There is so much to do when there is nothing left to say

Remember: #life begins at the end of your comfort zone

Pride We had a pep rally during school yesterday. We were assigned to teams according to who your teacher was. There were four teams, white, gold, maroon, and black. I was on the black team. Anyways, they put each team into different sections and we had to play a bunch of games to see what team would get that years spirit trophy. Maroon won with my team in second place. What I'm trying to get at though wasn't the games, but it was the people in the groups. I looked around and noticed how lost these people would get as they wanted the team they were on to win. They became so prideful in the space of fifteen minutes, and by the end of the hour-long assembly those people were very prideful of what team they were on, especially the maroon team's people. That's how I would describe patriotism. We are born into different places where we are raised and we simply accept most of the things that everyone tells us. It's like going into a debate on cars when you have no idea what a car needs to be a good car. Pride is one of the things that is ruining our world. And society. Why are we so intent on keeping true to what we know and what we've seen around us when there could be something much better hanging in front of our faces? I just thought it was an interesting thing. Thanks, Jake West

Asis Rough Draft Chapter 1 I would've loved to start the story out by saying that our hero was having a great day. His grades were amazing, the girls all loved him, he knew exactly what to say and when. It could’ve been that good for him, but there was one problem. He didn’t know who he was. As he slowly opened his eyes, bright lights blinded his sight. Around him stood the blurry images of several men, each speaking in muffled voices as the floor shifted underneath him. He squinted and looked around, trying to understand where he was. Beyond the bright lights hovering above him was a dimly lit hallway that almost seemed like a prison. As he looked to his left and right he could see signs marking different parts of the building. “You were the ones who overloaded him!” “Zane is going to kill us.” “Forget that, what if this kid attacks us like he did with the last guys!” Although he heard what they were saying he couldn’t understand them. ‘Who is Zane? Was I the one that attacked someone? Where am I at?’. These questions, and many more, continued to flow through his head. “Just get him out of here. Pump him with last weeks excess, that should put him down.” ‘Put me down? What’re they talking about!’ He looked to the source of the voice, which belonged to a very tall man with short studded brown hair. “Hey, um, I don’t think that’s necessary. If you’ll just let me go,” the boy said, realizing that something was holding him down. He looked down at himself, remembering that he had arms and legs, but was discouraged as he saw that they were strapped down to the bed he was on. The men around him began to push him, taking a hard left, and he saw rows of prison cells directly to his left and above him. The cells looked like they had been abandoned for years, with small shards of sunlight penetrating through places where bricks were missing. “Avery, look at me!” The voice came from his right, where a boy of fifteen, close to what he figured to be his same age, was staring at him with concern, continually pushing his dark curly hair out of his face. “This is a mistake you guys, I’m just a normal guy,” Avery explained, looking at the people around him. He still had no idea what he was doing in a prison, wheeling around on a hospital bed. “What did you do to him?” The boy asked the other men around him. “Seth, you need to go,” a man behind Avery said. Seth ran in front of the bed, halting their progress. “We accidentally gave him too much and it affected his brain, and Zane wants him out! Now move!” They continued to push the bed, leaving Seth behind with a face full of anger and grief. As Avery moved down the hall, he kept pushing his brain as hard as he could, trying to remember a scrap of anything that he could. They pushed him into a room full of kitchen supplies, but with another bed surrounded by I.V.’s of all colors, a new man sitting on the bed. “Get rid of him, now, before he ruins this entire operation,” the new man said, standing up and walking out, taking a right. Avery looked around the room, and on his he noticed a mirror, large enough that he recognized it as a one-way mirror, where he inferred that the new man was standing behind, watching what they were about the do. “Guys, seriously, I’m fine, I don’t need any medicine,” Avery tried to say. None of the men seemed to hear what he had said. They moved him next to the second