Chapter One

Chapter One of the story that I am writing. This is my second draft. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

 

One

All of a sudden, there was a raised voice ringing in my ears and a hand taking my wrist, a finger checking my pulse.

“Can you hear me, love?” A man said, his voice was older and full of authority.

I tried to speak, but it ended up being more of a groan. My head was spinning, a part of me didn’t want to open my eyes.

“My name is Major Dales, I am a soldier. You can call me Simon.”

My eyes fluttered open, first of all focusing on the three other people in the room. They were all younger soldiers, probably only a year or two older than I was.

I looked at the man who was holding on to me, he was probably about thirty-five. He had ginger hair and a ginger beard and he had piercing green eyes and a warm smile.

“You’re okay, can you stand up for me?”

I nodded, he supported my back and held my arm as I stood up before turning to one of the younger soldiers and giving him orders “can you please take this young lady to the van after she has gathered some belongings? Get her a blanket and some coffee.” He then turned back to face me “you’re in good hands now…” he obviously wanted to know my name.

“Ottilie" I chocked.

“Right” he nodded “don’t take too long, Ottilie."

 

I looked around my bedroom, expecting things to be fallen and out of place. My last memory was of hearing a loud noise and screaming from the city below my family’s flat, I’d looked out the window but then my memory went blank.

“You’ll need to pack a holdall” the soldier said to me.

I nodded “okay” but I didn’t move for a moment, my spine went stiff “where are my parents and my sister?”

His face was almost expressionless “I’m sorry, I can’t answer any questions about that for you. Let’s just concentrate on your safety for the moment, okay?”

But I wasn’t as bothered about this as I should have been.

 

I silently scurried over to my wardrobe, reaching to the top shelf where I pulled out my holdall.

I walked over to my bed and put the holdall down, unzipping it and half-expecting some of my luggage from my holiday last summer to still be floating around inside it. However, it was empty.

 

I didn’t know where to start, I didn’t turn to look at the soldier this time when I spoke to him “how long will I be gone? I need to know how much stuff to pack?”

“I think that you should pack the essentials… and anything that means a lot to you.”

‘Anything that means a lot to you’ I thought about his words and how carefully he said them, was it code for ‘you’re not coming home’?

 

So I packed the essentials; clothes, underwear, toiletries, two pairs of practical shoes and my prescription of contraceptive pills.

There was little space left in the bag, but I decided to follow his advice and pack some of my more valuable belongings.

 

My eyes scanned my bedroom and I then picked my most treasured items up without thinking; A photograph of my family from our trip to Northern Ireland last year, my journal that I had kept on-and-off since the age of twelve, my passport and driving licence and I also picked up my necklace from my bed side table. I had received this necklace from my sister for my sixteenth birthday. It was a gold chain with a blue agate stone pendant on it.

Agate was to represent strength and courage. I fastened it around my neck and ran my fingers along the chain before holding the stone briefly between my thumb and my finger. It felt so appropriate that I owned this now.

 

I scurried into my bathroom to get dressed and to get my toothbrush and some other toiletries including toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner. I glanced in the full-length mirror behind the door to look at myself. 
My blonde hair was a lot knottier than normal, like I’d been tossing and turning in my sleep. Not that I could remember being asleep.
My skin was pale and my eyes were puffy with dark circles protruding underneath them. 

 

I quickly changed my clothes into a pair of black leggings and a thin woollen jumper and I messily tied my hair up because I knew that I had no time to brush it. I then splashed some cold water on my face and looked in the mirror again, breathing in and then exhaling deeply.

 

When I had zipped up my bag, the soldier swiftly walked over to the bed and picked it up. He didn’t even struggle with the weight of it.

“Thank you” I muttered.

He smiled, gesturing towards the door.

I froze, though. I looked around the room that we were stood in and I took one last look. I needed to appreciate it one last time if it was going to be the last time that I’d be here.

“I’m sorry that you’re having to leave” the soldier said, his face was now notably empathetic.

I nodded, then silently made my way out of the room. Making my way to the front door, which was open, and walking out. Leaving everything behind.

 

Why wasn’t I more bothered about this?

 

It all felt like a blur, all of it. Walking down the three flights of stairs, out of the front door and ten meters or so to the military-style van.

I didn’t feel like I had time to grieve for my losses. But maybe that was a good thing. I’d never said goodbye to anything or anybody important for good before.

