TEEN: Far From Gone

[Windchild]

I'm not sure how this is, it being my first and all, but here's Far From Gone.

Chapter one​

The date was May 30th, 2010. I had just got home from school on a bus that reeked of oil. As I slowly made my way down the steps, I noticed the garage door was open, and my dad was working on his old car, like always. As he got up, sweat and grease staining his shirt, he beamed at my arrival. “Nel, honey! How was school?”
“It went fine. I aced the Algebra test, as always”, I replied bashfully. “I’m going to go by the Chateau later tonight, is that alright?”
“If you promise to be careful, then you may”. My dad had always been my only family, and I loved him more than anyone else in the entire world.

For dinner, we dined on shrimp and spaghetti. It was an odd combination, but we always enjoyed it. Fitting, seeing it was the last thing I ever ate. As the sun set, I grabbed my favorite argyle sweater to show my friend that lived at the Chateau.
I bolted out the front door and ran through the paved streets, pushing a few people over and causing others to drop the groceries and other items they were carrying. The grass outside the city tickled my feet as I ran through it. Several Combee buzzed happily through the air, while Bidoof frolicked in the meadow with smiles on their faces. I approached a bridge that ran over a small, blue pond. I decelerated as I walked over it, as I didn’t much want to fall into the water. Upon making it to the other end, I continued blissfully through Eterna Forest, watching the insects scamper through the tall grass.
I reached the Chateau, an old mansion left in disrepair for decades. I climbed carefully over the creaking fence. Upon reaching the top, I jumped down and maneuvered through the overgrown lawn. I reached for the door handle, only to find it was locked. Frustrated, I beat on the door until a Haunter answered. This Haunter was one of my close friends, listening to my stories of the outside with utmost interest. He backed silently away as I entered.
“Nel… Rotom… Come.” He beckoned up the stairs, and I cautiously turned to what he was pointing to. It was a tiny security camera, looking marginally out of place amongst a collection of books sitting on a shelf. “That’s odd… Rotom must have put it there.” Rotom had always had a knack of collecting electronics, but I had never known it to take them anywhere but the living room. I scaled the steps, passing by, as well as through, a couple of Gastly. I entered the main hallway and made my way to the living room. I saw Rotom on the TV screen, but this time it looked like it was scared. “Rotom… What’s wrong..?” I walked to the old set and touched the screen. Instantly, I was knocked out cold by a jolt of electricity. “We have the subject. I repeat, we have the subject.” A few men in armor and vests picked both me and the TV up, and carried the both of us to a van, and me to my death.



End of chapter. I know it was short, but I wanted to play some suspense into the end, and this was my only opportunity for a while.

 

[Pyradox]

@Deox-Y; This is actually really good so far. The descriptions of Nel's journey to the Chateau were very vivid. My only criticisms are of a few of the word orders, such as 'bashfully replied' and 'cautiously stared', which could've worked better as 'replied bashfully' and 'stared cautiously' respectively. There are also commas in some odd places, like 'an old, mansion'.

That being said, I'd like to keep following this. Could you mention me whenever you post the next chapter?

 

[Windchild]

Certainly. Am I allowed to fix those errors?

 

[Windchild]

@Pyradox;

Chapter two

I woke up feeling an excruciating amount of pain, so much that I screamed and tumbled off a table, and onto an icy, concrete surface. While trying to get up, I took notice of a startling fact; I didn’t have any hands. Not physically, anyways. They were translucent, and to my utter shock, so was the rest of me. I was also quite scared that I was wreathed in vibrating, buzzing, orange plasma. The worst was yet to come.

My body lay on the table. I had died. “No… No… I can’t be dead! I… I can’t be!” My shouts were futile. I was alone. I gazed around the room, which turned out to be a laboratory with highly advanced computers and vials of an unfamiliar substance. Across the room, inside a glass box, was Rotom.

I tried to walk to it, but I found it increasingly difficult to move. Maybe… I could use my body! I trudged over to the table, and found myself disintegrating, the plasma swarming around my body. I opened my eyes, surprised that it had worked. I had no idea why ghosts didn’t do this at the time, but I later learned of the immense mental strength it required. I got up and ran through the lab towards Rotom. When I got there, it hummed solemnly, and then turned black and crumbled to dust.