bed, unstrapped him, and pushed him onto the second one, applying new metal straps to hold him down. He flexed against the straps, pushing up against the bed, bending the straps a little, but not breaking them. They pulled out several needles and pushed all of them into his arms. The liquid in the I.V. bags began to drain into the tubes and into his arms. Avery looked down at his arms, noting that his veins were turning from blue to green and purple. “What is this stuff-” He ended his sentence when something shocked him. He looked for the source of it and found that a new needle had been placed into his arm. Examining the tube, he noted that the inside of the rubbery material was a copper wire. Tracing the tube back to it’s source, he saw that the copper wire end was exposed, and that one of the men was about to touch it against a car battery. Another painful jolt rattled Avery, the pain searing in every part of his body, as he could feel the chemicals surging through his blood. He looked again to the man with the car battery, and began to scream at him to stop. But he was shown no such mercy, as the man taped down the copper wire to the battery. Avery screamed, a horrid scream that caused the men in the room to wince and back away. He couldn’t feel anything, yet everything was burning and jolting. He looked up to the lights, hoping for something to happen that would end this pain. “What’re you doing to him!” Avery looked behind him to see Seth, breaking into the room and throwing a desk at the man near the car battery. The desk knocked over two I.V. stands, pulling the needles out of his arm, and hitting the man with brutal force. The car battery sparked, and burnt out, the pain suddenly subsiding. “Seth, what are you doing!” the man behind the glass yelled. “He’s not dead,” another man said. “I swear I’m going to take you back, Seth!” “Avery is still alive!” The screams rattled through Avery’s head, and he could feel his fingers tingling. He looked at them, and small sparks danced along his fingertips. He flexed his fingers, and more electricity flowed from him. He began to hyperventilate, terrified of what might follow from the electricity. “What’s that on his finger?” someone asked. The sparks grew rapidly, turning from little sparks into entire waves that pushed out from him, shifting the bed back a little. “Avery, stop!” The electricity circulated, turning into a ball of pure electric current, and exploded. Everything moved in slow motion, as Avery, and everything else around him, flew away from the blast point. The wall seemed to melt and fly away, like a sandcastle in a windstorm. The slow motion finally ended with Avery’s head crashing against the wall behind him, the two beds crashing on either side of him, bending and snapping. People shifted around him, not standing but showing signs of #life. He stood, feeling wary on his feet, but able to walk. “What was that!” Avery began to run over the pile of rubble. He stepped out of the cool prison and into the hot desert sun, mirages shifting all around him. He moved into the brush, looking for anything to cover his feet with, but found nothing. Turning back to look he saw the man that stood behind the glass, which was now shattered at his feet, barking orders at the people around him. Two people, about his same age, began to move towards him. He turned back to the desert and began to run. “Run faster!” The boy’s taunted. “Run you freak!” Avery didn’t even bother to yell anything back at them or look at them, but continued to run as fast as he could. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a wave of shaky color, and spotted what looked like a town through the mirages off to his left. He changed his course, and ran harder towards the town. He could hear screams behind him, muffled by another sound trailing close behind him. He turned to see that the two boys had been picked up by another man driving a truck, speeding towards him. He had no time to speak, but followed his instinct to move out of the way. The truck swerved past him, the driver pouncing on the brakes. Taking advantage of the situation, Avery moved around the car and closer to the town, recognizing a parking lot and a few shops. Sprinting hard with newfound energy and motivation, he made his way to the parking lot, the car behind him nowhere to be seen. He checked his hospital gown for pockets, but found none. Acting rationally, he slowed down and walked through the parking lot, quickly changing his mind as the tar burned his feet. He made his way into a shop, moving back to the changing rooms, grabbing a pair of jeans and running shoes on his way. He quickly put them both on, but soon realizing that he needed a shirt. Reaching underneath the wall to the stall next to him, he grabbed