Opposite Ends chapter one

Chapter One
The beginning, the middle and the beginning again



The acrid smell of smoke drifted towards me, leaving my senses dazed and my eyes watering. The cloud engulfed us, leaving the only light coming from the fiery pit in front of us; it was almost like hell had come to welcome us in before our last breaths.
Car alarms blazing, fire melting away the metal frames of sky scrapers making the bending metal roar like a fiery beast, tar on the roads melting into a sickening gooey mess of black, and the sky was a fiery red with clouds of black smoke echoing through it like a grim reaper awaiting its prey.
The screams of the dead echoed in my ears as more and more lay dying around me, but the fight needed to go on I couldn't let him win.
“Wake up!”
I lay there dazed by the morning sun, a bright angelic light bursting through the open window which I would normally welcome but today felt like burning acid against my skin.
“You were having a bad dream again beautiful. It’s almost time for work you better get up.”
Groaning and stretching, I pulled myself out of bed with my eyes still shut and lent forward almost collapsing into his open arms, burying my head deep into the line of his neck. “I’m so tired,” I moaned like a child getting up for school.

“Come on Em, you’ve got to get up.” He threw me down on the bed and threw something soft on my head making me groan some more. “Come on you’re going to be late and I’m driving you which means I will be late too.” His voice was stern and mockingly like a parent.
“Yes sir,” I muttered pulling myself into a sitting position and saluting jokingly. “You’re such a teacher,” I teased.
“Maybe because I am one,” he replied, rolling his eyes and grinning like a Cheshire cat.

I dragged my feet towards the wardrobe pulling out a beautiful, ankle-length, white dress with a gold and brown waist belt; it looked like a hippy version of the old goddess togas in ancient Rome. Once I had thrown the dress on and tightened the belt, I dragged my feet towards the beauty desk, slumping into a chair and accidentally knocking some make up onto the floor. I sighed loudly and grabbed the hair brush using it to untangle my mess of curly blonde bed hair that appeared to almost be like the snakes of Medusa as it curled around my face framing my sleepy moss-green eyes and rosy cheeks. Once I had untangled my locks of snakes, I drew my attention to the reflection behind me: my incredibly mesmerizing boyfriend was dressing a short space behind me leaving me an impressive view in the mirror. I scanned him up and down, admiring every part of his toned body which was complemented by black and white converses, dark faded jeans, a tight white shirt and a black tie.

Wow he looked good. I couldn’t help but grin at his messy raven-coloured bed hair sticking up at all angles.
“You look too good I want to strip you; and if I want to, so will those pesky teenage girls you teach!” I joked, standing up and slowly walking towards him. The urge to play with his unkempt hair was too strong - it had to be done.
“I’m sorry I’m so attractive, I can’t help it if the gods felt the need to bless me with such good looks,” he mocked, throwing his arms around like a cat walk model.
“A vain pagan teacher, could it get any worse?” I rolled my eyes laughing until I caught sight of the time. “Shit! We are really late.” I groaned, burying my head on his shoulder again.
“No time for that, we have to go!” he said pulling me off his shoulder and giving me a quick peck on the lips. I grabbed my bag, shoved on a pair of brownish gold sandals and ran to the car.
     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

“OK, today we are learning about the Salem witch trials, a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693...” I could feel myself droning on and on; I felt sorry for the kids, I knew how boring it must be to them. I tried to choose the most interesting subjects I could so they wouldn’t hate the class so much but kids just aren’t really into history. “... The most infamous trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. One contemporary writer summed the results of the trials thus...” I wondered if my amazing gym teacher boyfriend was doing any better and had to stifle a giggle at the thought of him teaching kids to climb a rope or play badminton.

“Could Miss Kaelin and Mister Huntsman please come to the principal’s office immediately? Thank you”
I don’t think I had ever been so glad to hear the secretary’s voice over the school speakers before. “Ok guys I’m leaving Mister Thomson in charge whilst I’m gone! A teacher might come in and check on you at some point so don’t be too loud and don’t get caught doing anything you shouldn’t.” I grabbed my bag and headed to the door. As the chattering grew louder behind me, I added on a side note; “Oh and in the top drawer of my desk you will find sweets and cola. Mister Thomson, please distribute it evenly to the class. And don’t try the other drawers -  they are all locked!”

