Chapter 25 (post four) The End of Part 1

Pre-note: To make this extra confusing, I have decided to break my book up into parts. Therefor, this is the end of part 1. Please don't make fun of my writing -- I'm not feeling like it's flowing the way I want it to lately. 

Chapter twenty-five, section four, the end of part one:

There always comes a breaking point. For me, it was that moment, holding the doorknob and looking into the stairwell with my mind too full to think anymore.

I don’t remember much. Or, rather, I choose not to remember much. Each time I think back the pain emotions start to trickle through my body again.

I can tell you that I remember the floor. Running through those hospital-like halls, I had lost my shoes. Bare feet pounding on the cold tiles, I had just kept running. Standing in the doorway, I felt my feet loosing feeling.  

I can tell you about the stairwell. The whitewash covered everything, including the concrete beneath my feet as I sped up the stairs until I reached the top. Here there was nothing but a pair of big black doors, which I hit still at a run. The fresh air and starlight that I emerged into startled me to a stop.

I can tell you the stars were gorgeous that night. The moon was nowhere in sight, but the stars were sprinkled across the sky like powdered sugar across a black granite countertop. I remember the feel of the fresh air in my lungs and the gravel pinching beneath my toes as I wandered around the top of the building until I stopped right at the edge.

Can I tell you that that what I would do next was out of character for me? That the idea had never crossed my mind back on earth? That it wasn’t until that moment on the roof that I was desperate enough to even consider it?

Around the edge ran a small barrier that came up to my calves. I stopped a few inches from it and looked out at the skyline of Soleres. The building was tall enough that the view it provided was picturesque. The unlit buildings glowed in shadows cast by starlight, looking like the beginning of the ending of the world.

 My heart shuddered as I placed my one foot onto the low wall, then the other.

Suddenly there was nothing between me and the sky. I felt like I was somewhere between reality and fantasy, the end and the beginning, the physical and the beyond. My wings shook as I glanced downwards into the black abyss and didn’t stop until I look back up the sky.

I don’t remember what came first, my conscious decision or my feet no longer grounded, but I do remember the breathless, hard feeling of falling.

The End of Part 1

Chapter 25 (post three)

Pre-read note: My writing is crap. I have all these ideas but when I write them out, I feel like they are nothing but disappointing. Rather than dwell on this, though, I am just going to run with it. Especially since I think I am coming closer and closer to the end of New Wings. 

Chapter twenty-five, section three:

What is real?

Is anything?

Was my friendship with Jake real? Was my relationship with him real? Was he even real, or had he always been acting and lying?

I looked up at the bookcase towering above me, the file drawer open where I had pulled Jake’s files from.

What is this place? What is this world?

I slowly stood up, wiping my eyes.

I could feel myself started to shudder again, I could feel the tears threatening again. But this time I shook my head back and forth, clearing my thoughts until I was standing in this dark passage through history with the only emotion that comes after breakdown: anger.

I felt something pulse through me that I hadn’t felt in a long, long time: the drive to run. It drove me out the door of the library, leaving the photos and files scattered everywhere, and down bright, windowless hallways. My feet carried me faster and faster until I was running in circles through the maze of the building. I hit a dead end with only a single wooden door and I stopped although I was hardly out of breath, realizing I was lost.

For a second I considered what I was running from exactly. I couldn’t quite pinpoint it. Not Jake exactly, but what he represented. Not my school itself, but the idea behind it. Not Amy or the others, but their values and beliefs. Not the graphs or the charts, but the control embedded in them.

I’m running from this world.

That’s when I opened the door in front of me to find – a stairwell.

Chapter 25 (post two)

Pre-read note: It's 2am so I don't feel like editing this before I post it. So here it is, in all its mistakes and imperfection -- Annika's real story, Jake's real past. 

 Chapter twenty-five, section two:

I sat there hoping to feel something.

I kept staring at the wall. If I focused too hard, kept my eyes wide open, I could feel the water brimming at the edges. And then I could concentrate on the warmth slipping down my cheeks.

I kept waiting to be hit with something.

Instead I kept analysing.

Analysing the details of my after-life, the details that were laid out before me in sheets and graphs, the details that were pre-planned from the moment I woke up here in this world. The good times, the times of breakdown, the fights and the friendships – everything, everything including Jake.

I tried to find the find the files that would tell me what else that had planned for me, but I could only find the files that led up to yesterday.

I wanted to really cry. I wanted the pain to fill my veins, pulse through me and out. I wanted to feel something exploding from my chest, tightening my stomach and causing me to double over.

Jake.

I stared at the white wall, concentrating, until the burning started in my eyes again. Unblinking, unmoving, I watched the shadows blur as my eyes stung and the salt water came to relieve them.

I felt the tears drip warm and comforting down my cheeks.

He had charted my after-life like a story or a game. He must have known that I’d fall for him, fall for him like a glossy-eyed puppy naive to the background workings of this world.

That’s when suddenly I finally started to feel again: What had been real?