a light green shirt that had the word ‘yolo’ printed in all caps in white across the shirt. Not understanding the meaning of the word, he slipped the shirt on, ripping off all the tags on the shirts and pants. He walked out, trying to look calm and happy. Making his way to the door, someone stopped him. “You have to pay for those, buddy,” the large man said. “Look, I have to go, you don’t understand-” “I don’t care, you’re not leaving until you pay for those.” Looking over the man’s shoulder, he spotted the car that was chasing him, parking a few hundred feet close to the shop. “Alright, how about this, I’ll work for it. I don’t have any money and these people are chasing me, and I am really scared right now. Does that sound like a deal?” The man studied Avery, and then pointed to a table with close to thirty untidy shirts and jeans. Avery walked over and started to fold them, watching out the window for his pursuers. They made their way to the shop after fifteen minutes, when Avery had already borrowed a badge and had made his way to the back of the store. They split up to search the store, the driver of the car talking to the man by the door. The giant pointed to the back where Avery was, and they all made their way back to him. Following instinct, he walked out with a few shirts on one arm, closing the door behind him. “Hey!” one of the boys yelled. Avery turned, and smiled. “Can I help you guys find something?” he asked. “Is there a dude in a hospital shirt back there?” the driver asked. “Yeah, he’s been there for a while, you can go back and get him,” Avery said. They made their way past Avery, splitting up to search the back room. Avery threw the shirts down and ran to the door. “Hey, thanks man, I thought you wouldn’t sell me out,” Avery said, moving around him. The man grabbed him by his collar, but Avery’s instinct kicked in. Reaching up and over his head, he grabbed the man’s arm, and pulled him up and over his head, crashing the man through the wall and a little glass. Through surprised gasps and shocked looks, he noticed what exactly he had done. Before he could react to what had happened the men came out of the backroom, running towards him. He ran out from the shop, grabbing someone’s phone out of their hand, and soon he had four people chasing after him. Turning a corner, he ran into another shop, running for the back of it, making his way through the piles of boxes and shelves, and out the back door. Resting momentarily, he quickly searched for the closest airport, which was just twenty miles away in Phoenix. Walking out from behind the shop he began to walk to that same truck that they had used to chase him. Hearing yells behind him, he sped up. He looked behind him momentarily, and knocked into someone, both of them falling over. The woman he had just knocked down started looking around, as if she didn’t know who had just ran into her. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking,” Avery said, offering a hand to the woman. She looked in shock towards him, scanning the area for where his voice had come from. Then she stood, and walked away. He looked down at the hand he had offered her, but saw nothing. He looked down at himself, but didn’t see anything there, not even the bright green shirt he had stolen. He quickly ran to a shop window, where he saw the reflections of the people behind him, but not the one of himself. “I’m invisible!” Avery exclaimed, causing people to turn and look for him. He saw his three pursuers, and started to walk again. He got to the truck and found the door unlocked. Quickly slipping inside, he began to look for the keys. Then, suddenly, as if he had just blinked, he was visible again. He immediately looked for the three boys that had been looking for him, but instead saw the man that he had taken a phone from. “That’s the guy!” the man yelled, pointing at Avery. Several security guards followed closely behind the man. Avery started whispering to himself, hoping for something good to happen. He pushed on the gas pedal and the car bolted forward, the guards jumping out of it’s path. “Stop that guy, he has our truck!” one of the boys yelled. But it was too late for those guys, because Avery was on his way to Phoenix. “Alright! That was amazing, Avery. Avery,” he said to himself, his voice trailing off. He didn’t know what that word meant. He tried to remember his #life, who he really was, what he was doing in that place. He mustered up all he could, but there was no glimpse into his past. He wondered what the real Avery would’ve done in this kind of situation, if he would’ve had money to pay for the clothes he had just stolen, or had his own phone, and knew his way around. This is just a part of the first chapter. Feedback and comments are appreciated!

