{"id":77,"date":"2013-07-20T20:27:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-20T20:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/?page_id=77"},"modified":"2013-07-20T20:31:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-20T20:31:20","slug":"chapter-3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/story\/chapter-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter 3<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Do you ever wonder why stuff is the way it is?\u00a0 I don\u2019t mean, like, why is the sky blue, or why is the grass green?\u00a0 Those are the kinds of questions little kids ask, and I\u2019m not a little kid.\u00a0 The sky is blue because of how the gases in the atmosphere scatter light, and the grass is green because of chlorophyll \u2013 I learned that in science.<\/i><\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking about why things happen the way they do.\u00a0 Like, why did my dad have to die?\u00a0 The guy who killed him didn\u2019t even know him, so why did he choose our house to break into?\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t even that nice of a house.\u00a0 Why our house, and not the house next door?\u00a0 Why my daddy, and not somebody else\u2019s?<\/i><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like I wish it had been someone else\u2019s dad.\u00a0 I\u2019m not that mean.\u00a0 I just wonder why it had to happen at all.\u00a0 Why did he have to die?\u00a0 Why did anyone have to die?\u00a0 Why did everyone die?\u00a0 And why am I still alive?<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Thursday, April 5, 2012<\/b><\/b>
\n8 days before Infernal Friday<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re dead!\u201d came a gloating shout, as the gun-wielding character on screen collapsed to his knees, to be devoured by Ganados.\u00a0 \u201cToo bad, the zombies got you.\u00a0 Now come on, let\u2019s go watch High School Musical 3<\/i>.\u00a0 I\u2019m tired of playing video games.\u201d<\/p>\n

The TV clicked off, and Gabrielle Lopez found herself being yanked to her feet by her best friend, Makayla Dean.\u00a0 She dropped the Playstation controller in her hand and followed Makayla from her brother\u2019s room, which they had infiltrated to play on his game console, back to her own, in which glossy posters of Zac Efron and Robert Pattinson smiled down from glaringly pink walls.<\/p>\n

Gabby, almost more at home in this room than her own, plopped down into a turquoise beanbag chair while Makayla stopped in front of her TV to put in the DVD.\u00a0 They had only watched the third High School Musical<\/i> about a hundred times together in the three years it had been out.\u00a0 They knew every line and every lyric by heart.\u00a0 \u201cSorry, I was just getting so bored watching you play Resident Evil<\/i> again,\u201d Makayla said, as she turned off the lights and stretched out on the floor next to Gabby.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m having a Zac attack!\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabby smiled; Makayla was always in need of a Zac Efron fix, even with his face covering her walls, her pillowcases, her folders and notebooks at school, everything.\u00a0 She played along with the addiction, but really, she had forgotten what it was like to care so much about something.\u00a0 She could still recite the script to High School Musical<\/i> from memory; it was programmed into her brain.\u00a0 But so, it seemed, was everything else she did these days.<\/p>\n

She let her mind wander as the movie began; there was no need to pay attention to follow the story she knew so well.\u00a0 She could giggle on command at all the parts she\u2019d once found funny, jump in with Gabriella\u2019s lines when Makayla sang Troy\u2019s, and still be a million miles away in her head.\u00a0 Going through the motions again; that\u2019s what she was doing.\u00a0 She had been doing it for months now.\u00a0 She thought she might be an actress when she grew up, like Vanessa Hudgens, because that was all she ever did anyway.\u00a0 Act.<\/p>\n

Staring at Makayla\u2019s TV screen without really watching it, Gabby chewed on her bottom lip.\u00a0 She wished things could go back to the way they were last year, when she and Makayla were in sixth grade.\u00a0 She had never had to act around her best friend then.\u00a0 She had told Makayla everything, all her deepest secrets, which she realized now were nothing all that deep anyway.\u00a0 Certainly not like the thoughts she\u2019d been coping with for the last ten months, anyway.<\/p>\n

Everything had changed the night the robber broke into her house and murdered her father.\u00a0 She had changed.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t feel like the silly little girl she\u2019d been when she had gone to bed that night, a twelve-year-old who felt perfectly safe in her house with her mom and dad sleeping in the next room over, unconcerned with the war going on outside her country\u2019s borders, just eager to have the best summer of her life with her best friend forever.<\/p>\n