A door opened, and a man in a lab coat came in, followed by a pair of men that wore something akin to paintball armor. “Okay, grunts,” The lab man said, “Take the subject to her containment cell.” The grunts donned thick, padded gloves and approached me. I panicked, and accidentally released a jolt of electricity that hit one of the grunts, killing him. The other came up from behind and restrained me. He carried me past the scientist, and down a darkened hallway. To my surprise, a glow like a neon sign followed us through the gloomy halls. He stopped in front of a door and kicked it open. I was tossed inside a small room, a table with a bowl of water in the back. He slammed the door shut, and I heard a voice coming from above.

“So… You were taken as well.”
“Wh… Where are you?”
“We’re right above you.”
I looked up, and gazed upon a strange girl. Her head was covered by a strange, violet smoke, excepting her right eye. Her body was also enveloped by the smoke, excepting elbows and knees down, which were stone, and covered in cracks. She was levitating, alongside several viridian spheres. “We were Sandra. We led a good life until the Half Project took us, split our mind into 108… We are very lonely now…”
“Well, I’m Nel. I’ll try to keep you company.” I hesitated. “How are you sure I was taken?”
“Look at yourself, not us.”
I wandered over to the dish of water, and was quite shocked at my reflection. I was covered in electricity; my eyes were that of Rotom. Most of my hair was gone, only two crests of blue electricity on top, and two more bolts dangling from the back of my head. My nose was gone, and so were my lips, and my ears were now vertical horns. I looked down, finding I wasn’t wearing pants, nor shoes, as my feet were now gone, replaced by a spike of plasma on each leg. I was happy to see the plasma covered my crotch, at the very least, and that my sweater was still intact.

“What… No… This is crazy!”
“We thought so, too. We wish our minds were one, again.” She admitted, descending in front of me. “We would like to be your friend. “

And so she was. We sat down and began talking. We found out that we had a smorgasbord of things in common, such as our love of Pop Rock, shrimp, and the fact we both visited and played with Ghost-Type Pokémon.
Eventually, some grunts entered the room. “You two, you’re coming with us.” They carried us into a gigantic room filled by several targets, hurdles, and other equipment. The man from the lab entered. “Here, we will test your abilities. First off, you will destroy those targets without any tools.”
“But…” I protested, “…they’re made of metal. How are we..?”
“Quiet, please.”
The men barricaded the exit. “Start, now!”
We ran up to the targets. Sandra instantly began smashing them with her arms.
Lucky, she’s made of rock… I thought. Wait a second, I’m part Rotom now! I concentrated, and then ran past the targets. When I made it through them, I turned to find that they had all been burned in half. Sandra stared in awe, and the men nodded triumphantly at each other.

Not all things were smooth sailing, however. We were subjected to much more challenging tests, on many of which cruel and indifferent scientists grilled us on. We were forced to sleep on the floor, with only pillows to cushion us, and Sandra was fed gruel, but since I was dead, I did not need to eat.
One night, several days later, we decided to escape.
"Sandra."
"Huh, what? What is it, Nel?"
"Wanna bust out?"
"You know we do! But how?"
"Follow me." I phased through the door, and she followed.
We sneaked through the hallways, and found an exit. Sandra felt the air fill her lungs. “Wow… We haven’t seen the sky in so long. It’s amazing.” I could attest to that; the sky was filled with stars. Each one seemed to press up against one another, like grains of celestial sand on the cosmic beach. We bolted through a deep forest, the Kricketot peacefully chirping. We reached a wall, but levitated over it easily. The sand dune after that didn’t stop us, either. The ocean greeted us, as did a small freighter.
We almost made it when a couple of grunts ambushed Sandra. I watched as she helplessly struggled against them. Out of cowardice, I hovered onto the boat. Looking around, I found a generator, and hid inside it.
The grunts never came, and I fell into a deep slumber.

I woke up two years later, once the generator stopped working.

Chapter concluded.