Judgement Cont. If you haven't read my first post entitled 'Judgement', you'll need to read it to understand this. It has been the craziest week for me and for my friend. I have made the personal and dangerous decision to help her out in any way that I can, and that has included me taking a bus to her house every morning at 8:30 and checking up on her. I discovered her real financial problem and it is really starting to get me worried. Honestly, I can't see a way that she is going to be able to raise a child, go to school, and pay for herself and the kid. Of course she could drop out of school, but she has already refused that option. Her parents haven't been in the country for over a year, the adult that is supposed to check up on her and help her out hasn't been around for a long time, and her money is running tight. She get's checks and letters from her parents every three or four months, and it's not that much money that she gets either. I am barely starting to understand the stress level this girl has all the time. On top of all that she does have a job doing some web design. It's not very good, and she knows that, because she can't afford very good programs so she is limited. Everyone, here is the crazy thing I had to propose to her. I had to ask if abortion was on the table right now. I know what you might be thinking, what was wrong with me? But it did, at the time, seem like that might be the only solution, at least until her parents got back late next year. Let me tell you all how scary a pregnant and very stressed teenager can be when you mention something that she has been thinking about and dreading ever since she found out she was pregnant, and how angry she can get when I mention it. Abortion was immediately off the table. So I decided that we had to take this one step at a time. He had just barely turned 16 but she didn't have a license. She either had to find another job, or she needed to improve herself on her current one. She did kind of agree. At least I think she did, she was watching a movie while I was telling her that. Anyways, I have an uncle who works for Adobe, so I bought a few licenses off him for about half price and I put those programs on her computer. She now had photoshop and dreamweaver, both of which would help her with her current job. One problem slightly down. Here comes the crazy part. The part that would be the hardest. But let me tell you this now guys, it was amazing to see. She showed up on Monday on the same bus as me. My friend Kelsie, the girl in 'Go Out And Make Somebodies Day', sat behind us. The two ladies quickly became friends, which was awesome, seeing as how this girl really needed the support right then. And then one of the football kids sat next to Kelsie (American football, just to clarify, I know there's a lot of British awesomeness people on here), and let me tell you, he was intimidating. I quickly found out that he was just a big teddy bear. We talked on the bus all the way to school, and I was starting to think our situation was going good. Well, we walked through the front door and most of the sophomores crowded in front of us. They saw us and started to yell a crap load of terrible things. We couldn't make it past most of these things because they wouldn't let us through. We went outside and a small crowd of seven followed us out. They were all some of the idiots that had been rude to me and Kelsie for a while, and now they were spreading over to this girl (her name's Madie, I don't want to say 'this girl' anymore). Madie was in tears and was begging us to let her go home. That's when this football kid, and maybe six of his other senior buddies, walked out the front door. Just three days previous to this they had crushed one of our neighboring cities, and we all knew it too. They walked straight out towards us and stood behind the seven guys that were still talking crap, completely unaware that these huge beasts were standing behind them. They all grabbed each of the kids, picked them up, threw them over their shoulders, and walked into the principals office (we heard about it later from them), dumping them inside of a faculty meeting and they explained what was going on and what the kids had done. These football kids walked out again and personally escorted us all inside. We all took Madie to class first, but by then the varsity quarterback was already holding her in his arms, and we let her teacher know what was happening and we told her not to leave until we got there. We repeated this until the end of the day. The football team all took her out to lunch at subway and we had a great time. Guys, before this I thought that we would have the hardest time being there and that we wouldn't be welcomed back at all. But this amazing group of guys, who I thought would only add to the trouble, became our saviors. They helped us out all of this week, and then helped out some more. They came to Kelsie's house and made her dinner, they took her to the football game and had her run out onto the field with them when we won the game, and then escorted her home. I owe each of those guys a huge thank you, one that I might never be able to give them. They're being so kind, so good, so considerate, even when it wasn't their problem and the whole entire school, their kingdom of popularity, would've been against them if they helped. But they did. Everybody, the world is just a place that we live. Of each of us could do but a fraction of what has been done for Madie for other people around us, we would be so much better! I truly believe that now. Step up and find the courage to help others, no matter what the cost is. And hope that the people around you can have some courage too. Jake West