-crawled faster. She looked around at the other cars. Everything else was moving at an equivalent pace. She breathed out in fascination. Her breath came out in a cloud, as it often did in the winter. For a moment, she just sat there, completely dumbfounded.

She didn’t want to move. Maybe this is just something that happens before you die, she thought. Maybe this was how she would experience the last few precious moments she had on earth. More time passed. Still, the whole scene barely slugged along.

Finally, out of curiosity, Stella convinced herself to move. Her head turned to meet Victor. He had his head turned in her direction, with his eyes shut and his arms flung up in front of his face. That was also something Stella had never witnessed. Looking down, she saw that his foot clamped violently on the gas, and his hips were thrusting forward to add more force. But his movement was just as slow as the car’s.

Why was she the only one who was able to see the entire moment like this?

Stella leaned back comfortably into her seat and took it all in, then, opened the door. To her surprise, everything remained just as strange and sluggish as before. After climbing out of the car, she pulled Victor’s door open.

The idea of saving him in this strange version of a twilight zone was pure fantasy, of course. It was worth a try, at least. Wrapping her arms around his chest, Stella tugged at the huge figure. It began sliding steadily through the air. Startled, Stella let go and took a step back. It continued in the same direction on its own. Tolerating  the assistance, Stella moved around to Durus’s side. He did not come free as easily as Victor. His heafty, muscular body hardly budged under the full thrust of her arms at first, but eventually, she saw movement. Once again, she stepped back and let him continue in the same direction.

Stella felt a haunting chill rush down her spine, and decided that Durus wouldn’t mind lending his jacket. She was saving his life after all, if any of this was real. She grabbed the fleece of his jacket and stripped it off, then strung her arms through the huge sleeves and wrapped it around her body. It hung a few inches over her waist, and her fingertips remained hidden under its lengthy sleeves.

After a few minutes, their bodies finally floated just over the edge of the curbs on each side of the street. She pulled Victor down to a point where he safely rested on the ground, first, and sprinted across the street to retrieve Durus next. She hooked her right arm around his waist and used every ounce of power in her being to hoist him to the ground.

His back barely brushed up against the tips of the grass. Stella wanted to make sure he was all the way to the ground, perfectly unharmed, before thinking of anything else. Nothing was more important to her than his safety. He had been her best friend since so many years ago, when he had helped her choose two of the charms on her beloved little bracelet, the bracelet she was wearing even now.

Just before she saw this task completed, Stella’s ears pulsed with the most horrible pain she had ever felt. It was like thousands of needles being thrust into her eyes and ears at once. Sound came in ear-splitting pulses. Stella cried out, but her scream sounded distant. The pain was nauseating. Fingernails digging into the ground, Stella spun into a blind fury, unable to strain herself from throwing a grisly tantrum while sprawling all over the ground.

“Durus!” This caught her completely off guard. She had always imagined herself screaming the name of her mom or her dad to come save her. Durus was someone whose name had never even been associated with the term heroic in her mind. At the moment, though, he was the only hero she could think of. She needed him now or never.

© Copyright 2009

-”Re-awakening” Blog Author, vbgal101

“Uh. Kay! I’ll be down in a second!”

Stella glanced at the clock. She had spent seven minutes in her reverie. Quickly, she threw on a blue t-shirt and some jeans. After her face was clean and her hair tied neatly into a ponytail, she rushed downstairs.

“Hello, Darling.” Her mother smiled at her from across the kitchen. She went and sat at the table.

“Your bagel is right there.” her mom, Castellum, pointed to the plate on the table.

“Thanks, Mom.” Stella sat down and ate. Before she had concluded her thoughts, she looked down and the bagel was gone. She had already finished.

After crawling back upstairs, she finished getting ready just in time to hear a horn blast a few short notes from in front of her house. She looked out the window. A black Cadillac pulled up to the curb. Laughing, she looked down at her impatient friend, who was staring back up at her and waving for her to join him.

“Stella! The boys are here!” Castellum shouted loudly from the kitchen.

Stella grabbed her black backpack from beside her bed and sped downstairs, out the door, and across the front lawn.

She came to an abrupt stop in front of the driver’s window. The boy inside rolled it down slowly.

“Stella!” he said in a chastising tone, ”You didn’t even do your hair for the first day of school. I was hoping to see you look somewhat decent for once.” Victor’s bright eyes and big dimples examined Stella playfully.

Stella pressed her lips together and smiled, squinting her eyes at him to hint her disappointment for a moment. She couldn’t resist a chuckle.

“Rude!” she laughed and swung open the back door.

“Hey there good lookin’.” Durus was turned around in the front seat with his right hand pressed to the back of Victor’s seat and his elbow resting on his own. He gave Stella a beautiful white smile, and was visibly trying to suppress laughter. The happiness touched his striking blue eyes, just under his spiked, chocolate-brown hair. He made his eyebrows dance to add effect.

Stella smiled back at him, biting her lip. After looking him up and down she remarked, “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

Durus rolled his eyes and twisted around in his seat, letting his shoulders drop.

“Now there’s one I haven’t heard before.” Sarcasm caked every word.

“Oh, please. You know you missed it.” she leaned her elbows on both seats and rested her chin on her hands as Victor began driving.

“You can prove nothing.” he shot a challenging look at her and raised his eyebrows.

Stella let her hands fall but stayed in the same position, readjusting her hips in her seat so that they were on the very edge. Her head looped over into Victor’s direction.