 

I couldn’t really see out of the windows, I didn’t really want to either. I couldn’t hear anything but the sounds of soldiers giving instructions like ‘gather them into the vans’ and ‘keep your eyes peeled.’

Keep your eyes peeled for what, exactly?

 

The young soldier put my holdall by my feet and put his gun on the car seat while he rifled through a bag of his own to reveal a dark green flask. I hadn't noticed his gun before then. He unscrewed both of the lids and poured some coffee into the lid that doubled as a cup. I quickly looked down at the gun, it was so close to me. I was inches, centimetres away from something with the power to kill me.

“Coffee” he handed it to me, then rifled through his bag again and pulled out a tartan blanket “and a blanket.” He smiled at me “Major’s orders.” This was when I really got to look at the soldier, the boy soldier. I know that by the age of seventeen or eighteen, you are pretty much a man in terms of development. But in sheer reality, this was a boy. A boy with thick, dark eyebrows, hazel eyes and tanned skin. A person with their whole lives ahead of them and he effectively just saved me. From what? I didn’t know.

 

“What’s your name?” I asked between sips of the coffee “your actual name, none of that Major Sergeant official Army stuff.”

He chuckled “I’m Rowan Peters.”

I liked the name Rowan, I remember Mum saying once how if she had a son she would have named him Rowan. Therefore, at some point during my foetal development, I was potentially a Rowan.

“I’m Ottilie Kemp.”

“That’s a pretty name” he complimented me with a smile.

“A lot of people just call me Ottie. Thank you.”

“Ottie is pretty, too.”

He stayed with me, standing outside the car where the car door was open. He leaned casually on the edge of the doorway and he glanced around every thirty seconds, clutching onto his gun.

"How are you feeling?" He asked, looking at me with concern.

I nodded "I don't really know what's going on, I think my ignorance is euphemising the reality."

He grunted "maybe it's for the best, just for now."

I couldn't deny my curiosity, but I was in a phase of numbness.

 

It wasn't long until Major Dales returned, I half-expected him to return with my family. Even after the vagueness of Rowan in my bedroom.

They both sat in the front seat and started the vehicle engine.

 

I was surprised to not have three other people joining me. Those people being my Mother, Father and Sister.

"Where are my family?" I asked.

I could see Rowan turning slightly, glaring at Major Dales as he drove in silence.

I repeated myself "where are my family?"

Major Dales sighed, he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel for a moment and then he spoke.

"Ottilie" he started, his voice was sympathetic. My heart sunk. "Every city and number of large towns in the country was targeted by a series of terrorist attacks today, bombs."

I shook my head and gasped “what?” my head began to rush "why aren't I dead, then?"

He didn't reply.

 

It didn’t make sense. My ears were not ringing therefore there couldn’t have been a bomb. I repeated myself again, becoming agitated with their vagueness “why am I not dead?”

Rowan turned to me, his voice was low and official but sympathetic at the same time. He wasn't trying to patronise me but he obviously wanted to sound like he wasn’t being too involved.

"We don't know why you're alive. But you need to concentrate on the fact that you have survived and that we are going to take you somewhere safe."

I was in shock, I couldn't reply. My heart was racing, my stomach was churning and my ears were ringing. My ears were ringing like I had heard a bomb, like in action films when a high-pitched squealing noise fills the ears of the character and the audience.

 

It was dark by the time that we arrived. I wasn't used to being in darkness with no street lights and no cars racing past. It was eerie and the only light that was visible was from the headlights of the army vehicle. There wasn't even any oncoming traffic.

 

We pulled up at what appeared to be a gate, Major Dales then pulled a mobile phone out and dialled a number before speaking clearly and officially "we have arrived with a young lady from Bournemouth. She seems fine but I'll get Peters to take her down to the medical centre."

 

After he had hung up his phone and stopped talking, the fence in front of us unfolded and it turned out to be a gate. I could see in the glow from the headlights that the top of the gate was covered in barbed wire. They didn't were keeping something out.

Or they were keeping something in.

 

The van crept through the gate and down a dimly lit road. It then stopped and Rowan quickly jumped out of the van, opened my door and took my hand to help me out before grabbing my holdall and slinging it over his shoulder.

 

There was a sign on the building that we were walking towards, it was a white cross on a green background.

