ONE: "Mesmerized."
Chanelle Eldon with tired and lazy eyes watched as the traffic elevated and vehicles started to move forward after a minute of the red light.
She’s a nineteen-year-old teenager and a freshman in the University she’s currently attending to, taking up Arts as her major course.
She took off the car from their family’s service vehicle when they reached home.
“Hi, mom!” she greeted her mother once she entered their house.
“Hi, dear. How’s school?” Illiana Eldon on her late forties greeted her back.
Chanelle came to her on the kitchen and kissed her cheek. The latter gladly responded.
“The usual. Boring and we were bombarded with paper and pen lessons.”
Chanelle’s mother smiled as if it was already immune to hearing her always say like this when she’s being asked how’s school.
She went on the table and put her shoulder bag somewhere as she sat down on one of the wooden-made chairs. She made a face palm as she watched her mother cook something for their dinner.
Just like her dear mother, Chanelle also has a bit wavy hair that’s two-inches below her shoulder blade. She’s a fair young lady with fine tones and she’s undeniably beautiful. Many from her school say she looks like an angel or as if she was an angel sent from above.
Unlike her mother, she hasn’t wrinkles or dark under-eye circles yet, maybe because she’s only nineteen. Though said so, her mother still looks beautiful as she ages.
“Beef and mushrooms with smashed potatoes?” the young lady asked while running her fingers to the side of her hair.
Illiana nodded. “Uh huh. Your and your dad’s favorite.”
She smiled. Yes, it was her fave dish ever since she was young but now that she’s a teenage girl, her taste kind of changes a bit. It wasn’t her most favorite now, but her dad remains the same.
She took a glance on her wristwatch and saw it’s past fifteen minutes of 5:00PM.
“Dad isn’t yet around?”
“Not yet, sweetheart.”
She just nodded and shrugged her shoulders. Her dad is a busy man working as an Engineer at one of the huge construction firms in the beautiful city of New York.
Chanelle’s usual out from school is 4:45 PM onwards. There are times that when she gets home, her father is already home too who made it earlier than her to arrive, and that’s if he’s not so busy with work in the company he’s in, but oftentimes, it’s like this. Chanelle arrives home first.
She suddenly yawns and feels the need to take a rest or at least a nap from a tiring and boring whole day classes at school. She excused herself from her mother who still seemed busy and focused making a good and delicious dinner. “Gonna go to my room now, mom. Gonna sleep first and rest.”
“Okay, sweetheart.”
“Just wake me up when dad arrives or when the dinner is ready. I really have to lay in the bed right at the moment.”
She took upstairs and went straight to her room. She threw away her bag somewhere on her bedside table and with a sleepy head she went up on the bed. It wasn’t so long that she closed her eyes and she immediately fell asleep totally.
Approximately an hour later, she wakes up. She wakes up completely lost. Her eyes remained tired disregarding the fact that she had already slept for an hour. Though, still lazy and feeling dizzy, she chose to gradually open her eyes. Maybe her dad hasn’t yet arrived so her mom didn’t wake her up and she just came to wake up by herself.
Her eyes roamed on the insides of her painted walls room, and only then she realized she wasn’t actually home. She wasn’t lying on her bed nor slept on her room! This place is clearly not her room!
She brushed her eyes until they sore and became teary just to see even clearly but still, she isn’t on her room, isn’t on her home!
She was lying on the cold gray floor of some hall on a great building that for Pete’s sake she doesn’t exactly know where! She stood up and went to the railings of the hall and saw unfamiliar places and faces. Where exactly is she right now?
Oh, sure! She’s still dreaming, right? She isn’t yet totally awake; she still remains on her dreamland!
But why everything feels real?
“Lawrence, watch out!”
Chanelle’s still figuring out what seriously is happening and why out of the blue she wakes up on a place she doesn’t know but her gaze turns to the wide field occupied by some teenagers playing volleyball and others are just laying and sitting, cuddling on green parts with Bermuda grasses.
The man called Lawrence by one of his female friends strategically ran in front of the volleyball net and jumped so high as he, with his strength and effort, stroke the ball back to their opponent’s court. And it made so on point that he and his team scored best from it.
His friends were then celebrating their little victory and tapped the handsome and tall Lawrence’s shoulder. He was smiling and nodding to his friends when suddenly, his eyes roamed straight to Chanelle’s. Their gazes met. They stared at each other for few moments and they just stayed still. She don’t know him, his face isn’t familiar but there’s a strange feeling inside of her that she thinks she knows him from somewhere or from ages ago, she just couldn’t really figure out when and where.
He got distracted when his male friend went to him and they turned back. She still watched his back as he walked away. He seems like a fine man, kind of carefree and Chanelle thinks friendly.
The man’s already far from her sight when she realized she’s on a place she’s doesn’t know. She looked at left and right, up and down. This building and the other ones seem to be old and uncommon or a rural, isolated, and mysterious.
Where exactly I am?
She remembered her mother, and the dinner she was preparing when dad would arrive home.
“Mom? Mom?” she started looking for her anywhere and calling her.
She kept on walking until she reaches places of the building she isn’t really familiar with. She was watching left to right finding for a way out or better say for a way home.
She wasn’t aware of her footsteps and where her feet took her to until she bumped somebody’s back.
“Oh, I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!” she apologized for being careless with her steps.
From there, she was totally stunned when the man turned to look at her. Their eyes met and she could immediately feel she was melting!
The young man who she thinks looks just like her age or a few years older than her screams the appearance of being ruggedly handsome. Leather jacket, black jeans and black boots with a hair of that like Leonardo Di’Caprio when he played the movie Romeo and Juliet as Romeo Montague. Not to mention, he’s dominatingly tall. She’s only a shoulder tall compared to him from his height. His appeal seems to be like a bad boy, someone you can’t just trust, and any girl couldn’t give a heart into for he will only break it. But Chanelle’s heart says the otherwise.
The way he stares directly into her angelic face and crystal eyes, there’s something about him that touches her heart and soul but she doesn’t seem to notice it. All she knows is that she’s completely mesmerized with the handsome dirty man in front of her.
“Uhm… I think, I’m lost… Do you know where I am or what is this place called?” she asked him.
He didn’t say a thing; he just continued mesmerizing her by the way he stared at her to core.
“Can you help me go back home? Or at least, give me direction for the way out there,” she continued.
He only grinned and that made her chill all over her spine. Who is he and can this man help her find the way out of this unfamiliar place?
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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