“Victor, are you going to tolerate his foolish behavior in your car?”

Victor’s warm brown eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. His smile crept into them and one eyebrow raised.

“Now, Stella, if you have a problem with the way Durus is acting–”

“And I do.”

His eyebrow dropped and his smile got bigger, as she could see when his cheeks pressed up against his eyes. “Well, why should we obey you, little missy?”

Stella smiled cleverly and puckered her lips into a half-smile. “Because I’m the woman and I get what I want.”

“I’m getting the feeling you want to make me a sandwich.”

Stella looked over to see Durus snickering at his comment. She took a lighthearted swing at him and he caught her wrist, still snickering.

“Sorry, little girl, but you can’t defeat the master. It just can’t be done.”

“And of course when he says ‘the master,’ he’s referring to me, his ride to school.” Victor said.

Durus laughed harder now. “I don’t think so!”

By now they were all laughing so hard that they could hardly control it. Victor’s eyes were on his two best friends, and his stomach pumped faster as he laughed harder. He hadn’t been paying attention.

Stella looked ahead just in time to see an upcoming intersection. The light was red. They had reached too great a speed now to slow down, much less stop.

Her face snapped from bliss into terror. Her voice projected shrill and fierce. “Victor!”

© Copyright 2009

I jumped out tof the car and took off down the middle of two rows of cars. I was immediately coated in freezing cold water, and by the time I reached the safetty of the Mamod, the building my locker was in, I was completely soaked. Good thing I had decided to wear my jacket today.

I peeled it off. Laughter and complaining voices poured into the familiar hallways of Ramrose High. Underneath I had worn a yellow tee with a navy blue camisole. Looking around at the core of the building’s activities, I breathed in. It was the scent of old books and pencils, smothered in a cloud of bad cologne and strong perfume. I was toward the left of the room facing away from the doors at the entrance. To the left was the office, cloaked by a glass wall, and straight ahead of me rose a starcase which led to more lockers and classrooms. To the right, a plain hallway wrapped around the corner.

I was about to take a step forwar when Plex Arstic caught my eye. He was walking coolly down the stairs, smirking at his two followers. They were flanked at his sides and playfully whacking each other in the back of the head and shoulders. It was like they lpanned to look this good. They all wore their football jackets and were clearly the focal point of the room. His two followers, Cree and Blazon, were always with him. In all honesty, they made him look good. They reminded me of background music.

Plex had these obscurely grey, icy eyes. Everytime you looked at them, it was like they shot through your skull and ran straight down your spine. He had shaggy, yet sleek black hair that fell about half way over his intensely electric eyes. He looked better than an Abercrombie model.

Of course, Drake and Wade were just as breath-taking. Drake had bleach blonde hair that was short and probably about half as long as Plex’s. He combed it mostly forward and put hair gel in it so that at the top of his head it looked spikey. Wade had black hair, and his was a simple buzz cut.

They were all around six foot three with clean faces and broad shoulders. Wade had a slightly rougher look, with a stubby-styled beard, covering his cheeks, chin and just above his lips. It was well-groomed, and made him look significantly older than Plex and Drake.

The thing people couldn’t see with one look at them like I could? They were all evil. They had to be. Plex was my ex. Sure, they fooled pretty much everyone else around them with ease, but not me. Never me.

His eyes caught mine as I tried to re-direct my footing. I gasped and squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to see those icy cold eyes knifing their way into my head. Closing my eyes mid-step wasn’t such a great idea. My foot hit the ground awkwardly. My ankle twisted sideways under my weight.

“Ah!” Someone yelped from somewhere close. It sounded painful. Wait, was that me?

I began to feel the pain pulsing like needles up from my ankle. Yep, it was me. I looked up to see Plex hurrying down the stairs in my direction. Here comes Plex to save the day. 

I had to escape. I limped a step, eyes swirling around for a chance to make a run for it. I twisted sharply to the left and let my full weight collapse on the door to teh office and tumbled in.

He could see right through the glass window I was leaning against, and I was pretty sure getting through that door wouldn’t be too much trouble for him. Now what?

© Copyright 2009

Some people have been confused about where to find chapter 1 of “The Darkest Hour.” I have made some modifications and am pleased to say that the site is now much more organized. To the right, you will see two types of category boxes. One is a simple list, and the other is called a “category cloud.” Both serve the same function and perform the same actions. Choose “The Darkest Hour” from either to see every chapter posted up to this point in time, including chapter 1!

Also, note that “(vbgal101)” is next to the blog name, “Re-awakening.” This alteration is due to some confusion about the URL address, which is not www.reawakening.wordpress.com. THIS blog’s address is actually www.vbgal101.wordpress.com. Please do not get them confused.

Thank you so much to all of my readers for all of your support! Please keep returning to see all the regular updates, and don’t forget to comment! I would love to hear what all of you have to say. Thank you again!

-Re-awakening Blog Author, vbgal101

The parking lot folded out in front of two buildings. On the right was the main building, called “the Mamod,” after the man who donated money to the school to build it.

Next to it was “the Fretton,” which was a very plain building with two bathrooms and the rest consisted of simple classrooms and busy hallways. It had no offices or lunch tables or lockers. All of these were in the Mamod, the building on the right.

I sat and listened as the pattering became an achingly loud drumming sound.

© Copyright 2009