Was the relationship I’d shared with Jake been pre-planned because we were meant to be together? Or had he known all along that this was supposed to happen, that this was what he was supposed to do? The way I felt about him was real – but had the way he felt about me ever been real?

As the tears fell mellow-dramatically down my face and my stomach twisted, I tried to figure it out, but there was no way to know. Unless...

I jumped up and wandered the dark aisles of shelving. The file cabinets were organized by dates and I kept wandering back through time to find that date I was looking for: the day that Jake died. Through the shadows on the dark wood I found 1945, then April 25^th. Hopefully Jake hadn’t lied that day on the beach.

Hepburn, Jake.

I opened the file immediately and black and white photos escaped, floating down around my feet. I ignored them as I glanced through the pages. There were reports about his first days spent in this world, in the same hospital I’d woken up in. He’d had a Guider of his own, although from what I could understand he’d always known that his purpose in this world was to become a Guider. Then I found pages on his life – and I gasped.

He’d lied, his family hadn’t been shot by Germans. As I read the pages and pages, I started to understand.

He’d grown up in a city in the North of the Netherlands. He was from a family of class and prestige, his father working in the government. When the Nazis invaded, everything had changed for him. The government was taken over by the Socialist Party and his father had been put out of a job. Instead, he was forced into mandatory labour in factories like every other man over the age of eighteen. His father, though, had been an activist who resisted the Nazis and was part of a group trying to rise up against them. In 1944, he was part of a resistance that attacked German troops – and died fighting for the liberation of his country. This same year, Jake turned eighteen and was to be forced to work in the factories the way his family had, factories that were regularly bombed by the Allies. Rather than do this, Jake ran away. He ran away and lived on the streets until he was picked up by the Nazis, and became one of them.

I read this part over again.

He’d become a Nazi soldier. He’d become one of the bad guys – one of the soldiers that his dad had died fighting.

He had died fighting on the wrong side. He had been part of the Nazis when they starved the Netherlands during the winter, killing thousands. Two of his sisters died. He was killed shortly afterwards in a bombing of the city that also killed his mother and his eldest sister.

He had lied to me.

I slowly picked up the photos that lay dusted around my feet. They were smiling faces of a happy family, Jake always beside either his father or a blonde-haired girl who looked to be the eldest sister. Checking back to the files I found her name: Sofie. Her bright eyes caught mine and for a moment I could’ve sworn they sparkled through the black and white film. I let go of the picture as I gasped, and it slowly drifted to the ground.

I dropped to the floor with the remnants of Jake’s past life scattered around me and curled into a ball, letting my wings wrap around me and my tears flow freely once again.  

Dear New Wings

Dear New Wings,
I miss you.
I miss you a lot.
I miss the late nights we spent together. I miss the planning and the sketching of ideas, and of that moment where it would all suddenly seem to click. I miss the teas and the midnight snacks. I miss the tap of the keyboard and the smell of ink. I miss the good times and the bad, when you made me smile and made me cry.
I know I haven't looked your way in a long time, but I wanted you to know that I'm thinking about you. Even if it seems as though I've pushed you done my priorities list, I haven't. Even if it feels like I've abandoned you, I haven't.
Sometimes we push the things we love the most the furthest away because we know that those things that matter the most will wait for us. I know you'll wait for me.
But I wanted to let you know I miss you. I miss you a lot.
Wait for me.
Anja

The Very Very First Version of New Wings (post 2)

Pre-read note: As Writer's Block is still gnawing away at my creative writing ability, and exams and assignments and Facebook are eating away all my time, New Wings has unfortunately come to a standstill. However, because I got over 10 pages views on my other "very very first version" post (which is A LOT for me!) I decided to post another very embarrassing section of that story I began when I was twelve years old. Enjoy the preteen-ness of it all (notice the very bad dialogue and the fragment sentences! lmao!) :)

The very, very first version of New Wings, section one, pg 1-2:

I don't remember what happened after that. It was all black. They moved me to another room while I was passed out. Smaller with white walls and baby blue sheets and blanket on my bed. It felt like a week before I woke up again. Of course, it was only a day.

I woke up to a good smell. When I opened my eyes, it turned out to be a tray with breakfast on it; juice, eggs and toast, beside my bed. A nurse walked into the room, through a door at the left. She was carrying some sort of clothes.

"Good morning, Miss."

"Good morning.''

"I see that you haven't touched your breakfast. You don't like eggs?"

"No, it's not that. I just woke up. I love eggs."

"Ah, I see. Well, you'd better hurry. She wants to see you."

"Who?"

"Mother Earth, of course. I brought you some clothes. A simple blue, knee-length sundress, a pink bra and a pair of underwear. She would like to see you in ten minutes. I will leave so that you can get dressed in peace. I'll be back in five minutes." She placed a dress, some under wear and a bra on a chair beside my bed, and left.