"'They're just going to give you a check-up. I'll make sure you're with Mandy, she's nice."

I smiled, he was so kind.

 

Rowan held the door open for me and then strode next to me, he pointed at a petite lady with brown hair who was standing on the other side of the corridor "that's Mandy."

 

As he pointed her out to me, she must have heard her name being said and she turned around with a grin.

She was probably in her early thirties, although she looked motherly and warm and kind with rosy cheeks and brown hair tied up in a bun on the top of her head.

"Hello, love!" She waved, waking towards us with a clip board in her hands.

"Hi, Mandy" he said back to her.

 

"What brings you here?" She glanced at me quickly, her green eyes sparkled.

"I have a patient for you" he said, obviously referring to me.

She narrowed her eyes "I thought that there had been a bomb?"

"There has" he was trying to be vague and careful about his words.

"Right..."

 

Then she turned to me, she lightly touched my arm "do you want to come with me to a check-up room?"

I nodded, then glanced at Rowan.

He smiled "I'll be waiting out here for you, give you a bit of privacy."

 

The check-up room was really clean, it obviously wasn't built for the purpose but it was a room that you could be checked up in nevertheless and Mandy seemed to know how to make you feel comfortable.

 

She asked me questions like "how's your vision?" While I read out letters from an eye testing chart. And she asked if I had any bruises, which I didn't. “Your hearing? How’s that been?”

“I had a bit of ringing in the car but it’s gone now.”

She nodded, quickly scribbling notes on a clip board.

 

“Are you on any prescribed medicine? Do you have any allergies?”

I nodded “I’m on the contraceptive pill” then I shook my head “I don’t have any allergies.”

“Any uses of illegal substances in the past three months?” Her eyes didn’t even look up at me. She was trying to sound casual and comfortable.

“No.”

“In the past twelve months? Just for reference. This information will only be accessed if it is specifically required so it’s all confidential.”

I thought of the list in my head from all of those months ago;

Weed, ecstasy, meth, cocaine, LSD, shrooms, speed… the list was endless.

I lied with a confident smile “no.”

 

I was glad that nothing was wrong with me, but also confused. I had questions that needed to be answered:

 1. If all of my family were dead, then why was I alive?

 2. If there was a bomb that was able to kill my family, why is the house intact?

And 3. Why didn't I see a medical centre full of evacuees?

I didn't want to ask Mandy these questions, after all, she didn't even understand why I was there.

 

"All done, love! If you have any headaches or any health queries at all, don't hesitate to come visit."

She smiled and held the door open for me.

 

"Good to go?" Rowan was sat with his back against the wall, my holdall by the side of him.

"Good to go" I replied.

 

He stood up, pulling the holdall up with him and he said "there was about twenty children and teenagers rescued from Bournemouth" he began "and seeing as we're the closest army camp to there, we have been made the designated safe-base."

"Right, okay."

"You're in with another girl, she's a year younger than us."

 "As long as I'm not in with some pervy old man, I don't really mind."

He laughed at me, holding the door open again “I promise that you will not be living with a pervy old man. However, Darcy is a bit of a handful.”

 

We walked through the barracks and he pointed out different buildings to me "there's where the canteen is, there's the gym, there's the petrol station, there's the houses for the Majors houses..."

"This place is huge" I interrupted him.

"Yeah" we stopped walking "here's us."

 

The building that I was going to be living in was the trainee soldier block.

It made me feel a bit more relieved, I was glad that Rowan would be nearby and that I potentially had the protection of soldiers. Even if they were young.

 

We passed through hallways, boys my age were leaning against the walls, sitting on the floors and yelling out of doorways. The atmosphere seemed rowdy and comfortable, just like another day at the office.

 

This was until they saw me. Most of them went quiet, I heard one mutter to the other 'is that one of the survivors?' And a response of 'she looks quite calm.'

This comment got to me. Maybe I was being too calm. I had every right to be panicked, interrogative and anxious. Yet I didn't feel anything other than numbness... And self-consciousness from being surrounded by so many boys with no girls in sight. I wondered why there were no girl soldiers.

 

Just as we had made our way to the end of the corridor, a voice called through one of the doorways "Rowan!"

He stopped and smiled at the boy who appeared at the doorway "Hi, mate! Busy day?"