I reached the office and saw a sweaty, out-of-breath image of my boyfriend stood in the door way waiting for me.
“What’s going on?” I asked him. He just shrugged his shoulders and kissed me.
“Are you Miss Ember Kaelin and Mister Ryan Huntsman?” Two men in suits with one day stubble and incredibly neatly gelled hair stood in front of us flashing fancy Government badges at our faces too fast for us even to read.
“I am Agent Cable and this is my partner, Agent Cross. We need to speak to you. In private.” He added the last bit eyeing up the secretary who turned a violent shade of red and looked away.
“Of course” . . “Yeah sure” we muttered and scurried forwards into the empty principal’s office, shutting the door on the fluorescent pink faced secretary. I think her name was Jenny or something similar.
“We understand you two came from the same care home; correct?” asked Agent Cable, straight to business as both of them stared us down like we were some sort of experiment gone wrong.
“Yes, Kindred’s Foster and Care Institute,” I replied taking Ryan’s hand and feeling his body heat surge through me, eating my worry away like white blood cells attacking a common cold, making me turn a little rosy cheeked.
“Why are we here detectives? What does our care home have to do with anything?” Ryan asked in return, giving them a bone chilling stare with his beautiful, grey-blue eyes.
“We are from a government issued institute run by Queen and country; we are here to help with the war in the southern area,” Agent Cross replied, leaving us with no answers, typical government.
“So what has that got to do with us?” I asked, growing impatient with the men, wanting to get back to the familiar area of the classroom. I had changed my mind; I had decided that I preferred the idea of boring the kids to death as soon as I saw the men.
“We need you to come with us.” They stood up and walked to the door holding it open for us.
“I am not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on!” I had lost my temper, I wanted answers.

“We will answer all your questions when we are in a safe area Miss Kaelin. Let me assure you that you are in no kind of trouble.“ Not the reply I wanted!
“No I want them now!” Ryan looked at me shocked; he had never seen me lose my temper in the ten years we had been dating, but I was majorly pissed off that these strangers thought they had the right to tell me what to do. I wasn’t sure how to react so the anger and frustration boomed out of me all at once. It even shocked me. I couldn’t believe the words were coming out of my mouth, I never thought anger would be this ... this liberating.
“I want answers now! I am not going with you without an explanation. If you don’t like it you can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine!” They looked at me expressionless: no shock, no anger, no anything.
“Please Miss Kaelin, we do need you to come with us,” Agent Cable said in a calm and toneless voice.
“W-why is it so important?” Ryan stuttering in shock, at me! A day I never thought I would see.
“Because Mister Huntsman, we believe you will be a great help on the southern border.” Ryan looked dumbstruck.
“We’re teachers, we can’t help in a war, are you mad!?”
War, the word echoed in my brain, war. My dreams came flooding into my vision all at once. Sound was lost to white noise, vision replaced with memories of my vivid nightmares, the smoke, the fire, the death. All flooding in at once. I didn’t realise I’d collapsed on the floor holding my ears screaming. The sound was awful, so awful I couldn’t stand it. My nose started to bleed. And then my ears. Ryan rushed to my side but I didn’t notice. I could feel I was being carried and I could feel my lips moving, maybe even forming words, but I was too out of it to notice anything else.I woke up on a hard mattress with white linen sheets, in a room with four white walls and a white floor. My eyes couldn’t adjust to the amount of white; at first it made my head spin. I noticed in the spin of white, a coloured blob and tried to focus my eyes on it. Sure enough, it slowly turned into a person, that person was Agent Cross.
“Miss Kaelin.” He nodded with his annoying blank expression and ran his hand through his extremely gelled, dark hair.
“Where’s Ryan? Where am I? Some kind of hospital?” I asked; each question seemed to make him flinch slightly.
“We are in the southern coast, army base medical unit 257. You collapsed and we believed the only way to help you was to take you to our expert doctors here.” It looked like he was trying to smile, a small twitch on the side of his mouth then back to straight-faced. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to play him at poker!
“Where’s Ryan?” I asked again. A small twist inside my stomach was growing and growing with every second. He didn’t answer me. It felt like minutes had passed when he finally looked at me and answered, “testing unit 77.” He looked at me so sadly, it made me want to cry.
“Why? Where is that? I want to see him” I sounded so manic, so stressed, I could barely distinguish it was my voice.
“I’m sorry Miss Kaelin...” he frowned a little “...Ember, but you can’t see him. Now you’re awake, you have to go with the doctor.”
I threw myself back down on the bed, staring at the ceiling, trying not to cry and decided I was going to see him whether they like it or not. I pulled the sheet back and went to jump off the bed when I realised . . . my feet were shackled to the bottom of the bed.
“Let me out of these!” My anger was coursing through me like electricity through metal.
“The doctor will be here any minute.” He looked scared, I think more of the doctor than of me having a little temper tantrum but then, at the time, I didn’t know Doctor Slinn.

http://oppositeend.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/chapter-two-of-opposite-ends.html