Writer Wednesday #13: Fan Fiction

On my blog, I am doing a new 'event' called Writer Wednesdays. I post a prompt and others(including me) write something based on that prompt.

            The bell rang and everyone in Fulton High School flooded into the hallways, ready to start the weekend.  Shawna went straight to the restroom; she had been holding it all through final period.  She was skinny, but thickly built, with long straight blonde hair that flowed down past her shoulders to her mid back and teal eyes.  Once she was done and washing her hands, someone walked into the restroom, bringing the smell of burning oil with them.

            “Listen.”  They spoke, but their voice sounded weird; like it was auto-tuned or something.  “Twelve days.  Two hours.  Six minutes.  Twenty-seven seconds.  That is when the world will end.”

            “Look, I don’t know who the f**k you think you are, but the end of the world was supposed to be three years ago.”  Shawna turned around, but there was no one there.  “Weirdo…”  She walked out of the restroom to her locker, feeling spooked.  Her boyfriend Matt was there, looking flustered.

            “Where have you been?  You know I have to be home early today or my parents will kill me.”  He ran his fingers through his short dark brown hair, glaring at her with handsome hazel eyes.  He had an athletic build and was clean-shaven.

            “Look Matt, I don’t have time for your s**t right now!”  She unintentionally yelled at him.

            “My s**t?  You are the one always making us late to everything.  And then trying to pin it on me.”

            “Seriously Matt?  That was one time.”

            “Look, let’s just go, I don’t want to fight with you.  I’m just on edge about this English paper.”

            “Well la de da.  You’re the only person with a paper to be stressing over!”  She closed her locker and headed for the school doors.

            “Why are you always like this?  I remember the Shawna who was fun and liked to laugh.”

            “Well, maybe if you weren’t always on my a*s-”

            “Oh no, not that again.  It’s you who is always on my a*s.  This was one time!  The one day I have to be home early!”  Matt climbed into the passenger seat of Shawna’s sedan.

            “‘The one time.  The one day.  Boohoo, I’m Matt.’  Gosh, you’re a baby.  I had to pee for crying out loud.”

            “Shawna, put on your damn seatbelt!”  Matt snapped at her as she shifted the car into reverse.

            “Oh, really Matt?  Really!?  Don’t we have bigger things to worry about?”  Shawna yelled, angrily putting her seatbelt on the same.

            “Just because I’m mad at you doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

            “Oh, that’s rich Matt.”  Shawna pulled past the other parked cars and pulled out of the parking lot.

            “I’m serious.  You know so many injuries in cars could be avoided if-”

            Matt never got to finish his sentence as a pickup truck rammed into the passenger side of Shawna’s car.  The airbags went off and Shawna was knocked out cold.

 

            Shawna’s eyes fluttered open.  She was outside the car and she could hear sirens.  She was lying on her back and her head ached.  She tried to sit up, but decided against that since her head was still swimming.

            “She’s awake!”  She heard a man yell and then footsteps on the pavement getting closer.  Two men stood over her: one in a medic uniform, the other appeared to be a police officer.  “How are you feeling?”  The police officer spoke again.

            “A little out of it…” she said slowly.  “What happened?”

            “You got T boned.”  The medic spoke.  “It’s pretty bad… we are about to get it towed.”

            “T boned?…  Where’s Matt?”  The two men looked between one another.  “Where’s Matt!?” she asked more urgently.

            “Your friend… the passenger… he was killed on impact.”  The medic looked at her sadly as he delivered the news.

            “No… no!”  Her last words to him played over in her mind.  “Oh, that’s rich Matt.”

            “We’re sorry.”  The officer patted her shoulder and she sat up, realizing she was on a stretcher.

            “I-I need to go with that tow truck.”  She said, watching them hook up her battered car.  “Insurance… and yeah.  I need to see how much this is gonna cost me.”

            “Are you sure you’re okay to go?  That airbag hit you pretty hard-”

            “Yeah, I’m fine.”  She climbed off the gurney before the medic could finish speaking.

“I’ll have some questions for you later.”  The officer said after her.

She walked toward the tow truck operator.  “That’s my car… what’s the damage?”

            “Looks pretty bad.”  The guy was older, wearing a ball cap to cover his graying hair.  He had a thick Tennessee accent.

            “Care if I ride along?”  Shawna asked as he climbed in behind the wheel.

            “Well sure.  It’s your car.”

            They rode to the towing company in silence.  As they pulled up, a mechanic came out to meet them.  He was young, with short wavy strawberry blonde hair, smoking a cigarette.  Shawna guessed that he wasn’t much older than her.

            “What’s wrong with it, Jim?” he asked the driver, holding the cigarette between his teeth as he spoke.

            “It’s bad.  T boned by a truck going about sixty.”

            “Damn,” the mechanic looked past Jim at Shawna with a blue-eyed stoic stare.  “Name’s Nick.”  He walked around and reached through the rolled down window to shake her hand.

            “Shawna.”

            “This yours?”

            “Yeah…”

            “I can probably fix it.”  He flicked the cigarette butt onto the gravel parking lot and opened the door for her.  “Watch your step.”  He offered her his hand to help her out of the high-riding truck.

            “Thanks.”  She jumped down, her shoes crunching the gravel.

            Jim motioned for Nick to follow him into the building for a moment.  “I’ll be right back.”  He smiled lopsidedly, not parting his lips, drawing attention to his blonde I-forgot-to-shave stubble.

            “What?”  He asked Jim once inside.

            “It’s bad, Nick.  Kid got killed in this one.  There was a passenger… think it was the poor gal’s boyfriend.”

            “Damn…” Nick looked back at the mangled car and girl standing beside it.  He walked back outside.  “Hey look, I’m sorry if I was being too forward before.  I didn’t know you had a boyfriend and I was just trying to be friendly.”

            “Had.”  She said distantly.  “Had a boyfriend.”  The reality that Matt was dead was still sinking in.

            Nick stood there awkwardly, rubbing his hand on the leg of his pants for a moment.  “Look… if you want someone to talk to… I mean, we’ll be seeing a lot of each other if I am gonna fix this bad boy.”  He looked at the car, considering the work ahead of him.

            “I-I should probably go.”  Shawna turned away, then remembered that she didn’t have a way home.

            “Look, I can give you a ride home.  Or somewhere else, if that’d be too weird.  Me taking you to your house, I mean.”  He scratched the hair resting on the back of his neck.

            “Er, just walk me to the bus stop?”

            “Yeah… sure.”

            They walked down the street and stood by the bus stop sign until the long white and blue bus pulled up.  Shawna turned to him before getting on.  “Thanks for waiting with me.”

            “No problem.”  He smiled his lopsided grin again.  “And I meant what I said… if you need anyone to talk to.”  The bus doors closed behind her and he watched the bus pull away as it belched black exhaust.

            Shawna was the only person on the bus, aside from an old lady laden with several plastic shopping bags.  Shawna suddenly remembered why she and Matt had been fighting.  His parents had wanted him home in time for his younger sister’s ballerina recital.  Did they even know?  Had the school or authorities notified them yet?  She thought about his sister, Phoebe’s, face when she would receive the news and that filled her with a renewed sense of dread of the funeral that would follow shortly.

~To be continued~

Author's Note

So basically this is a *super* early concept. It is a fan-fic based around ‘The Philosophy of Time Travel’ from the movie ‘Donnie Darko.’ To be continued...