"Yeah" the boy nodded, his dark hair was cropped much shorter than Rowan's "got two little girls and a Nun from the church."

"Very busy, then" Rowan seemed impressed.

 

The boy then looked at me, he had pale skin and blonde facial hair around his face which was edging on being a beard but not quite. He had blonde hair too. His dark eyes pierced me, he was obviously trying to figure me out.

"Hi" he nodded.

"Hello" I said sheepishly.

 

"Ottilie, this is Dexter. He's my roommate."

"Your only mate" Dexter corrected him teasingly.

 Then he looked at me "I'll be seeing you about."

"Yeah" I muttered.

 

Following Rowan up the stairs, I noticed that he marched when he walked. I hadn't really ever seen a soldier in real life and so I never thought about how they would walk when they weren't on duty.

 

Nobody was standing around the upper corridor. There was no rowdiness, no sign of life and no noise.

The space seemed more bare and lifeless on this corridor, even though it was probably aesthetically the same as the power corridor that I had just walked through.

 

"Your roommate has a spare key for you" he explained, knocking on the door and adjusting his hold on the holdall that was slung over his shoulder.

 

From the other side of the door, a girl’s voice shouted "who is it?"

Rowan grinned "it's a soldier."

"Really? Because it sounds a lot like Rowan."

The door opened just as he responded "exactly."

 

A girl was stood in the doorway, she had long auburn hair that was shiny and wavy. She was short and her skin glowed with freckles. I envied her within seconds.

She smiled at me "Hi, I'm Darcy."

“I’m Ottie” I smiled back at her, I hoped that she liked me for the sake of sharing a room. I gave her my nickname to be a bit more laid back and personal with her rather than prancing into the room and giving my full name. I didn’t feel comfortable with doing that for some reason.

“That’s a really pretty name, I like it” She was complimenting me out loud. This suggested two things to me:

She was more outgoing than me.

And

She wanted me to like her as much as I wanted her to like me.

“Thank you” I said. Not complimenting her back because I didn’t want to look like I was trying too hard.

 

“You’ve been here three days and it already smells like your girly stuff” Rowan was scrunching up his nose.

Darcy shrugged “at least it is a bit more like home.”

“Yeah” he snorted “you could say that.”

 

How had she been there three days already? I felt like I couldn’t really ask.

How long ago had the bomb gone off?

 

“Have you at least left your new roommate some room for her stuff?” Rowan grinned at her.

Darcy laughed “yes and I’ve also gone the extra mile and let Ottie have the nicer mattress. Because she’s going to be my new friend.”

“Well” he took a step towards the door, grinning at Darcy and then at me “I’ll let you two get acquainted, see you in an hour.”

 

“We have dinner in an hour” Darcy explained to me when he had gone.

I nodded “oh right” I tried to seem enthusiastic.

“The food is good here! I was honestly a bit sceptical but it’s good” she looked at my bag “do you want help unpacking?”

I agreed to let her help because I wanted to try and bond with her quickly and she probably felt the same.

It was a bit weird to think that I’d only just met her and she was effectively gong to rummage through all of my belongings, but I decided that it was probably going to happen at one time or another.

 

“If you hand me your clothes, I can fold them for you and put them in the drawers. If you need anything hanging up then I can hang them in the wardrobe over there. I brought loads of coat hangers.”

She was pointing to a slim wardrobe on the other side of the room, this was near a window. I was relieved that there was such a big window in the room. I liked being able to look outside.

 

She folded my clothes while I sorted through my other possessions. Placed my diary casually between two other books in a pile of books on my bed side table. I didn’t think that she would be the type of person to snoop, but if she was I’d have to find another hiding place.

I then put the picture of my family on the bed side table, too. I didn’t look at it, though. I just placed it down casually as if it had no meaning.

 

I paused for second when I caught a glimpse of a photograph on the bed. It must have fallen out of my diary.

My stomach was in my mouth when I looked at it. It wasn’t even facing me, it was the blank side of the photograph. However I could already sense what photograph it was.

 

I picked it up and turned it around slowly. I was faced with a picture of two people. Two people who I didn’t know anymore.

One of those people was me.

 

“You okay?” Darcy tried to sound casual, but I could tell that she was good at figuring people out.

I didn’t want to feel as if I was hiding things from her already, hiding things when you’re hurt doesn’t do anyone any good.