I got out of bed, slipped on my clothes, which proved to be a struggle with my new wings, and drank my orange juice. I tried to eat the eggs, really, but my stomach didn't agree. I took one of the pieces of toast off the plate instead, and took it to the window beside my bed to nibble on. The sky was twice as blue here above this busy city. The nurse walked into my room.

"Hello, Miss. You ready? She wishes to see you."

“I’m ready. But my name is Katherine."

"I must call you Miss until you get your halo, Miss."

"Oh, okay." I said unsurely.

"Now, follow me, Miss. Take your toast with you if you want to, I'm sure She won't mind."

 "I'll leave it here, thanks." I said, placed it back on the plate, and followed her out the door.

She led me out of the room into a long hallway with light blue walls. I followed her around many corners and down many halls. There were lots of people in the halls. All of them wore either white, short dresses and the old fashion nurse hats, like my nurse, or simple white pants and white doctor coats. But, the next hall we turned into, there wasn't anyone. I followed her down this hall, until we came to two, large golden doors. Beside them slept a large fat man dressed in, what looked like, a blue mechanics suit. We stopped about a meter from him.

"Ralph! Wake up! You're on guard duty!" My nurse screamed in his face.

His answer: "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,"

She walked over to him and started to kick him."Arghhhhhhhh! Ralph! Wake up!"

"What? What did I miss?"

"Ralph!''

"What?"

"You're on guard duty! You're supposed to be on the watch!''

I was watching all of this with interest. But what was I suppose to do?

"Umm, Miss?" I said quietly.

"Oh, yes! Ralph, I would like you to meet Miss. I was bringing her to see Her, until I found you. Could please open the door?" She said this with a fake smile.

"Okay, I'll open them. Hey, Miss. How are you?"Ralph said getting up and turning toward me with a smile.

"Fine. Thanks."

Ralph turned to face the door, and pulled out a large ring with, at least, ten keys hanging off, out of his pocket. He selected, what looked like, a rather important key. It was an old gold one, with very beautiful carvings of flowers on it. He placed it in a key hole that had the same carvings as the key around the hole. Ralph turned the key, and we all heard a faint 'click'.

I and my nurse were only about three meters away from the door. But when the door opened, I wished that we were a lot farther away. What came out of that door was a blinding light. So bright that it hurt. But neither Nurse (a nickname I made up for her) nor Ralph seemed affected by the light.

"Aaarrrggghhh!" I cried as I flung my arms in front of my eyes to try to protect them.

“What? Oh, I'm sorry, Miss! I forgot! You see, before you see Her, the light that shines in Her office will blind you. After you meet Her, the light will be like any other, even paler. You must straight ahead, into the light. You can look at the light, it might hurt a bit but, nothing long term will happen to your eyes. Now, go on. I cannot accompany you into Her office. Go on, She's waiting. Don't worry.''

The Very Very First Version of New Wings (post one)

Pre-note: So I haven't posted anything in a while because I haven't written anything in quite a while. The sad truth is that I haven't been able to write. I blame the essays and the stress of university, but truth is that it's just writer's block. There, I said it. Damn writer's block has killed my creativity and drive to keep going. 

So to revive myself, I started playing with Annika McCalden's Facebook profile and started posting some sections of New Wings that I'd written but taken out of the actual novel. This made me think of the very, very original New Wings, the one that I began to write when I was twelve years old. I remembered I had transferred it onto my laptop, and so I went looking for it. Finding it, I thought I should share it with you readers here on my blog.   

Here it is. The very first attempt I made at writing New Wings, section one.

The very, very first version of New Wings, section one: 

 

 My version of Lovely Bones:

*Angels*

"She came together well, do you think so, sir?"

"The stitching was well done, Mary, thank you."

"Oh, it was nothing, sir.''

"She is awake, sir. Come quick."

"Very well, Jake. Mary, go fetch Jacob. He must be here, for he is her Guider."

 Everything was blurry. Bright and blurry. I was laying on something soft and fluffy. My arms lay on something even more soft and feathery. There seemed to be two people in the room with me, one had just left. They all held two large oval things behind their backs. Weird. One was sitting beside my bed; the other was walking toward me. Wait, he seemed to be floating, his feet hardly moving or touching the ground. How...?

That's when my sight came back, and I gasped. They all had wings! Large fluffy wings! And halos! I sat up straight, with my hands behind my back. My arms touched something soft. I gasped once more as I noticed that I also had wings. Not as large, of course, for I was only thirteen, but still, fluffy wings. My hands went to the top of my head. Nothing.

"Of course you don't have a halo, you haven't seen Her yet."

A guy about the same age as the man sitting beside my bed entered the room through a door at the left.

"What?" That's all I could manage. The one standing a ways away answered.

“You don't have a halo, you haven't seen Her yet. I don't what you call Her, there are many names. God, The Creator, Mother Earth, etc.

Actually, Mother Earth is her real name, but-"

"Wait a moment. Where am I? What am I doing here? Do my parents know I'm here? Boy, they're going to kill me!"

This time the person who was walking toward me, now standing beside my bed, answered.

"You're in Heaven."