Makayla was still her BFF and always would be, but nothing else would ever be the same for Gabby.\u00a0 She no longer felt safe at home, despite the locks and deadbolts and security system her mother had installed.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t sleep well either.\u00a0 Without fail, she awoke at least once every night, sometimes more often than that, from nightmares that made her dread falling back to sleep.\u00a0 She cried sometimes, burying her face in her pillow to muffle the sound so that she wouldn\u2019t make her mom sad too, but in the light of the morning, she always managed to pull herself together and go about her act, pretending things were still normal and that she was okay.<\/p>\n

The ringtone of her cell phone interrupted her thoughts, and the movie as well.\u00a0 Makayla went to pause it while Gabby hurried to dig her phone out of her bag, but Gabby waved her off, saying, \u201cYou can keep it playing; it\u2019s just my mom.\u201d\u00a0 She flipped the phone open and put it to her ear.\u00a0 \u201cHi, Mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, sweetheart,\u201d came her mother\u2019s voice.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m just calling to check in.\u00a0 Everything going okay?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYep, fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving fun?\u00a0 What are you and Mak doing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWatching HSM 3.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabby\u2019s mom chuckled.\u00a0 \u201cAgain?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYep,\u201d said Gabby.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t exactly sure why her replies to her mother had been reduced to one or two words, but most of their conversations went just like this these days.\u00a0 Their relationship, along with everything else, had changed in the last year.\u00a0 Most people expected Gabby and her mother to be closer than ever, now that it was just the two of them, but in reality, it was just the opposite.\u00a0 Rather than cling to the only parent she had left, Gabby had distanced herself.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t something she\u2019d done on purpose; it had just sort of happened.\u00a0 She had always been more of a Daddy\u2019s girl, but when he was alive, Gabby and her mom had never butted heads like they did now.\u00a0 Her mother was always trying to talk, asking questions.\u00a0 Gabby hated her prying.\u00a0 She knew, deep down, that her mom loved her and was concerned about her, but she had become so overprotective that Gabby couldn\u2019t stand her sometimes.\u00a0 Even when her mother wasn\u2019t working twelve-hour shifts at the hospital, they spent most of their time apart; Gabby preferred to be alone in the sanctuary of her bedroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlright\u2026\u201d\u00a0 The voice on the phone trailed off, and Gabby felt a pang of guilt.\u00a0 She knew her mom wished she would say more, wished she would open up to her, but for whatever reason, Gabby could not.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t totally understand it herself, but she could not bring herself to add anything else.\u00a0 \u201cWell, I guess I\u2019ll let you go then.\u00a0 Don\u2019t stay up too late, alright? \u00a0I\u2019ll see you tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Kay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Night, Gabs.\u00a0 I love you,\u201d her mother offered, and the guilty feeling poked at Gabby\u2019s insides some more.<\/p>\n

\u201cLove you too,\u201d she replied quickly, and ended the call.<\/p>\n

Makayla looked up as Gabby slipped her phone back into her bag and returned to her spot.\u00a0 \u201cJust calling to check up on you?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d Gabby sighed, rolling her eyes.\u00a0 \u201cYou know my mom.\u00a0 She\u2019s so annoying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Makayla shrugged, offering a sympathetic smile.\u00a0 \u201cMoms are just like that,\u201d she said, before returning her attention to the movie.<\/p>\n

Gabby did the same \u2013 or pretended to, at least.\u00a0 She pretended to be thinking only of the complicated lives of her favorite characters, and not her own.\u00a0 She liked spending the night at Makayla\u2019s house because when she was with Makayla, it was easy to do that.\u00a0 She could talk about the boys at school, none of whom she actually liked, and watch their favorite movies, and sneak into Makayla\u2019s brother\u2019s room to play video games, and not have to think about her dad.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t have to walk by her parents\u2019 bedroom and feel sorry for her mother, who must be so lonely, or look at the spot on the kitchen floor where she had watched him die in a puddle of blood.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t have to answer her mom\u2019s questions or listen to her threats to send Gabby to talk to a counselor.\u00a0 Makayla never ever brought up what had happened last summer, and that was how Gabby preferred it.\u00a0 At Makayla\u2019s house, she could be the old Gabby, even if she was only acting, and pretend it had never happened at all.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

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Chapter 3 Do you ever wonder why stuff is the way it is?\u00a0 I don\u2019t mean, like, why is the sky blue, or why is the grass green?\u00a0 Those are the kinds of questions little kids ask, and I\u2019m not … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":8,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"onecolumn-page.php","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77\/revisions\/84"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}