“It’s a picture of me and my ex-boyfriend. We broke up six months ago.”

“Oh… sorry” She didn’t really sound as if she knew what to say at first “was he a dick?”

The way that she just blurted the word dick made me laugh, she laughed too.

“Yeah, he sort of is. But I thought he was fabulous at the time.”

“Boys can be such arseholes” she said.

“Yeah” I picked up the book on top of the pile on the bed side table and placed the photo underneath it. Out of sight, out of mind.

 

Out of sight, out of mind.

 

“How are you feeling?” She asked after she had sat down on her own bed. Our beds were on either side of the room parallel to each other so we were facing one another.

“I don’t really know, I guess I’m still confused.”

“Me too” she half-smiled “I feel like I have no control over anything… it’s got to this point of admitting defeat.”

 

Her body then shifted and she appeared to be listening to something, a grin appeared slowly across her face.

I concentrated on listening as well, I was able to hear increased rowdiness on the floor below us.

“Dinner time” she leapt up and waved me to follow her “I think its spaghetti and meatballs today.”

This made me happy. I loved Italian food. Carbohydrates were so comforting.

 

*********************************************************

 

The canteen looked exactly like the one at my school. It was big with tables and chairs and a long line of people queuing for food.

The young soldiers weren’t in their uniforms anymore, they were wearing variations of jeans and chinos and tracksuit bottoms.

Telling the difference between the soldiers and the other rescued people wasn’t hard because of the way that the soldiers were standing, like they had to be on form all of the time.

 

I noticed from observing that there were girls and young women standing up straight like the other soldiers. This answered my question that there were female soldiers at this base. They looked so comfortable in their surroundings and I imagine how I probably appeared so out of place. I felt out of place.

 

“Listen, I’ll get your food for you and meet you back at that table over there” Darcy was pointing at a round table across the room by the window. Nobody else was sitting around it yet, which made me both happy and anxious at the same time. Happy because it meant that I wouldn’t be faced with introducing myself but anxious because I would be sat by myself for however long it took Darcy to get back.

 

I passively composed myself, taking a quiet breath and nodding to her “okay.”

“Do you want some cheese on top?”

“Sure.”

“Cool. See you in a minute! Rowan will probably come over in a sec because he’s next in line to be served.”

 

I glanced over to see Rowan move up in the queue to be served and began to walk over to the table, a little slower than usual because I was being careful about how and where I walked. I didn’t want to trip over any table or chair legs. All of the tables and chairs were ridiculously close together, making sure that there was room for everyone to sit and eat.   

 

“Is your food invisible?” Rowan laughed, placing his tray down on the table “or have you requested the vegetarian meal?”

“Darcy is getting my food for me, she told me to sit over here” I explained. He nodded and stretched his neck to get view of Darcy before grinning and waving “that’s very kind of her” he seemed amused by this.

 

“Is your food invisible?” a voice asked, at first I was really confused because it was asked in the exact same tone s Rowan but it wasn’t Rowan’s voice.

I turned to see that Dexter was stood behind me, tray in hand and chuckling with Rowan. “Did you ask the same thing?” He pointed and laughed at Rowan, who was laughing back.

“Yeah! Darcy is getting Ottie’s meal for her.”

“She never gets our meals for us, she must really like you” Dexter sat down on the chair next to me, placing his tray down on the table and looking at me. Not like he was looking for a response or anything. He was just really looking at me. “So how are you doing? Crazy day, huh?” He sounded sensitive before the ‘crazy day, huh?’ bit.

“Tired” I responded.

“Best get an early night, then.”

“Thanks for the advice” I sighed, fiddling my fingers around uncomfortably. I didn't look at him. Not obviously, anyway.

 

Darcy returned with her tray, she put it down on the table and picked up my plate and placed it in front of me before handing over some cutlery. I looked at the food, which was absolutely covered in cheese. It would probably not be identifiable as spaghetti and meatballs from a distance.

I looked up to thank her and she bit her lip giggling “I didn’t know how much cheese you would like, so I decided that too much was better than not enough.”

I smiled and laughed “no, it’s fine. Thank you for getting it for me.”

 

I needed to make myself more comfortable, seeing as nobody else spoke of going home anytime soon.

 

Author's Note

Do you think it needs bulking out?
What do you think about the characters that are being introduced?